Ask HN: Were you unschooled, or are you unschooling your children?
I had an &#x27;alternative&#x27; educational life.
I attended a Montessori school from K-2nd grade.
Was homeschooled from 2nd to 9th (very loose curriculum).
Went to public high school (9th-12th).
Attended a public state-school for college.<p>I like to think I got a good view of &#x27;both sides of the coin&#x27;.<p>In general, my homeschooled years were focused on &#x27;real world&#x27; type skill building, developing and following personal interests, and having fun. We did some &#x27;regular&#x27; book-type learning for math&#x2F;science&#x2F;english&#x2F;etc, but never spent more than 3-4 hours a day on it.<p>Although I spent a fraction of the time on regular studies that &#x27;normal&#x27; kids did during grade school, I entered 9th grade in public school at the normal level. I was above-average at Math and English, but struggled with Science. This, I believe, was due more to my personal interests and learning style than preparedness - but who knows for sure.<p>The biggest benefit from that time period, imo, is that I really internalized how to a) find and develop my own interests outside of school&#x2F;sports, b) develop relationships with non-parental&#x2F;non-teacher adults, c) develop strong auto-didactic skills, and d) have a strong base of &#x27;real-world&#x27; skills before I was 14 (cooking&#x2F;cleaning&#x2F;shopping&#x2F;fiscal responsibility&#x2F;etc).<p>The biggest adjustment from non-schooling to public-school was the amount of time &#x27;wasted&#x27; in my eyes. The amount of material were able to cover in a full day at school was the same, if not less, than what I was able to learn by my self in half the time. This led to some slackerish tendencies and a lack of concern over my grades. I did well, but was never a top-of-the-class type of student.<p>The second biggest adjustment was integrating socially. Not because I lacked social skills (which is a huge misunderstanding about homeschooling in general), but because of my hometown. I&#x27;m from a rural area, and my class size was small (220 graduating class from 6 towns). Most of the cliques of people had known eachother and been forced through the same daily routine since they were 5 or 6 years old. It&#x27;s really hard to break into social groups like that at age 14. By end of Sophomore year I was able to carve out a little group of friends, but the first two years were quite rough. I think that&#x27;s more of a testament to location, though.<p>My advice is this: if you are considering homeschool&#x2F;non-traditional schooling, try it now. Don&#x27;t wait. At 1st grade your kid most likely has developed some friendships, and probably doesn&#x27;t care too much about being &#x27;different&#x27; socially. Just make sure you have a well laid out plan for developing social skills &#x2F; maintaining relationships your kid already has. And, most importantly, take time to re-evaluate. I was lucky that my parents were supportive of my decision to want to attend public school, and didn&#x27;t keep me from making the choice. Also, really pay attention to the social-needs your kid has. I was pretty much fine by myself for a long time, and therefor resisted a lot of &#x27;normal&#x27; social activities (sports, camps, etc) from an early age. If your kid is an extrovert and needs those social interactions to be happy, it will take extra work to accommodate.<p>That ended up being more of a ramble than anticipated, but I could talk about this for hours, so if you have Q&#x27;s lmk.