Home vs. Public Schooling

In my own inner debate between public school and homeschool, I made lists that helped me come to one decision.  After talking with friends about this choice, I see every family as a homeschooling family who pulls in different resources to educate our children.  This coming year we will utilize public school.  We would like to get back to homeschooling full-time, though public school is the right place for us at this time in our lives (with a daddy living with cancer and parenting a busy toddler).  There are only right answers for these challenging questions, as we navigate the plethora of options for parenting our children.  Here are my lists that helped me make a choice for our family at this point in time.

Pro-public school

• Simplicity of scheduling, fewer activities
• Quieter morning time for baby to nap
• Absence makes the heart grow fonder. 
• Save money (take taekwondo with extra funds)
• Children get to experience public school for one year when they are young and don't lose out on later homeschool continuity.
• Walk to/from school daily through park, stop to play
• Learn social lessons without parental protection
• Make friends on their own without family supervision
• Gain resilience for trying new things
• Deepen relationships with local kids
• Baby gets regular quieter morning routine, maybe take a baby class
• Exposed to new things not in our usual routines/programs 
• Much less driving my children around to supervise them in classes, forced into helicopter parenting

Con-public school

• We ALL lose social interaction time. 
• Lose out on social/academic programs
• May not get full refunds from programs 
• Disconnects us from current friends
• Bullying and non-child-centered program in school
• Disconnection between siblings and child/parent 
• No mid-week vacations (only taken mid-week due to prices)
• Lose spot in homeschool co-op
• Feels like giving children up for strangers to raise
• Hannah is so sensitive and will be devastated by being made to attend public school. 
• I fear being home without any children eventually and going back to a profession I dislike.
• Probably I won't get any more of my personal projects done than I do now (currently invisible progress) without big kids home to entertain the wee one.
• Con-public school: