My Child does not like private school

Sweetgum
Fri, 11 Feb 2022 00:08:46 +0000

Need more context.

I think private schools are overrated for the most part and usually not worth the money, but sometimes depending on the context they can be well worth it.

For the record, I went to public school, but my kids at times have gone to private school, traditional public school, public charter school, and homeschool and dual enrollment in community college. My kids, especially my older one, have anxiety (clinically diagnosed) so we started out in a small, gentle, outdoorsy private school. We had to leave there when it dissolved, so then they went to public school, but it was not a great fit for my oldest, so then we did the charter school. 11th grade was really rough, so we did homeschool and dual enrollment CC, but that was not a very successful experiment, so went back to the charter for 12th grade. My younger, D22, has done all but the homeschool/CC combo.

For us the private school in elementary school was good in some ways, but because it was so small my older kid could not make good friends. Just didn’t click great with anyone there. The teaching was fine and the overall approach of the school was really sweet, but there was some mean girl action, too. Our public schools are very high achieving here (probably the best in the state), but we felt like middle school would be pretty stressful for our oldest so we tried the charter (6th-12th then). Our kid made really good friends there who still keep in touch 3 years after graduation.

I know very successful, top of their fields, public school graduates and from not so great high schools too. Personally, I do not feel that private school is worth it unless it is for the mental health of the child, but in this case it seems like private school is causing anguish for the child, so I would say pull 'em out and send 'em back to public if that’s what they want to do.

Obviously, you know your kid best and your school choices best, but I’d save the money for college if your kid doesn’t want to be there.