Why high school?

A friend said her thirteen year old son wants to go into public school, from homeschooling, when he gets to high school in two years. Here’s what I responded.

What is he actually trying to accomplish? Does he want more time with people his age? Does he want more challenging school work? Are there particular things he wants to learn? At home you can tailor his learning; public school will not allow him to range ahead of the class. It will also take up all the daylight hours; he will have to get up really early and stay in the building for the whole day; does he want that? In school he will have no control over who he has to work with; there will be group projects and people who annoy him. He will have to wait in lines and read textbooks instead of audio, video, and interesting materials. I'm biased in favor of homeschooling partly because by the time he's 17 he could be graduating from a community college with an associates degree, if that's what he wants, instead of wading through assigned classes at assigned times in high school. Sounds like you need to have a more thoughtful, in depth discussion of what he sees good and bad about what you're currently doing, what you see as good and bad about it, and how you can both improve. I add, for you parents, it's normal for 12-14 year olds to waffle, to go back and forth, to be unsure. You need, in the end, to make the decision and make it stick for however long you feel necessary; get his input, obviously, but remind him of what he committed to do, and expect him to do it.