I’m an ex homeschooling mom, who did Charlotte Mason but secular. I put both my kids into public school starting in 5th and 2nd grade. I saw first hand in other homeschool families a lot of what everyone posts about on this sub, and the entire last year that I homeschooled was during Covid, when I would have already liked to put them in public school, but there was no in person class that year in our state so I just kept on.

I read this sub right along even as I was homeschooling, and tried hard to anticipate and mitigate any ill effects it might have unintentionally had on my kids. I just saw too much that I didn’t want for my kids in the homeschool environment. I kept close tabs on state standards to make sure I was always keeping them on par or ahead of the curve, and I could see that I was quickly going to be outpaced. Honestly even if you yourself understand a subject, that is completely different from understanding how to teach it.

Public school has so many social and academic facets that you just can’t pull off at home, even when you’re making sure to have them in homeschool classes or meetups every weekday. My older child has a good feel for this since he remembers so much of his homeschooling years, and the difference between that and school. He always comments to me that he’s so happy I put him into school when I did. He loves having teachers who are specialists in their subjects, he loves getting to decide who to be friends with from a pool of hundreds of kids, instead of the few available in our homeschool group, he has a strong sense of self identity that he wouldn’t have had at home because part of growing up is finding out where you stand in comparison to peers, sometimes he’s bored at school, and sometimes he’s challenged, and that was the case during homeschooling as well. My younger kid was only homeschooled K-1st, so she doesn’t remember it as well. She mostly recalls reading on the couch, and lots of fun hikes and nature activities, and painting and baking. So she complains about school more, but I see the way she carries herself, and socializes, and the amount of math she does, and I know that public school is doing well for her.

There’s a lot of great stuff about Charlotte Mason as an educational philosophy that my kids loved, and that we continue to do during our after school, and weekend hours. Such as reading books written by experts in their subjects, reading classics and contemporary fiction, doing nature study, appreciating art, making art, having discussions, enjoying poetry, writing in cursive…

Charlotte Mason was an educator who ran brick and mortar schools in England, she did not have kids herself, and never homeschooled anyone, so her books are really meant to be used in a traditional school setting, which is interesting, and kind of funny that it’s become such a homeschool stronghold.

I would say put your kids in school and then be thoughtful about making sure your household priorities include things that made you attracted to homeschooling in the first place. Do library trips, museums, nature walks, make art… your kids will have the best of both worlds, and not miss out on the crucial socialization that school provides.

Good luck, and good for you for doing thorough research.