What would you do if you couldn't continue home schooling out of financial necessity or
illness? Wouldn't that be terribly hard on a child who had only been educated at home?
This is not meant to sound dismissive - I'd wait until it happens (or is about to) and then re-evaluate what is best for the family. The answers are likely to be entirely different depending on the age and stage of the DC.
In general, EHE children do not have problems going into school if that is what they have decided to do (I'm assuming that you would be involving them in the decision at an appropriate level). They are often very able to get on with people of different ages because they are not used to spending a lot of time in groups segregated by age. They may also find the behaviour of their age peers in school/college to be immature.
My DD (now 18 and EHE since birth) and I had a discussion about it recently. She said that in the event of my sudden death (!) she would do her best to ensure that her brother (16) could continue with EHE.
What do you do about facilities you don't have access to, such as chemicals for chemistry
experiments?
That really has not been a problem. For small children, kitchen chemistry is brilliant. We used yeast, bicarb/vineger, egg whites and made vegetable dyes. As well as the fun of making, you get to eat most of the results! Film developing chemicals are also easily available - pinhole cameras made from Pringles tubes are great fun.
If you decide to do more formal chemistry, there are chemistry kits available for equipment and most chemicals that you'd want are available from pharmacists or online.
What if she gets sick of having me around her all the time?
This question does not compute, really. She won't know anything different and it will be natural and normal to her. Children do not suddenly change and need separation from parents at 4 or 5. As she grows, you will grow with her and give her the independence she needs when she needs it. It may be that you and your partner will share the time between you in a more overt fashion. Or that a relative, neighbour or friend will do a particular activity with her.
For about three years, my DC have been doing courses with the OU. So we tend to separate after breakfast and they work on their courses and I do paid work (or write emails and on forums, LOL). They come and talk to me if they want help to think something through. We come together again for lunch and dinner and at each meal we discuss who is doing what in the rest of the day and whether we want to do anything together (e.g. we may watch a DVD together if no-one is going out).
When they were younger, we were together most of the time but that tends to be more of a problem for the adult than the children - the "can't I even go to the loo alone?" syndrome experienced by all carers of small children.
Do the children get a rounded education?
They get an individualised education suitable to their age, aptitude and ability - whatever that means. It can be as rounded or as pointed as you and they choose. I tended to find that very small children are natural scientists - passionately interested in finding out how the world works. This meant that we did a lot of practical work (craft, experiments, cookery) in the early years. I did a lot of reading aloud and the DC did things obsessively (my DS at 7 or 8 was word-perfect in "Walking with Dinosaurs"). I was also keen to make sure that they tried every opportunity that presented itself. Some of those things continued, some were tried for a period of time and then dropped. However, my DC know that the whole world is out there and that there are many things that we have not touched on. They also know that if they have a need to find out about something, then they can go and do so. For example, when our EHE robotics team won a place at a competition in Tokyo, we all decided to learn a bit of Japanese.
School tends to be building from the bottom up - providing underpinning knowledge because the DC will need it in the future to be able to do something. For many people, that is not a natural way to structure knowledge - we usually have a goal and we pursue that goal, learning the skills and knowledge we need to achieve it. It is a more organic and holistic way of learning and therefore tends to be more efficient (in that people remember what they have learnt because they have a specific and intrinsic motivation for learning it).