Would your parents have been good at homeschooling?

[xatcat]

My answer is no.

As much as I love my parents, I could have taught myself more than they could me.

[Alfaix]

Yes, my Mum’s a retired primary teacher. My Dad has a degree in geography and they are both well read.

[MillieEpple]

No. But i was very self sufficient do if the quality of home learning was ik i would have just cracked on.

[Marmite27]

No, definitely not.

However in lock down 1, my dad realised this and gave my brother and I £100 per grandchild to spend on resources to help.

[kowari]

No. My DM isn't academic at all and would be lost mid primary. My DF is intelligent and educated but not a great teacher and wouldn't follow the school's way for anything. If it had been 20 years ago I would have been a teenager teaching my youngest sibling, then there would be tears and shouting in the evening while my DF tried to help my middle sibling with maths.

[evilharpy]

They both would have had the patience for it and would have been fine with primary stuff as long as it didn't involve anything like newfangled phonics, but neither of them would have been much help with secondary work.

My mum went straight to a technical college after primary and mainly learned cookery and typing. My dad left school at 14 having missed most of it due to illness, and while he was a great writer and well-known local historian, he wouldn't have had a clue about maths or science or French.

If I'd been required to homeschool as a teenager they would have let me crack on and hoped for the best while keeping me supplied with tea and toast and plenty of stationery.

[Meredithgrey1]

Yes, my dad has three science degrees and is very mathematically minded (although possibly less good at explaining things). And my mum is history teacher.

[Terracottasaur]

I think so. My mum’s a teacher and my dad was always good at helping with homework (save for getting a bit impatient sometimes)

[Oldraver]

Nah, I kissed my Mum for 5 years that I had no homework. She was never that bothered to check

[Mochatatts]

No. Mother disliked me intensely and wasn't very bright. Dads very well read but would have struggled to have the patience especially with my brother, clash of personalities.
I was quite studious so would have just got on with it. My brother the golden child wouldn't have bothered and it would have caused yet more arguments.

[BlusteryLake]

My mum would have been great with the material but would have struggled with the logistics and technology.

[Ohalrightthen]

Yes, they both would have been excellent, highly educated and very patient. However they'd have been useless in the current situation as they were both ICU consultants.

[mynameiscalypso]

Nope. My DM is great but she's not the type at all. She will be doing childcare for us if nurseries closed and she said the other day that it would mean parenting my DS more than she'd ever had to parent me!

[Pascha]

Nope but not because they don't have the knowledge, just that neither would have kept their temper long enough to actually teach. They are both prone to stressful flouncing if the pupil (us kids) doesn't understand straightaway.

Everybody would be dead by teatime.

[Caspianberg]

Nope. My mother can barely read.
I also told her we didn’t get homework anymore, worked until I left school!

[TheCap]

Definitely not. Luckily I was always pretty self disciplined.

[Scaredykittycat]

No way. My mum was never interested in my schooling. She never even checked I did my homework. Completely uninterested.

She also left school at 13 so wouldn’t have understood most of it anyway!

[Makegoodchoices]

Mine was great on intelligence but short on patience. I’d have been berated any time I couldn’t ‘get’ something as quickly. She’s a good person but a horrible teacher. However my sibling may have helped a lot and was a great teacher...when actually awake.

[Roselilly36]

No way would my mum have taught me at home, she really wasn’t interested in my school work, she preferred putting in her make up and dusting the house, step dad wouldn’t have been interested either.

[middleager]

No. My parents were way too busy with work and social life in the 70s and 80s to be bothered what I was up to.

I didn't even know university was a thing! Education wasn't important and their social life came first and foremost.

[eattolose]

NO

[SarahAndQuack]

I'd have to say yes, because my mum took my dyslexic brother out of school for a year when school was failing to teach him, and she worked with him every day, and after that he coped much better at school (and ended up with good qualifications and a first class degree). So she clearly could home school.

OTOH, both of my parents used to teach all of us throughout our childhoods and I'd be much less full-on with DD. I don't think they would have been any good at instilling a sense of balance or enjoyment.

[CoffeeWithCheese]

In the circumstances when I was growing up... no (chronically ill sibling, single mum working all the hours god sends). She would be really good at doing it for my own kids now - more time, money, resources - apart from the technology aspect of finding the work in the first place!

[Astraturf]

It would depend on my age. My mum hot housed me as a young child so I was well ahead when I started school but she left me to it from about 9 or 10 and was unsupportive from secondary and prioritised house work and looking after my younger brother over school work so I was pretty average.
I think I would have been expected to help my younger brother if we were both doing our school work at home so he would have been OK at my expense.

[pinkyboots1]

I think my parents would've been great. Mum is very good at things like Maths, English etc and Dad was fab at things like geography, history etc. They would've started to struggle beyond year 8/9

[Dilbertian]

My mum - totally. She had been a teacher, was passionate about teaching and anything she takes on she throws herself into 110%. Anything she couldn't teach she would support our working out for ourselves, helping us find resources, keeping on track, taking breaks etc.

My dad - not. He's very intelligent and knowledgeable , but can't understand that others don't follow his intuitive understanding.

But to balance that, dm's anxiety over The Plague would have spilled over and affected all of us, whereas df would have seen it all as A Glorious Adventure.