Home Educating an only child, bilingualism other questions....

[JohnKeating]

Hi, I am considering home educating my DD from the outset, she is currently only just turning one, so a long way off at the moment, but I had a bit of a breakthrough moment with my DH yesterday (he didn't just laugh or shut down the conversation), so thought it was a good time to ask some specific questions on areas that are concerning me....


DD is an only child and will more than likely remain that way due to various reasons.

Does anyone on here HE an only child, and would be happy to tell me the pros and cons, and any difficulties you have faced?


We live in a majority Welsh speaking area, but neither DH or I are Welsh speakers. If DD attended school she would receive her primary education in Welsh and her secondary in either mixed medium Welsh/ English or in a Welsh medium school. I would like DD to be able to converse in Welsh to a level that she isn't excluded from any extracurricular clubs and so that it doesn't disadvantage her employment prospects if she chooses to stay in the area as an adult. I am currently in the early stages of learning welsh so that I can support her whichever route we choose, but am under no delusions that I will become a fluent speaker anytime soon!!

Has anyone any experiences of bilingualism and HE, or tips for how to approach it?


My (D)M and GM are/were not particularly great mothers. They bullied and emotionally abused, and my fear for me as a mother is "like mother, like daughter", so I guess my concern is that HE could strain my relationship with DD and THIS is my single biggest concern regarding HE . Not really sure what to ask regarding this, just talk to me honestly about your opinions/ experiences on this one please.

Final question for now....

I have a few teachers and retired teachers in the family, primary, secondary, SEN, state, private, and past and current headteachers (there's more than I first thought when I started to write this!!!). How do teachers react to the idea of HE? Have I got a battle on my hands, or is it worth approaching them as a support network? SIL is a primary head, with a special interest in literacy which is not my strong point so I would really love to have her on my side. Any tips?

[ommmward]

If there are education professionals in the wider family, then I would strongly advise not making a big deal of your decision, waiting until you've made it before you raise it with them, and presenting it ALWAYS as "ah, she's so little yet, they wouldn't even start formal education in many other countries at this age; we'll revisit when she's 6 or 7" and then by the time she's 6 or 7, it'll be so clear that she's flourishing and you're doing a fabulous job that you can say "well, she's doing so well, we're thinking of popping her into school for upper primary, around 9" and then if you're still happy home edding, you can talk about putting her into secondary, or putting her in for GCSE years...

The proof of the pudding is in the eating, rather than in the heated debates about the pros and cons, and moral high ground or low ground of home ed, yk?

Can't help with bilingualism. Not sure how easy it is to be bilingual in a monolingual family, to be honest.

You need to learn the skills to be a non-abusive mother whether you send your child to school or not. Medium for that depends on you - youtube videos/ counselling/ reading books about parenting/ hanging out with people who inspire you in how they interact with children. And remember that being a mother is a long journey, not a fixed state; you will sometimes mess up, and can learn from those experiences.

[Artfullydead]

I think that it would make your DDs world far too small.

[ommmward]

Didn't answer the only child question: I know several only children who are home educated. They seem to do plenty of socialising! I don't see any advantages or disadvantages over the existing advantages or disadvantages of being an only child, yk?

[Guardsman18]

I think you should see how you feel in a few years time!

[Artfullydead]

Maybe ommmward

But OP lives in a very rural part of Wales, and I really think she's doing her DD a disservice. Sorry OP - not what you want to hear, I know.

[WinterHeatWave]

We don't home Ed, but the family I know that do are one of the most social about. They are always off out and about meeting people. I wouldnt worry too much about that side of things, if you put effort into it.


The languages. I speak the majority language of schooling. This is the language of DH and my schooling, and our family language. DH speaks (native level) a minority language. It takes ALOT of dedication on his behalf to keep the kids second language up. The kids are nowhere near as fluent as in English. Indeed, they are not fluent, despite holidays and Grandparents to assist with language acquisition. I would think getting Welsh to any level of fluency when it is not a language spoken at home would be very difficult. Languages 3 and 4, introduced by school, are incredibly weak - although we are still at Primary, so plenty of time.

If you want welsh fluency, I would guess you would need to take DD to a home Ed group where the majority language is welsh and let her get stuck in.

[IamFrauBlucher]

Can't help with bilingualism. Not sure how easy it is to be bilingual in a monolingual family, to be honest.

It's pretty hard to be honest, and really complete immersion seems to be the only successful way for my DC to be fluent in the language of the country he lives in as we are exclusively English at home. He only gets that at school really.

Sorry OP not what you wanted to hear.

[titchy]

You've not said why you want to HE. Bit difficult to comment unless you say why you think this is the best option!

[JohnKeating]

@artfullydead

Where exactly did I say I live in a "very rural part of wales". Without giving details on where exactly I live, the local primary school feeds into 2 welsh medium secondary's and a 50/50 English/Welsh secondary, and we have more baby and toddler groups, within 10 minutes of home, than days of the week!

Whilst I am not a welsh speaker I do find the assumption that living in a majority welsh speaking area means that we are hill billies, a little insulting!!

Are you Home educating and if so could you expand on exactly what way it would be a "disservice". I am honestly interested to listen, but not if it is simply a lazy anti HE and anti welsh comment.

[JohnKeating]

@winterheatwave

Thanks for the reply, I do expect it takes a lot of effort with the second language. Most extracurricular clubs/activities locally are through Welsh language, so no shortage of opportunities for DD to use any Welsh she has, but I wouldn't want her left out or bullied at these clubs if her Welsh wasn't fluent enough for her to keep up IYSWIM.


It will definitely require a lot of thought and planning if we do go down the HE route.

[Artfullydead]

OP, most places with that amount of Welsh medium schools are very rural - if you look back at my post I certainly didn't use the word "hill billies" (seriously ) and while I am sympathetic to the fact that it's upsetting getting answers that don't align with your view, I really don't know how you managed to pull an insult out of "living rurally!"

Big parts of Wales are rural: the parts that aren't are mainly English speaking, ergo, since it's mostly Welsh speaking where you are it is probably fairly rural.

To answer your question, I personally have huge, huge reservations about home schooling, not because I think schools are all that (they aren't) but it's part of a shared experience and culture for children that lasts into adulthood and beyond. Denying a child that is wrong to me. Obviously there are cases where school just doesn't work out which is fine but that's different to never going to school at all.

[JohnKeating]

@Titchy

You've not said why you want to HE. Bit difficult to comment unless you say why you think this is the best option!

At the moment it is "an option". I am asking these questions in order to decide whether it is the best or the right option for our family.

I specifically didn't want this to become another general debate about "why" or "why not" to HE. I can find plenty of sites on the internet and previous discussions on MN to read through that cover this.

[WinterHeatWave]

Young kids dont seem to care. If you start early enough, I dont think there will be an issue.
If you go with a teen, and expect them to socalise in a language they havn't fully grasped, you may get a different response!

[JohnKeating]

@ommmward

Thanks for the reply.

I did think it may be that way sadly.

It was bad enough when one of my cousins opted to send his DD to a Steiner school (the bitching behind their backs was pathetic and rude), now that she is the only one from that branch/generation of the family to go to Uni, it somehow never gets mentioned!!

[anniehm]

I he for 6 months between houses, plus for reception as we were overseas, it's really tough - I'm not going to sugar coat it. The first thing is you need to work out how you can meet all her educational needs, the English and maths are the easy bit! Do you have the skills and patience to teach a broad curriculum in an interesting way? Then there's social needs, I doubt in a rural area there will be home educators clubs so how will they meet people of their own age? Then finally can you afford to stay at home and pay for all the education costs - it isn't cheap, I spent hundreds on books and trips for my 2 kids.

I'm not saying don't by any means, to be honest I would be tempted if my kids were transported back in time to home school as dd1 didn't find it easy but actually they are probably better for the experience of state education, and dd2 is very fortunate to be finishing schooling privately (bursary).

I would start with an early years plan as it matters the most of all and just decide year by year whether you want to enroll them in school.

[The4Seasons]

I don't know anything about HE, but I wanted to sign post you to the most wonderful book I read a few years ago about a HE family in rural Wales.
It's called Children on the Hill by Michael Deakin.
Regardless of your views on HE it really is a lovely read.

[Sproutingcorm]

Speaking as the mother of an only child in an expat family; the only way my DD could integrate and become bilingual ( then trilingual) is to be immersed in, and surrounded by, the local languages at school. If you are serious about the Welsh language education, then speaking bluntly, I think you would be mad to home educate if you are not already fluent yourself! You would be preventing your dd from acquiring a "native" accent for a start, and fluency in colloquial conversation, not to mention being able to put the grammar in to practice every day with local speakers (unless you paid for special language lessons but I would have thought they would have to be so frequent as to be prohibitively expensive to achieve anything near to immersion.

Also (speaking bluntly) I personally think HE-ing an only child might put them at a social disadvantage but I am sure that could be overcome with effort and dedication, especially if there is a thriving HE community in your area.

Good luck with whatever you decide!

[NaturalBlondi]

Titchy, why would you want strangers who don’t care about your child to raise them?

[JohnKeating]

@theseasons

Thanks I will look it up, I have a couple of other HE books lined up for reading.

But can we move away from "the rural" comments. Whilst where I live is by no means urban, it equally is in no way isolated!! We have a city with a university 10 minutes drive away!!

[Lovethetimeyouhave]

I home school my 7 year old. I will be honest with you and say I have learned a lot about patience and perserverance. He reads much above his age! When he showed that he could successfully read I left him to it. He can spell perfectly and we've never done work on spellings, again he has learned it at his own pace, and can spell remarkably well. I'm glad I homeschooled as he actually had a very hard time with reading in the beginning and we had to take it really slow and even start afresh sometimes. We have had a wonderful ride though and at times I do feel like I need a break (he is full on all day long) but we have the most wonderful bond, it is one of my greatest joys out of homeschooling. I am teaching ds a language now. German. But I am under no illusion that he wont become fluent without emmersion and/or years of hard work, he does an hour a day and ks getting on well. If you want your daughter to bilingual then the only option is school really, or just have her attend nurseries and play groups while you jmmerse yourself too.
I hope I've helped a little,

[JohnKeating]

@sproutingcorm

It's so difficult, I don't want her to be disadvantaged, but not speaking Welsh hasn't really held my career back and I regularly work with 1st language Welsh colleagues & clients.

However, I see truly bilingual living & learning as an amazing opportunity which is rarely available in the UK, hence trying to balance what is best for DD. Some of the studies on neuro development in regards to bilingualism are fascinating!

I am on a few mutli language family facebook pages, and local HE groups, so will be asking many more questions!!

Good job I've got a few years to decide.

[HeadsDownThumbsUpEveryone]

I'm another who think you are being pretty naïve to think you could teach her welsh to any degree of fluency when neither yourself or her father is able to speak welsh.

Home edding her as an only child would be fine as long as you had a good social circle who also home ed. It could be a great experience although not one I would personally undertake. Being your daughters teacher and her mum could cause problems and prove challenging if either of you wanted 5 minutes peace from being in each others company.

Nevertheless no matter what you choose you have to realise she will be disadvantaged compared to her peers in terms of her understanding and ability to speak welsh.

[Lougle]

I'm 20 minutes from 3 cities, but I'm still very rural, which is why houses in my village are so expensive! (I live in a council house, so I'm in no way boasting, I'm simply saying that living in a commuter belt doesn't automatically make you 'not rural'.)

Re. HE, I've done it and I think much will depend on your child's personality as much as anything. Especially if you really on external sources for 2nd language exposure. How much they want to engage with external groups will influence how successful that is. My DD2 didn't want to engage with anyone in her 1st language, let alone in a 2nd language. She'd have rather stayed at home all day with me.

[JohnKeating]

@lovethetimeyouhave

That has given me an idea...I could enrol daughter part time in the local cylch (playgroup attached to school) to get her immersed in Welsh for a couple of years, then take it from there. We already go to bilingual toddler groups.

Once my welsh is conversational I am in a fourtunate position to be able to do a whole 12 hour shifts (I only do one a week) in only Welsh, dependent on who I am working with, which will give me good immersion, I just have someway to go to reach that point (and other study commitments with work which limit my time and a toddler running rings around me!!!).

[titchy]

Titchy, why would you want strangers who don’t care about your child to raise them?

Eh? Where did that come from? I only asked OP's motivations for HE.

For the record as far as I am aware schools don't raise children and parents don't send their kids to school to be raised ffs.