Stop homeschooling your children.

@Sharptonguedwoman

Socialising - friends out of school hours, local home Ed groups, library groups, St John's cadets, swimming group, youth club, a breakfast club at the local youth centre, online friends.

@Sharptonguedwoman

I work from home, I'm a freelancer. Dad works full time. I work around him - I'm not teaching him, I'm facilitating his learning so while he's doing online tuition, research projects etc I'm in the same room but working

For those questioning the social side of things. I don't currently Home Ed but I don't see DS getting good social interaction at secondary. There is no-one he wants to visit or see outside school. Socially it can be a bear pit at secondary. I remember all too well. Never bullied because I knew how to keep out of sight of bullies. Had some good friends as an upside but DS doesn't even seem to get that.

However, the thing I really wanted to say is that HE children/teens always seem to have better social skills as all the ones I have ever known have socialised with a broad range of ages and people. Much better at communicating with an adult than the average teen (I know, I work with teens at a college). Confident and assured to talk to anyone from 0 to 90 +

It is something that has really struck me over many years of knowing different cohorts of HE children/teens. The first I met where when I was in mys 20's at housing coops/communities and then lots more over recent years. I think it does often have a very positive impact on social skills.

For millions of years we didn't gather children/teens of one age group/year together in groups of 30 (or schools of 1000). It's a relatively recent educational thing, since the industrial revolution.

Funny how we survived all those millennia socially and educationally. Normal human interactions over vast tracts of geography and history we didn't operate with large classes and large schools. I mean, who thought it was a good idea to put all the 12 to 16 year olds together in one huge building. What could possibly go wrong!

School suits some kids, it has some benefits and upsides for some parents and children but for a lot its utterly miserable and not a way of cultivating a love of lifelong learning. I have never had a gladder day than leaving secondary. It was like walking out of the prison gates into freedom. I loved learning (still do) but school squashed me in many ways even though on the surface I was an average to good student. I see it doing much the same to DS if I'm honest. Like me, he tolerates it at best.

You'd have to be pretty close minded to think that home educating can't be a more positive experience than school educating.
It opens up so much freedom. Freedom to do sports and activities whenever you choose, freedom to travel wherever and whether you choose for far less money - you can buy flights for next to nothing at certain times of year!
Freedom to visit museums and attractions when they aren't too busy to enjoy them. Freedom to wake up when you choose, to have slow mornings when needed, to rest when needed to be outside on beautiful days. Freedom to escape from people who are unkind or cruel to you, freedom from noisy classrooms and disruptive kids. Freedom to spend time as a family. But most importantly freedom to adapt education to individual needs and passions and skills. School is one size fits all, the amount of children who lose all enthusiasm for learning once in secondary school is mind blowing. They are taught to cram it all in and spit it all out in the exam.

There are so many resources now online, so many books, tutors, home schooling groups. It makes me laugh when people say that kids can't learn to socialise except at school, like home educating parents lock them away in isolation with no hobbies or interests or play dates.

I am not a home educating parent, we can't afford it for me to be around enough to do it, but I absolutely see the huge benefits in doing so and if I had enough space and enough time and enough money, I would seriously consider it provided my child wanted to.

There are thousands of tutors and tutor centres in the country, as well as many excellent on line schools . If older children want/need specialist teaching or group teaching then they can easily get it.

But education doesn’t have to be a top down process- by high school age home ed children often have excellent research and study skills and can access a lot on their own.

My 10 year old doesn’t expect me to teach him- he sits with his text books and work books or online stuff and work sheets etc and learns- I’m there for added discussion and explanation if he isn’t sure of anything.

Are you in the U S?

My teen is home educated in an area with tons of established and evolving home ed activities and this enables us to create an enriching interest based home ed experience. Clubs wise my child attends a home ed black smithing club, a home ed woodwork club, youth group and is about to start a home ed climbing group. My child has a small but strong friendship group, they are a creative bunch! Academically we plowing our way through purchased online courses via absolute maths, southwest science, humanatees, learntec. We also do various living skills together - cooking, gardening, food shopping, decorating, posting items. My child found school overwhelming/stressful and is relaxed and happy now.

Most home ed parents don't try to be teachers, and especially don't try to teach a dozen different GCSE subjects. They facilitate learning.

Children who attend secondary school often don't get a qualified teacher, don't get a teacher qualified in a particular subject, and sometimes don't get an in-person teacher at all - for example, watching Oak Academy video lessons due to a lack of teachers. So there's no reason to think the average secondary school is providing a gold standard education either.

Did you read the thread?

This.

I get the reason for homeschooling wrt bullying/additional needs etc. However, I'm not convinced a parent with little to no educational qualifications can effecitvely teach a dozen or so topics to the same standard as a dozen teachers qualified in 1 specific subject (I guess I'm specifically talking about secondary school here).

Granted not all teachers are great, but you can't underestimate the value of a group dynamic. Sometimes peers raise questions etc that end up improving your understanding of a topic.

Have you read the thread? There are multiple posts explaining how they manage it around work and how their children make friends. And why should it need to replicate a school environment? The school environment is the issue for some children. One size doesn’t fit all, and the school environment is actively harmful to some children. Especially one in which bullying issues are inadequately dealt with.
I don’t home educate by the way, but can understand why people do.

Have you read the thread? Are you genuinely interested in how home ed can work, or just making assumptions.

No, it doesn’t necessarily need a parent home five days a week. Siblings often learn together.

Nobody’s trying to replace a school environment. If we wanted a school environment, we’d use one.

Many ways of meeting social needs, if you read the thread. Do all children in school have a positive social experience?

Homeschooling requires 1 parent to be at home 5 days a week. Most people work. Even if they're at home there may be sibling to take care of. How the hell does an unqualified parent replace a school environment? How does the poor kid make friends?

When we home educated, my husband worked 9-5ish then after dinner I’d do tuition (I was a secondary school teacher) then I’d work all day Saturday and Sunday. Obviously, he looked after the kids in the evenings and weekends. He would do science and technology with them in his time as I wasn’t good at that.

We often tag team with parents of other families.

I don’t work no. Most home ed parents do work in some capacity though.

Yep- we literally don’t have enough hours in the day to go to all the different home ed groups and classes, as well as ‘play dates’ with individual friends (ds is 10 with SEND so still needs me to organise that sort of thing- he isn’t at the arranging stuff himself stage yet).

We have on offer specifically for the home ed community lesson wise (off the top of my head without looking for stuff)

-swimming lessons
-forest school X3
-adventure days X 2 different groups (basically school trips for home ed children)
-climbing lessons
-young herbalist club
-farm education
-small group tutoring X2
-library group (reading with the staff, organised educational activities around the story) x2
-art lessons
-art therapy
-yoga
-horse/stable management course
-Riding for the disabled
-AQA tutoring program for the credit awards in maths/science/english
-Science club
-parkour
-Skiing
-gymnastics classes
-Drama classes
-Dance classes
-Survival skills/outdoor training
-museum home ed days (so where they put on all the stuff they do for schools when they go on trips) X2
-Zoo home ed days (once a month where they have talks, do animal handling, learn about the environment etc)

Social wise regular meet up groups at-

-trampolining
-bounce house
-gamer X
-playground
-country park
-indoor skate park
-bat cave (card games/d&d/board games)
-football
-walking club X2
-group camping X2
-angling club
-craft club

That’s what I can think of- there are more that I’ve forgotten or haven’t paid attention to because they don’t suit us.

Work flexibly, work from home
Work around another parent eg weekends or evenings
Use childcare like childminders, forest schools, farm schools, home ed learning co-ops
Have grandparents that help with childcare and/or education
Swap with other home ed families
Have jobs that they can take their children to

There are lots of different set ups, but every home ed parent I know works to some extent.

No tag teaming, I am separated from dc’s dad although he is very involved.

They don’t need to do sit down work five hours a day, at all. Home ed often looks very different from school based learning. There’s independent work, learning organically through life, so much learning goes on. We do some sit down work, especially the one who is beginning some GCSEs, but it isn’t five hours a day. It absolutely does work though. I’m more of a facilitator than a teacher.

I tend to work evenings and alongside dc as I work from home. I know others who work evenings and weekends, like you say, tag teaming it. I know others who use childcare and home ed the rest of the time.

I’m not full time. But when you have dc for whom school is damaging, you have to make some decisions as to what’s best for everyone.

I have two dc who absolutely can’t attend school (one for whom Camhs have written a letter stating that it would not only be a risk to her, but a health and safety concern for the school). Another for whom school attendance even on a reduced timetable left her completely unable to leave the house the rest of the time and having constant meltdowns that made all our lives unsustainable. There is no educational provision for my dc.

However, I regret not home educating all four of my dc all the way through. I much prefer home ed over anything that can be offered in school.

Must have to tag team with another parent? Child doing school stuff 5 or so hours a day? Sorry, being boringly practical.

Lots of parents do work around home ed, including me.

Thanks. I always thought that Home Ed was a very minority sport so it’s interesting. I couldn’t have done it for sure.

They socialise with other home ed kids and other kids at extracurricular stuff.

I can answer for my children:
local home ed group (8-10 children aged 5-11 that they see a couple of times a week, go on day trips and holiday with etc)
Church youth club children
playdates with local children that attend school usually once a week
holiday clubs
siblings & cousinsAnd these are social but not really playing:
children from history & science classes they attend regularly
extra curricular type classes like swimming, dance, theatre