I home educate - my DS has never been to school - AMA

[OvertheUnicornRainbow]

My DS is almost 13, always been home-educated and is thriving. Ask me anything

@OvertheUnicornRainbow I did try to see what was available for home education in Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire (which is about a 90 minute driving radius to a large city with 2 very good universities) and all that comes up is private Facebook groups.

We also were the area that bore the Christina Riggi case so you must understand why I (I work in primary education and met Christina Riggi) I am nervous of the quality of home education in my geographic area.

Christina Riggi home eduducated because she had an extreme form of Narcissistic Personality Disorder and she was possibly the most helicopter parent I have ever encountered. Whilst I know education welfare officers are considered “the bad guy” - the Riggis lived in rural Aberdeenshire, were allowed to do what they wanted because she was a committed home Ed-er and had come from the US where it is more mainstream, and now we have 3 children killed by their mother who then killed herself.

@OvertheUnicornRainbow does your DS make those friends himself? Are they DC of friends you have made? Has he made them at activities or at lectures? Or at home Ed groups? I am interested as my DM insists to this day that I had a lovely wide social circle. My DSis who was school educated said she obviously had good and bad experiences but that she secretly always felt sorry for me

@lakeswimmer - thank you! I do find the obsession with all the GCSEs odd too.

@MsTSwift - if you'd read the thread you will see I have engaged with all the adults talking about when they were HEd. We have had interesting discussions about how different the world of home-ed is now. There is only one who has consistently tried to derail the thread. Maybe it's you that needs to open your eyes and read the discussion!

Sorry Theresa Riggi - I blocked her out to the extent that I got her first name wrong

We also were the area that bore the Christina Riggi case so you must understand why I (I work in primary education and met Christina Riggi) I am nervous of the quality of home education in my geographic area

There are of course serious case reviews following the death of children who do attend school. Despite going to school the potential abuse / issues at home were not picked up by teachers/professionals.

murderpedia.org/female.R/r/riggi-theresa.htm

I met her through a friend who home Ed’s. I adore my friend and have supported her through many things but her choice of friends through her Aberdeenshire Home Education support group wasn’t the best choice. She and her children were absolutely devastated

@Blueskiesdazzleme - his best friends he made himself at home-ed activities. The wider friends are mainly home-ed but some from hobbies. Then there's the wider peers that he comes into contact with less often. I'm good friends with one of the mums. That's sad your Dsis feels sorry for you. My little DD is jealous of her DB when he's off on another sleepover etc. But she is only (almost) 8 so will hopefully have that to come! Her class are mainly all very friendly DC. It would be awful if they weren't though as she has no choice to spend all that time with the same 30 DC.

@BathshebaKnickerStickers - how awful! That must have really affected you. Child homocide is so very awful but unfortunately with the best will in the world we can't stop it (which I appreciate is very hard to accept). The numbers of children killed is shocking and that they were in plain sight. How very sad.

FB groups for home-ed are kept private to keep out the sorts (as seen on this thread) who just want to criticise. Also to keep out those that just want to advertise.

The people who say parents home-ed for their own benefit always remind me of those who say mothers breastfeed for their own benefit! Both utterly bonkers! Both can be a hard slog and certainly not something you would do for your own benefit!

@OvertheUnicornRainbow ... the keeping of the groups as private however means there is a culture of non-transparency.

If I wanted to home Ed - I couldn’t find out the opportunities in my area. Which would obviously help guide my choice.

And Theresa Riggi was allowed to be unchecked. So I work in school admin and I never minimise a “missing from education” case.

And I absolutely believe it should be a million times more regulated than it is. 3 amazing and very talented children would be alive today if they had been in the Scottish school system. We would have interaction with a mother with 3 different personality disorders twice a day and it would have been flagged and flagged and flagged again.

They couldn’t have gone missing to Edinburgh and there would have been named person involvement.

The twins would be 18 and Cecilia would have been 15

OP thanks for that. I am surprised that the university organises children friendly lectures on subjects like explosives. Not sure how common that is?
I attend public lectures at the university local to me. It is usually visiting lecturers and most who attend are students and other staff. I attend those where I already know a lot about the subject.

Well there have been a number of people on this thread alone who have clearly said their own experience of HE was definitely not in their own interests and they would have loved to have had the opportunity to go to school so....

It is such a terribly sad case. Can we really be sure they would have been saved if schooled though? Daniel Pelka was at school.

I just wanted to respond to your statement that we can't child homicide. The UK has a far lower rate of children being murdered than some other developed countries precisely because of what happens around safeguarding. I suspect we can never get it to zero, but what the government does can prevent children being murdered.

A young child in my extended family was murdered in another country by a family member. I do not think she would have been murdered if she had lived in the UK.

Well there have been a number of people on this thread alone who have clearly said their own experience of HE was definitely not in their own interests and they would have loved to have had the opportunity to go to school so

Indeed. And home ed has moved on considerably in recent years. There's a lot more opportunities for different activities and socializing. I doubt their experiences are comparable to what is available to home edders now.

@BathshebaKnickerStickers - anyone being able to see a home-ed group wouldn't bring about transparency nor should these groups be transparent. Let just anyone see the details of your DCs wherabouts is not a good idea, in my mind. You would be able to fiind out but you'd have to go through the correct channels. Unfortunately what happened with that case could easily (and does) have happened if the DC were at school. Any checks of her home-education would have been unlikely to have helped. She didn't hide the DC away by your account. But was involved in the home-ed community. Unfortunately, many, many school DC are murdered every year. Things get flagged but there is often no joined up thinking across agencies. Even with lots of SW input, school, health these things happen all the time. The blame for the murder lies with the mother not that they were not in school. It really is a horrifying case (as they all are, of course).

No it does not happen all the time. About 70-80 children are murdered by parents or step parents every year.

@BathshebaKnickerStickers - I'm not sure a schoolteacher seeing a mother drop off and pick DC up would be aware of personality disorder. I'm pretty sure my DD's teacher isn't placed to do that just by seeing me standing there waiting to pick her up. I mean a psychiatrist would have little to work on in those circumstances let alone a teacher.

@janemaster - explosives? Great topic for kids! Have you never taken yours to a Science museum??

@Dorsetdays - they also say the parents did it for their DC not for themselves.

Any answer on the comment made by schooled DC's parents?

Over. Surely you attend parents evenings, assemblies, plays, sports fixtures, social events etc at your DD’s school though.

Yes of course. But I thought these were lectures organised by the university?

Well done to you for realising that school would not be the best option for your son .To many parents push there kids to school when it is just not suitable and they end up suffering .

Hey OP, I apologise for not having read all 30+ pages.. My Ds1 was home ed for the latter part of secondary school. He sat six IGCSES, which was more than enough for a college place at 16. He now has offers from good unis to do a law degree next year. So it absolutely can be done. If anything home ed was considered an asset to his application. I know plenty of other teens with similar stories.
Good luck to you and your ds too.

Over. I’m not sure what you meant by schooled parents comment. The comment you made was that some people react to you HE your DS by being astounded you aren’t ready to off load then to school yet.

That can easily be interpreted as saying you feel that those who don’t HE are doing exactly that. If you didn’t mean it that way then I apologise but if you re read it you will see how it could come across....which is what I said.