to consider taking my DD out of a perfectly good school to HE?

[FigsAndWine]

I am considering taking my 8 year old DD out of school and home educating. My reasons and reservations are detailed here

I've read a bit about HE and I'm feeling more and more that I want to do this. The two people whom I thought would be really negative about this (my best friend and my DM) have been very positive about it and think it would benefit DD. My DP thinks I'm a bit nuts (but then he does anyway... ) but will support my decision. My exDP (DD's dad) is also in a good postion to HE, as he is self employed and therefore flexible with his time, and is very involved with DD.

The school DD is at is a good one. It is over-subscribed, good with outstanding features according to ofsted. I just think that DD would thrive more out of a school environment. It will be a squeeze financially to afford extras (trips, classes, activities), but we could manage. I work part time and could fit HE around this.

The reason I'm posting in aibu is because I know all the reasons why I want to do this; I guess I want to hear some opposing opinions so I can feel whether they are enough to make me change my mind.

Fire away!

Just want to say ffs regarding HE and social skills; I've had several HE students at Oxford and they were just fine, and I've also had one who wasn't fine, and many from all school sectors who weren't fine.

Also the idea that the Op's dd will be sitting at her feet all day is also not my experience of He, she types as her dd gets on with a Kumon maths sheet... having stayed up till 20.00 last night to finish some exciting history reading, and having got up excited because it's fencing club tonight. Frankly, my kids would probably be odd anywhere

I get why you want to he but having read your first post on other thread I am sorry to say I am honestly not sure it will work out due to both of your personalities. I guess you could try but then you would loose dd's school place and unsettle her. So yabu.

Fwiw I too have thought about he my daughters x3 but feel that I am lacking in patience, energy and motivation and am really not up to the job. Your dd sounds similar to my number1 dd although she has mellowed a lot perhaps due to the school system, which is actually quite sad but also having 2 younger sobs probably had a part to play.

Interesting study from the US here showing that 95% of the children who were HE were glad that they were.

sounds like you are doing it cos YOU fancy it

"She can join Brownies and Guides"

When DD went to Brownies there were girls from two different schools, they didn't mix and stuck to the children they knew from school. This is also happening where DD goes to Guides.

FigsandWine I picked up in your original post how tired your DD is and how much sleep she needs. Are you sure this isn't medically related?

If you HE what will you do when you need to visit the GP, have hospital appointments or go to the dentist? Can you get time away from each other to keep your relationship on an even keel?

My mum is a languages teacher in secondary.

She says that 20 or 30 years ago, she would ask 14-15 year olds which authors and books they liked reading.

10-20 years ago she would ask, "do you (ever)read books for pleasure?".

and now she asks: "Do you ever read, anything? magazines? "

She says 30 years ago, 14-15 year olds might have already read some of the classics (Austen, Dickens, Steinbeck or something like Moby Dick), whereas now it is pretty special to find a teen who has even heard of these books, let alone read them....for fun.

That is probably the sort of cultural impoverishment the poster above was talking about.

I think HE is growing very steadily in the UK...in the USA and Oz it is far more common than here and people in the UK who consider it, tend to get a lot of negative responses when they air their thoughts.

I think that a lot of the negative feedback is fear based....people, in general don't like others who chalenge the status quo...it makes them insecure.

I am still thinking about HE...it may be that we only do it for a year....or not...but I think it's best to be open to all possibilities.

A colleague of mine was HE in deepest darkest Wales and he is one of the most talented and sociable people I know...

Bun but on the other hand my DD has made a lovely friend who lives 4 miles away and goes to a different school....I did too when I was in Brownies and Guides.

I think that untill they hit their teen they are pretty socially simple...the odd party, the odd playdate or club and they're ok. If they have cousins so much the better.

In adult life we dont often stay friends with the people we went pimary school with....

There are plenty of perfectly happy HE children I?m sure. Many that are a bit odd are probably HE because of their idiosyncrasies and not the other way around. HE can be a good way forward for those children.

An interesting exercise would, I think, be to plan a scheme of work. Say about a couple of terms? worth.

Not in granular detail, but with objectives and an idea of how you might help your dd to reach them ? what resources you?ll need, trips or activities, that kind of thing. Having done that, would you be able to do similar again and again until your dd reaches 16 or decides to return to formal schooling?

I just can?t imagine being able to come up with interesting, engaging, valuable things to do day in day out for a month, let alone a year. Perhaps I just lack imagination

"When DD went to Brownies there were girls from two different schools, they didn't mix and stuck to the children they knew from school. This is also happening where DD goes to Guides."

Sounds like they've really learned to socialise and interact with others....

Back to you question though OP - YANBU to consider it, but I wouldn't (ds and I would end up hating each other).

but this isnt about what you did is it?

you can take her to all the groups you like, she wont be with those people everyday.

children need to socialise-properly. they need to lear how to work together not just once a week but every day. i think its a bit selfish actually, unless theres good reason for removing a child form swaths of possible friends and also very controling. they need to develop outside of us, become their own people out of sight of mum.

your obviously going to do it anyway, so go for it. really glad i dont have too though! :)

titty - read the rest of my post please. I know it's easier to jump to satisfying conclusions about how twattish other people's opinions are

what? in english please?

KB - "they need to develop outside of us, become their own people out of sight of mum."

It's been pointed out to you already that they get the opportunity to do this in their activities outside home. Some activities are more than once a week and others are with children that live locally so there are other opportunities to meet them outside of the activity too. There are also children that they meet at HE groups too and opportunities for them to meet up and go off with other children.

As far as it not being about me, no of course it isn't but I was using it as an example to illustrate that many of the best friendships are not made in the school environment. Many people have the same experience as me as far as where our friends come from.

Who was your last post directed at KB?

sorry bumbly, thats not what i meant.

if you send a child to an activity, lets say ballet once or twice or thrice a week. they go to do that thing. when children go to a school they learn lots of different things personally and as a group, how to respond as group sort out disagreements, find friends. have that time away from mum when they start to change, a bit of freedom. yes you can do that for a couple of hours elsewhere but children spending 6hrs a day together forms bonds, routines we are all in it together mind set. i just dont think it can be replicated not matter how carfully, mainly because it isnt supposed to be forced, it happens on its own it.

im not explaining myself clearly, i agree one on one teaching can be miuch better than 32+ pupils, but also children should leanr that role of and how to relate to other adults.

i didnt mean it like that "all about you", what i meant is while your experiences are valid they are yours, they wont be the same for her. you might have made great friends at club x, but if she dousnt where will she? other home ed kids? again thats just locking these children into a hand picked world of options.

what about just getting out there, less planning more normal stuff.

To ZZZ's question about how I felt about HE as a child, while it was happening: it's complicated. I said I liked it. I believed I liked it. I couldn't imagine anything else. When grownups asked about socialisation I gave cute precocious speeches about how many wonderful activities I attended and about the horrors of peer pressure in schools (I was parroting my mum!). On the other hand, I remember crying/screaming/shouting (on both child and parent's sides) almost every day. I remember talking to my mum for hours about how much I wanted a friend, and crying because we couldn't think of anyone to invite to a birthday party. I had imaginary friends. I self-harmed when the crying and shouting got particularly bad. To complicate matters, my mum had big untreated problems with depression. I don't even think she enjoyed being around kids very much TBH - I see the way she interacts (or doesn't interact!) with my dc and it's quite a revelation. For kids, the abnormal can be normal if it is what they experience every day.

Once I got away from home it was terribly frightening (I really went off the rails for awhile, was suicidal, etc) but then very liberating. Most of what I believe about HE now is stuff I have understood in retrospect.

This is a debate that polarises lots of people but in fact there are no easy answers. On the one hand, going to school does not guarantee that you will emerge a socially functional person. And being home educated does not guarantee that you will emerge with big social difficulties. On the other hand, going to school certainly increases the chances that a child will be able to forge a variety of strong relationships with other children and adults. There is simply more opportunity. And if there are emotional/psychological problems in a family already, HE will accentuate and worsen them.

I know that I derived benefits from HE - my parents cared and tried hard. But the benefits came at the cost of a lot of suffering. I have dear friends who HE and I try to be objective about it, because I know HE is different for every family. But when I meet an HE'd kid (and this includes my friends' kids), my gut instinct is to feel sorry for them.

My main feelings now about HE are:

• for better or for worse, it's always more about the parents than the kids.
• there should be regular comprehensive checks on HE families to make sure everything isn't going pear-shaped. HE families who are doing it right shouldn't mind this because vulnerable children have to be protected. They're not their parents' property. I feel quite strongly about this. Often the first sign of gross parental neglect emerges when kids stop going to school. When kids are HE'ed in the first place, people outside the home don't get that key notification that things may be badly amiss.

And while my parents may have had psychological issues, and did not know anything about early childhood education specifically, at least they were effing LITERATE. Don't even get me started on the myriad HE parents, especially in the US, who can't write or spell but somehow think they are qualified to HE!? Those poor kids.

OK, I'll descend from my platform now.

I wanted to say what Bunbaker (I think) said.

Your child seems to be incredibly tired and you are blaming this on school. Have you taken her to the doctor to have a check up? I would be very worried about my child if she was so tired.

marfisa I totally disagree with many of your points.

Your experience of HE is with a mother who was not psychologically able to HE. That means that she probably shouldn't have done so. Mothers/Fathers who are not in that position would therefore not cause the problems that you experienced.

"- for better or for worse, it's always more about the parents than the kids."

You have absolutely no evidence for this whatsoever. It rather comes down to the "mothers who breastfeed beyond 6 weeks/6 months/ a year/ [insert your random bias here] do it only for themselves" whereas actually those parents who are in that situation are the ones who know what they're giving to their chldren, and giving up in their own lives.

"- there should be regular comprehensive checks on HE families to make sure everything isn't going pear-shaped. HE families who are doing it right shouldn't mind this because vulnerable children have to be protected. They're not their parents' property. I feel quite strongly about this. Often the first sign of gross parental neglect emerges when kids stop going to school. When kids are HE'ed in the first place, people outside the home don't get that key notification that things may be badly amiss."

This statement strongly implies that HE families are neglectful or abusive which is another appalling myth. Of course some abusive families may have children who are kept out of school, BUT, MANY abusive families send their children to school and the school totally fails to pick up on it. There is NO link between HE and abuse and to say that there is is offensive as well as being factually incorrect.

"And while my parents may have had psychological issues, and did not know anything about early childhood education specifically, at least they were effing LITERATE. Don't even get me started on the myriad HE parents, especially in the US, who can't write or spell but somehow think they are qualified to HE!? Those poor kids."

I don't understand this "point". Certainly a parent who isn't educated (or able to self educate) enough to facilite the education of a child isn't a great candidate to be a HE parent. But I hardly think that this applies to the OP, or to HE parents in general. Furthermore I've received 14 CVs today for a position that I have available. All the candidates went to school. Not ONE candidate has more than 2 GCSEs over grade C and EVERY ONE has serious spelling or grammar errors. I hardly think that this shows how brilliant school is.

"On the other hand, going to school certainly increases the chances that a child will be able to forge a variety of strong relationships with other children and adults. There is simply more opportunity. "

Not right at all. At school children are generally kept in their own age groups, whereas HE children are often given the opportunity to meet in HE groups where there are a wide range of ages that they have to learn to socialise with. Frequently HE children meet these groups regularly (sometimes several times a week) so they have ongoing opportunities to form deep relationships and to practise social skills.

You clearly had a tough time and I very much sympathise, but you are really making some awful and unfair generalisations, as well as perpetuating some of the offensive and wrong myths about HE.

"I remember talking to my mum for hours about how much I wanted a friend, and crying because we couldn't think of anyone to invite to a birthday party. I had imaginary friends. I self-harmed when the crying and shouting got particularly bad."

A lonely child with poor social networks and a depressed mother is probably better off going to school.

I agree.

"for better or for worse, it's always more about the parents than the kids."

I think a lot of the choices made for children by their parents are 'all about the parents'. Putting your baby in a nursery and going back to work full time is one of them. Do you have objections to this as well?

I'm not sure if I read your post correctly a bit up the thread, but you seem to suggest that your daughter hasn't gone to school today and is pottering around upstairs as she didn't want to go. I would try to make a decision about HE pretty quickly then (if indeed I read this correctly), otherwise if you do decide to keep her in formal education, she has received the message it's fine not to go to school. I also think it's too much responsibility to expect her to take the lead about deciding whether she likes school/wants to go/should home ed. I think wavering on the basis of a small girl's moods is probably not a good idea.

Chandon - that is exactly what I mean.

They can talk endlessly about R&B but couldn't name you one piece of classical music, world music or jazz.

They don't know who the leader of the opposition is or what sort of voting system we have in this country or anywhere else.

They don't read newspapers.

They've never sat through a film older than they are.

They don't know the names of any plants or trees.

They can't cook and they're fussy about food.

They don't read novels or poetry.

They've never been to the theatre or to a gallery outside of school visits.

It's not good.

"That is probably the sort of cultural impoverishment the poster above was talking about."

And that has not a great deal to do with schools and a huge amt to do with the sort of society we have. The sort of parent and family that reads and exposes their children to a rich cultural environment is going to do that regardless of whether they are HE'd or not.

I wouldn't.

1. You didn't like school and you are projecting this on your DD who is not you.

2.You like to be in control and your DD reacts against it.

1. The relationship is intense-you don't want it to be even more intense.

4 You don't like the melt downs she has had sincethe start of term-she will have them with you as soon as you are trying to get her to do something that she doesn't want to do. 5.You don't feel that you taught her anything as a toddler-the time that they absorb things like a sponge.She did much better at nursery. 6.You have no patience and she doesn't learn things the way you expect her to learn them. 7 You are dreading the teen when she was a toddler!! Teens are not alien beings they are just the personality they always were. If she is going to rebel/be difficult/be obsessed with teenage type things she will be even if you try and keep her apart from them. If you are too authoritarian about it she will rebel later on in her 20's and in my experience that is far worse. (I have known a few)

All in all you appear to have an intense relationship with a strong willed DD -it seems a recipe for disaster. Let her go to school, support her with proper amount of sleep, friends around to tea etc etc and do the fun things around it. Don't get locked into a system where you are going to have head on confrontation.

I haven't read all the other thread but you are wise to come on AIBU and hear a range of views. People who HE will have it that anyone can do it. They have even told people that they can do it is depressed and don't want to go out of the house! Anyone can't do it. You have your doubts-do you really want to go ahead for the next 10yrs-it is a very long time?