16 Kids and Counting

[Shinyfly]

So I've just watched this (recorded last night). AIBU to think that both of these couples just have stopped at one or two?

These were (just a couple) of the red flags for me.

1. The first family had 11 kids (number 12 made an appearance at the end of the programme). All of their children were home schooled and the only time they were permitted to mix with other children was once a week at boys/girls brigade. Mum Tania has a three year plan to have them living in the country and even more isolated from society very soon.

1. The second family were completely devoid of any rules/routines/boundaries, the house was complete chaos with children sleeping in their clothes and the older children being made to supervise the younger ones homework. Dad's clothes were always filthy.

Bth families seemed intent on having more children.

From the NSPCC report.

Vijay Patel, policy adviser for the NSPCC children's charity, also sees the need for a review. "Some people use home education to hide. Look at the Victoria Climbié case. No one asked where she was at school. We have no view about home education, but we do know that to find out about abuse someone has to know about the child."

Yes Victoria was never registered as 'educated otherwise than at school' but this is the excuse her a users used when asked why she wasn't attending and no-one felt the need to check up.

• her abusers

Sorry.

I agree with soverlucky, how on earth if you have 16 soon to be 17 children can you spend quality time with each of them, you can't. The actions of this family and others like them with super large families are very selfish.

The NSPCC made an apology to EO (Education Otherwise) for mentioning Victoria Climbie in connection with home education.

Just borrowing your link for the benefit of Shinyfly, Sockamnesty

www.educationotherwise.net/attachments/article/151/NSPCC%2028%2004%2009%20Apology.pdf

Also, as I said earlier, home educated children are thought less at risk of abuse than school children (based on a study).

If you really were working for EHE, OP. I am glad this is no longer the case. Your attitude and prejudice is unpleasant.

And shocking lack of subject knowledge.

It was a excuse and that is something many abusive parents do to hide or explain away abuse schooled or not. She was a child missing education that is not the same as being home educated.

If you really want to stick the boot in about home education and feel the need to pick an example of using it to hide abuse then come up with a better example, its not very hard just off the top of my head Leanne smith and her pedophile husband Martin would serve your purposes very well and it was a very very high profile case,or did you not go for that one because she also happened to work for social services?

Child abusers come in all shapes and sizes and from all walks of life it does not make much difference where the children recieve their education.the vast majority of parents are not child abusers.

Even going back to all the information doing the rounds at the time of badman referring to HE and child abuse was shockingly misrepresented using 'known to services' as shorthand for 'child suffering abuse' and ramping up the moral panic did not change the fact that HE is a perfectly legal and valid option and the law even clarifies that despite threats and referrals being used as a way to make the LA's job easier and people like you sat in offices assuming HE means hiding abuse home education in itself cannot and should not be treated as a legitimate welfare concern.

Home educators have a higher rate of referrals to children's services than schooled children do,it's often the first thing a neighbour or professional will do just incase,when they hear the words HE and the referals mostly say nothing other home education as the concern,they also have a much higher rate of no action required results than the referals about schooled children.

How about whilst your getting the rage about home education you have a little think about the significantly higher number of cases of abuse suffered by schooled children take a look at some of the tragic cases in the press over the last decade or so you may notice that almost all of them were either children registered at a school or not old enough to be registered. Or would that not fit in with your views?

"Home schooling gives me the rage because I think it deprives the child of social interaction with peers, deprives them of the opportunity to be taught by a professional and deprives them of the entire support system school life provides.

People who make this choice are often ill-informed and as myrtledove said is often used as a cover up for forced marriage or abuse, as in the case of Victoria Climbie."

Wow. Thanks, didn't know all that. I'll bear it in mind.

In all seriousness I see us as hobby homeschoolers rather than career homeschoolers. Right now, its just the best, simplest thing for our family. I expect that to change at some point-or maybe it won't. But I do see why people are about it and I think it comes about mainly because the culture of homeschooling just isn't that well known or understood.

Basically, I'd say among homeschoolers you tend to have an incredibly strong support network for anyone who wants it. Homeschoolers will normally help each other out. Although there seems to be a heck of a lot of infighting sometimes, at the end of the day people will generally help each other. That goes for most things, education but also general support. Additionally, homeschoolers tend to parent very visibly and under a degree of scrutiny. Because we are unusual, we are noticed, and you can bet that if a known homeschooler (and I think generally we are known in our communities) hit their kid in public then they would get a visit from social services pronto. There's also a lot of support generally for parenting in the homeschooling community. Hitting is not tolerated really, its a very child centred environment.

Now not all homeschoolers are part of the community. And I think, yes, the laws could be used, as they stand, to hide forced marriage and abuse. Except...they just aren't really. Its interesting to me-they just aren't. In cases where kids have suffered horrendous abuse, its really rare for a child to be hidden by being homeschooled. Victoria Climbie was failed by the school system long before she was homeschooled, for example.

I think the homeschooling community gets so angry about the idea that we are all child abusers because the community is so incredibly opposed to child abuse by its very nature. If you go onto a facebook site for homeschool support, a lot of posts will be about how to be a better parent (and not because people are abusive-but because being a good parent is really tied into being a good homeschooler).

And also there is the very simple fact that most homeschoolers know at least some other homeschoolers very well, and their kids know other homeschoolers very well. Our kids will play together for days at a time. Hiding abuse in this context would, I think, be harder than hiding it in a school context. Homeschooled kids also typically have other adults-friends parents, mentors, etc-to whom they could turn.

TBH if the government wants to monitor HE families the best thing to do woudl be to put on more free educational events at museums and so on. We absolutely flock to those ;-)

Whilst I may have used a poor example, I could if legally allowed cite a lot of examples where children who have been supposedly EOTAS have been abused in various ways. That said I am not saying that ALL of these children have been abused. However working for Children's Social Care I know how many initial referrals come from schools because they see the children everyday and therefore are often the first to see the signs of abuse.

I left this job because of my feelings about this and wanted to help children like this.

I appreciate that sometimes it does work but it does make me feel uncomfortable and that's why I changed my career. My original post was my opinions on a tv programme. My opinions are based on experience and are valid, I don't expect to have my career choices and chosen turn of phrase questioned by someone so sanctimonious to dismiss them with a 'tut', but I'm sure it has made you feel very self-congratulatory.

I'm fairly new here, but I'll remember to stay in check next time I post.

Well I think the issue was not your experience or lack of it but the phrase " The home schooling thing gives me the rage."

That's awfully inflammatory. How do you expect homeschooling families to react to that? I wouldn't post "sending kids to school all day gives me the rage"

If, instead, you'd posted "I have worked with EOTAS kids and for me, based on my experience of these kids, I have concerns about homeschooling,", then I would have been, actually, very interested in your experience. I've said above that I think that the organised homeschooling community is probably less likely to be hiding abuse, for complex reasons. But I'm happy to consider whether I might be wrong, or consider that the laws could be used badly. I'm not evangelical about homeschooling in the slightest,I think its got its pros and cons like anything.

So yeah. While I think its fine to post respectfully worded opinions, I would consider keeping comments like "The home schooling thing gives me the rage." in check.

You are legally allowed to talk about figures and cases in the public domain. Just the same as everybody else is if your looking to support your views you could look at all the stuff connected with the badman review after all they were actively trying to establish a link.

Unfortunately the end result of what happened won't support your views as I'm guessing you already know.

You came on a public forum sharing opinions as if they were fact and using your previous role to attempt to substantiate it,did you seriously not figure out that out of the several million other mumsnet users there may very well be a few about who have an active interest in home education and some of those may also know a smidgen about child protection and children missing education?

Nothing wrong with expressing opinions (I often express mine about autonomous education and i have a inkling our thoughts on that would not be much different)but its not especially wise to say "I know this because I'm very busy and important" if you can't back it up.

I'm sorry I thought I had made it clear that these were my opinions on the tv show and on what I had experienced. At know point did I say I was too ' busy or important', if that was the case why would I be on here. I realise that other people have opinions and I value them too.

As I said I'm new on here (I won't be coming back) and I wasn't prepared for a personal attack on my professional role. In line with the 'this is not a bun fight' ethos of mumsnet I'm going to ask for this thread to be removed. Thank you to all that contributed, whether I agree with you or not

*At no point. (Sorry)

Well, I will have it removed once I find out how.

I doubt MNHQ will remove it just because you don't like the responses shiny but you can report it with the button in the top right hand corner and see what they say.

Also the rest of the forum is much nicer than AIBU so please check that out before you go!

Don't do that, stick around you may even enjoy it,tomorrow you could be lucky enough to end up on a live parking war thread and they are brilliant.

You can even name change if you want

Thanks for the responses guys, but no I won't be sticking around. It's way too personal and bitchy.

hmm.

sorry but dish it out but can't take it comes to mind

if you are seriously going to say things like ""The home schooling thing gives me the rage." and then flounce off when people get irritated that you are making sweeping generalisation about their families, then-well, yeah, might not be the best forum.

"My opinions are based on experience and are valid, I don't expect to have my career choices and chosen turn of phrase questioned by someone so sanctimonious to dismiss them with a 'tut', but I'm sure it has made you feel very self-congratulatory."

Tsk Not dismissed just with a tut, now that would be unfair - the 'tut' was tacked on the end of one of my posts and that was sheer exasperation not self congratulatory I can assure you. I've posted explanations and links for you (as have other posters), as you seemed in ignorance.

It's a shame Shinfly to just leave. I agree with your general points both on the subject of H. E and the TV show. However, I've always wanted to hear from people who H.E succesfully as I know it clearly can.be done and while I teach in one and send my Dd to one schools are not perfect either.

Sorry you feel got at but it is obvious that people will.have strong views and an inclination to respond if you are criticising their way of life.

"hmm.

sorry but dish it out but can't take it comes to mind"

Sorry, but I agree with this.

And you can't expect not to be challenged and corrected when you're posting such statements as fact and truth (when they're not) and can't back up said statements.

I still need to post some of those stats actually (about how home ed. children are less likely to be abused), will search when I have more time!

I am more than happy to talk about HE. I see it as something with pros and cons. I'm happy to answer questions. My kids have been in school, we moved and now can't get school places. We've been HEing for just over 2 years, and my kids are all upper ks1 / ks2 age.

I think there is often a very specific issue with HE which is that many people simple have zero experience or conception of what HE done, even reasonably well, can look like. That is frustrating for HErs and doesn't advance the debate at all. However I do also see a huge amount of negativity towards school from HErs, which I think is sometimes understandable, eg unrecognised SEN, but sometimes is also based in lack of experience. I actually find autonomous education very interesting but it is very, very hard to get any reasonable information on it without feeling like you have to join a cult.

At the same time, I think HE does some things very well indeed, and some things less well, or at least that's been my kids' experience.

Anywayz.

I honestly don't understand this bashing of homeschooling.
Just what if... You don't have a satisfactory school in your area? Not everybody lives in cities where choices are plenty, and not everybody can afford private education.
Plus with 16 kids... Homeschooling is easier in terms of logistics.