To wonder if this is what people mean by gentle parenting

[pleasemothermay1]

www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-3699191/Outrage-parents-allow-child-toilet-Morning-floor.html

Not sure why a one year old wouldn't have a nappy on as she clearly is not Notts trained at that age my one year old would be become destressed to be constantly wet

And what's the no medication about surely social service would become involved if they got very ill and parents did noting

Very odd

Dunno, most of the HE people just seem like normal folk to me. Maybe that says more about me.

But if the parents are letting the kids choose what they want to do and go (unschooling ) then the kids get to not be creative if that what they want. If they want to do 'sheeple' (again, I have never heard a HE person speak of any of these things, they certainly don't 'state' them) things then that is what they do. They just have a choice.

You can't be what you don't see

You can only chose from options you have been exposed to

My kids for example would be unlikely to chose to follow sports if they were mostly with me and my friends/ people I chose for playdates.

The difference is, before they start school, they do socialise, but they socialise with the children of adults I socialise.. so there's common ground.

At school they make friends with children whose parents I would never cross paths with had our kids not been friends through school

likewise they'ld never have met kids from those backgrounds were it not for school.

HE groups are arranged by parents with other parents they have stuff in common with.

There isn't just one HE community - there's groups within groups, and as the parents find their "tribe" - they kids are in turn hanging with kids whose parents are similar to their own. That is limiting.

You are assuming that all HE parents are the same or from similar backgrounds. That seems a tad ignorant, especially assuming the huge growth in numbers being deregistered.

And also, you are assuming that all HE kids only socialise with Home edding families! We are allowed out in the wider community you know and have friends and family who don't HE.

In fact, we don't really go to any HE groups at all, I don't know many who do regularly. We just hang out with family and friends, and do stuff as a family. Sometimes we will join a HE outing.

And also, you are assuming that all HE kids only socialise with Home edding families!

No, you're the one making assumptions that nobody else is informed about HE, if you read my posts you'ld see that my kid has friends who are HE and do mainstream extra curricular activities

In fact, we don't really go to any HE groups at all, I don't know many who do regularly. We just hang out with family and friends, and do stuff as a family. Sometimes we will join a HE outing

Hold up! a minute ago you were speaking on behalf of the community as a whole and saying that insular limiting HEing doesn't go on.
It does. Nobody is saying that everyone HEs in a limiting insular way, just that it happens. You said it doesn't happen and you would know because you as a HEer meet other HEers, but now you're saying you don't have much more to do with other HEers than we do so..

It's really bloody tiresome

Non HEers can have valid points about HE
Non HEer doesn't = doesn't understand HE
HEers aren't the only ones who can research and understand their education options you know!

HE has lots of great points, I've researched many different methods of HE in-depth. Nothing is without its flaws though. HE isn't perfect. There are very real pitfalls as there are with anything

Of course there are. I am saying that in my experience, most other home edding families are perfectly normal. They have friends who home ed, equally they have friends who don't. Of course there are some outliers who are insular, much like there are outliers who demonstrate the downsides of schooling. I was merely addressing your point about how limiting HE is, because home ed kids only hang out with other home ed kids. In doing so, pointing out that many/most families have lives outside of home ed groups, which will have an influence on the kids as well.

I'm really not understanding why you are so het up about this tbh. You have thoughts on the subject due to having a friend who HEs. I have thoughts on the subject due to home edding, having friends who home ed, and being part of the local community. I don't speak for the home ed community, any more than you speak for the schooled one.

The point I was making before I got the usual assumptions chucked at me, was that for example DDs friends who are HE.. yeah, they're friends with DD and others who go to school… but I'm friends with their parents.. so DD (and me) are still the kids parents type.

Whereas DD makes friends at school completely independantly of me. Their friendship is completely outside of me and the type of people I gravitate towards, or the type of extra curricular activities I chose to offer my kids.
Sometimes I dispair at who they've chosen , not because of the kids (they're lovely) but because they've ended up wanting the bloody school gate maffia mum's kid or chair of the PTAs kid over or summit LOL

A lot of HE meet ups ARE parents who've hit it off as they have things in common.. as are the socialisation opportunities for HE kids with non HE kids

I haven't made any assumptions about you.

I was merely addressing your point about how limiting HE is, because home ed kids only hang out with other home ed kids.

No. That wasn't my point (head-desk!)

My point was that HE kid's can only make choices within the limitations of what they're exposed to. They're not really choosing, they're just chosing from the possibilities their parents chose to show to them.

And when it comes to socialisation, whether it's with other HE kids or schooled kids, it's still going to be limited by the parents as parents will (understandably) not particularly gravitate to people they don't hit it off with if socialisations has to be arranged through the parents because of HE

This is a well accepted concept: "you can't be what you don't see"

We are going round in circles I fear. You are assuming that HE families only hang out with families who are of a similar mindset. I am pointing out that like most people, most HE families join activity based groups (Beavers, sports etc), have friends, family etc who do not home ed and may even disagree. I'm not arguing with you, I'm not sure why you are so perturbed by my having a different experience of something.

no point continuing this since you've not read what I've posted at all and instead are just telling me what you think I think.. so lets just leave it..

I have read it, I just don't agree! Maybe you are not conveying your point as well as you think?

Anyway, agreed...circular conversations are a little pointless.

"they do their own thing and mix with schoolers (I know some of these)"
"There's all sorts of HE families, DD has HEed friends who do all the same things she does outside of school"
"No, you're the one making assumptions that nobody else is informed about HE, if you read my posts you'ld see that my kid has friends who are HE and do mainstream extra curricular activities"

Hmmmm yeah, is this how I've repeatedly failed to convey how I don't think all HE kids only socialise with HE kids?

It clearly fits your narative to believe that I don't understand HE, but it's not from lack of my expressing myself clearly

...it exposes you to so so many people from different backgrounds, incomes and with so many different opinions. Being so insular can be detrimental to a child's, or adults for that matter, wellbeing and connection with the world.

I absolutely agree with that. Isolation is not good at all. Preventing it is definitely possible with HE, but perhaps it's more work to make it happen? Anyway in our case, my DCs' worlds have expanded massively since they left school. Obviously not saying all schoolkids' lives are small! But ours certainly was due to the limitations in time, energy etc - they couldn't actually manage anything else outside of school (they have ASD though which was why they couldn't cope in school - again, not saying all children are the same). Now they out and about so much more, and have many more adults teaching them than they did in school (where it was mainly one teacher and a couple of TAs) - they do loads of different activities, sports etc with different instructors, various workshops and trips to all sorts of places (like school trips, but a lot more of them), they do classes with tutors - some of which have led to learning about different cultures/religions as well (for example DD's creative writing teacher is a fundamentalist Christian so that led to interesting chats when DD was innocently talking about evolution in a lesson :)).

We definitely work hard to get access to anything our children want to find out about, which is how so many trips take place, and regular classes are often set up because a child becomes interested in something and the parent thinks "That's not something I know about myself - how can I make that happen?" - just like you would with a schoolchild, but there's more time to do it as you aren't restricted to after school hours (and it's often cheaper - for example the sports DCs do at the leisure centre are half the price of the weekend clubs, as we're there at off-peak times). We are very lucky to be able to do that. We've got a beekeeper bringing a mini hive to us soon as I got a huge education pack about bees from a charity. Can't wait :o

We spend a ridiculous amount of time on buses and trains (we don't drive) so they often end up having interesting chats with random fellow passengers - again, not saying this doesn't happen for school children! But it happens far more often for us now as we have more time to be out and about, and often the DCs are asked "Not in school today then?" which is something of an icebreaker. :) Like when a businessman started telling the DCs all about the different sculptures we passed when on the top deck of a London bus on our way back from an exhibition. It's been really lovely to see them become more confident at chatting to adults as time's gone on - they were very shy in the beginning but now they can really hold their own in a conversation. :)

And yes they do hang out with schoolkids too :o DD has just got into basketball, which DH and I wouldn't have really thought to do yet, but our neighbour had tried it at school so DD went along to a club meet too, and I bought her a basketball and the other day she was out practising dribbling skills until 9pm since she didn't have to get up for school - we're open to any influence really, it's fun to see what life throws at us. They go to Brownies/Beavers/Badgers/St John Ambulance and DD does dancing on Saturday so lots of non-HE kids at those clubs. They have so many more friends now (especially DS, who actually didn't have any friends at school), again from all walks of life, and all ages too which they didn't really have the opportunity for because they socialised in their class/year groups when at school.

I do sometimes joke with my friends about setting up a home ed commune :o but in reality I wouldn't, as even if it were a busy and varied community I would hate to feel cut off from the rest of the world.

The HE community here (incredibly busy and increasing all the time - according to our LEA person, the numbers in this town have tripled in the last two years!) is very diverse. There are wealthy families, families on the breadline, on benefits, all religions, various states of health/SEN for both adults and children, structured home edders and radical unschoolers, everyone just really gets along and supports each other, it's fab. It's changed my life as well as my DCs' TBH. :) I do know one family who really keep themselves to themselves and shun pretty much all the home ed activities (but DD was deemed a suitable playmate) but that is regarded by all the other parents as very unusual and not an approach we'd ever want to take ourselves.

Really have no idea if the Allens are insular like that or not, I'd be nosy as fuck interested to find out more about their approach to HE.

(Sorry I've just realised what a ridiculously long post I've written. I do love talking about HE! )

....Aaaand in the eternity it took me to write that I see the debate has moved on... ignore me. :o

"Back in the 90s, I was heavily involved in the squat/free party scene and met a lot of parents like this and a lot of adults who had been brought up like this in the 70s.

There are a number of ways it goes ... you end up with uncontrollable kids who have no idea about boundaries or social behaviour (we had a lot of problems with theft, damage, and antisocial behaviour by children under 16), you end up with children that do not understand where they fit in the world or how to operate in it (these end up being very troubled souls), or you end up with adult children that resent you because they have to spend their 20s and 30s trying to get up to speed with everyone else in their age group.

It's probably worth pointing out that if people in the squat party scene found these parents' kids unbearable, it really says something.

The only way it works is if you go properly off-grid and bring your children up in a "homesteading" style, which, of course, involves them learning a lot of practical skills from a very early age a bit like the Amish but without the whole Christian aspect or you incorporate free-thinking attitudes with the existing state and cultural structure (so you do "hippy" but your kids go to school, get GP check-ups and are expected to adhere to social conventions), or you are fairly strict about behaviour, attitude and learning etc while outside of the existing state and cultural structure.

What you can't do is do "hippy", pull out of all existing social, cultural and state conventions and structures, and not replace them with the acquisition of any "hard" skills, while living in a fairly urban environment."

Waves at Namez Changez! I was also involved in that scene and I recognise exactly what you are talking about. There was a group of teenagers know as "The lost boys" wasn't there? I believe one of them died tragicly young in a joy riding accident . All very sad.

I now hang about on the perifery of a very middle class group of crunchy parents who don't know my history and all think I'm some kind of hopeless authoritarian square.

They hang about on a bit of derelict land Children's Wood, teaching their kids about bugs and campfires in organised 2 hour chunks.
Last time i went they were making snarky comments about how they attract a "different type of parent" to the toddler group in the Scout Hall (Thats the one I go to- It has proper toilets and cafetier of nice coffee for the Mums).
Then the fire went a bit low and I had to breathe it back to life. The leader suitably impressed at that! I just raised an eyebrow and said "I've done it before."

Same day- someone told me my kids council run nursery was stifling because they gently introduce the kids to the idea of symbols having meanings and basic time management and self disipline, encorage them towards pre writing activities etc..
Her kids are so scheduled that they are experiancing free play at an organised group. The majority of Ds's nursery friends play out in the street with older siblings for long periods each day!

Despite the annoying couple that are the subject of it, this thread has been a pretty interesting read thabjs to posters sharing their experience of growing up in alternative communities or home educating. Thanks!

I don't get this thing about if the children were to ask or choose to go to school they could, but they don't get the chance to experience it so how can they know.

I know a family like this and speaking to their son one day he said he wished he could go to school but didn't want to upset his mum by asking.

They also say things like if the child is hitting, to urge him to 'use his voice not his hands' and give lots of fuss, this seemed to have the opposite affect as he seemed to pick up on the behaviour getting attention and with no countries / consequences it didn't help. It was hard seeing my son being hit and not knowing what to say.

This is what worries me most, that they seem to subscribe to this set of views of being alternative / off grid or whatever rather than using common sense.

www.gofundme.com/2gbxbeh8

What I meant to say though (sorry I really will shut up soon) was that home ed meets aren't necessarily only for like minded people. Often the only thing we have in common is the fact our kids don't go to school - and that's not always something to bond over either, as some have unschooled from the beginning for ideological reasons, and others find themselves suddenly HEing due to some crisis at school - they are very different situations.

I guess it's harder when there's a smaller HE community, but I'm just going on my experience in a huge and thriving one. There are often meet ups that are advertised with just "Do you home educate? Meet at X, 1pm on Friday."

Actually one of DD's first HE friends was from a family we have nothing in common with - other than the fact our daughters had come out of school. They met at one of the above type meet ups in an adventure playground, and came to us afterwards to introduce us mums to each other (there were so many families there that we hadn't even met yet). We are totally different in personality, demographic etc, we lead very VERY different lives and I admit I felt a bit panicky at the thought of making small talk (I have Aspergers). But you get on with it if the kids click - just like you do when your child makes a friend at school but the only thing you have in common with the parent is that you live in the same area/send your children to the same school.

But again whether you are willing to make friends with people so different is a personal thing. It is of course entirely possible (I want to say probable but that is only based on what I've read about them so far) that the Allens would choose not to socialise with parents who don't follow their philosophy...

The mother I knew started posting about school being a 'prison' just when ours were about school age. It's interesting isn't it, if their methods are criticised they can go batshit, but they are free to criticise schooling etc. hmm, wonder how it would have gone down if I'd suggested the home schooling / unstopping they do is a bit, em prison like in ways.

But then we went our own ways because she expected me to get the primary school to 'flexi school' so we had time up to meet with her as weekends wouldn't be appropriate as was 'family time' so that was the end of that.