Misconceptions over home education and socialisation

[PeachAndorange]

Why is this the case? I’m sick of hearing it as it isn’t true ?
There are HE groups and also other activities at weekends and evenings that any children can go to
Play dates with friends
Family gatherings

All I’m hearing is that my child will be isolated and this was a negative choice .... it’s not and seems it’s just the general consensus that parents do this to isolate and it couldn’t be further from the truth

Totally agree with Bertie and Still about there being misconceptions on both sides. And FWIW I've found school more inclusive than HE for my SEN child! It all depends on what's available locally both school and HE wise.

I've no clue. I work in a home ed group where we have around 20 kids aged 5-10 2 days a week with no parents around and they spend most of the time playing, but you know, they're isolated the friendships are mixed age and the girls and boys play together, it's great. Much better than the half hour lunch break they would get (and for most, used to get) in school.

In the UK at least, education is not mandatory is it?

You can home-school your kids, but you don't even have to if you don't want to. If you chose not to teach your children anything, you are free.
It's a bit scary when you think about it.

I work in a home ed group where we have around 20 kids aged 5-10 2 days a week

that's hardly "home ed" though!

You do come across all stereotypes in the home ed world - the very religious who mix in confined groups, the hothousers with very academic children who lack social skills, the home ed evangelist who only seem to socialise and take pride in referring to their kids as feral :D
But they are the tiny minority most people are shockingly normal.

In the UK at least, education is not mandatory is it?

Yes it is. That's why the local authority are supposed to do home checks to make sure the HE kids are actually being educated. Though in practice, I hear the checks are infrequent and perfunctory.

Not all children find mainstream school suitable. Some children don't find specialist schools suitable. Some children find HE suitable. That's the key here for me... the dc has to find the HE suitable for their needs and have the option of going to mainstream later in their school life if they chose to.

It was suggested to me that our dc was home schooled and I flatly refused as its not in the best interest of my child.

However, it would and does suit some children and as long as the child is progressing well it's really no one else's business

I've had to think a lot about this because the LA had no school place for DS last year (SEN issue). So i had to home school. I am quite positive about home education and i can see more clearly issues with school. Academically it was very easy to ensure the curriculum was covered.

But i did find socialisation very hard. We had play dates with friends and did things like cubs. We never found a HE group so that might be the missing factor. The thing about school that is hard to recreate is the volume of time you spend with people who you may actively dislike, often minimly supervised but you still have to rub along with them. We worked out that during the 3 years of infant school they spend the equivelent of 6 months in the playground with their peers.

There is aldo something different about being with people at the same developmental stage. You do need older role models to lead and copy, you do need younger children so you can learn to lead - but people at the same stage, you learn together and compromise etc.
The only issue with school socislisation is bullying - vitims of bullying arent learning and bullies are learning the wrong things. So itsnt as straight forward as school good / home bad.
But my personal experience was i couldnt create enough opportunities for my child to socialise and thats why we fought and fought for a school.

YANBU, I was on the H.ed boards many years ago and the amount of stupid comments were unimaginable.
Someone once told me if people were negative or criticising our decision, to just say "It works for us" All being well I thought, but this doesn't help them understand what it's really like, or what you can achieve.
Believe me 4 years later I was saying "It works for us"
Good luck OP.

thanks lazylinguist
I remember watching a program about it, and the concept of children completely out of any system, without anyone checking on even their most basic well being - let alone education - was pretty scary.

justincase it's a drop off group for home ed kids, not sure why it doesn't count as home ed? The biggest perk of home ed is being able to do things on your own schedule and taking advantage of the fact that learning happens anywhere.

Well, sometimes it's not a misconception.

Clearly you're an HE parent who thinks that socialisation is important, but some HE parents don't think this. Mine didn't.

Yes education is compulsory in the Uk. According to the Education Act parents are responsible for making sure their children are educated according to age, ability and aptitude, taking into account any special needs. Parents can choose to delegate this responsibility to a school or they can do it "otherwise" (home educate).

The local authorities are not "supposed" to do checks, but they want to so them. They have no right to check unless they think that a child is not being educated according to the Education Act. They usually can't afford to do many checks or support home educators though.

marfisa I am sorry you didn't get to socialise. However, there are children being treated badly at school too and who are bullied and don't have any friends.

How much time do children actually get to socialise at school?

How much time do children actually get to socialise at school?
primary school children? pretty much the entire school day....

Oh dear! Justin

No really, I think they do. Socialising isn’t just hanging out with your mates, it’s group work, lining up, eating lunch and snack, break time, lunchtime, negotiating who gets a turn with what and when (the purple pen, the glue, the scissors) - multiple opportunities over the day.

I can understand why people have questions, though. I guess it’s because other children participate in the weekend / evening / family activities you mentioned as well as additional mixing with their peers during registration / form time, break, lunch time, on school transport and in lessons when they do paired / group work, as well as in assemblies, PE lessons etc etc.

Home schooling does reduce the amount of peer interaction by its very nature. If you’re homeschooling and giving your children lots of opportunities to spend the day mixing with other children with different back grounds / interests etc etc then obviously that’s ideal but I’ve seen a few cases (I was a teacher) where children have been socially awkward around other children because there hasn’t been enough of it.

So, while it may be a misconception for you because you feel your children are very sociable, the questions you face come from people who have valid points about whether homeschooled children ever truly have the same social opportunities to mix with their peers. I genuinely don’t see how they can, given that during the school week they can logistically only mix with other homeschooled pupils and in far smaller numbers than they’d encounter in the average secondary school.

I should add that I’ve taught pupils who have been home schooled (as an intervention tutor) so have some direct experience, but I don’t have any relatives who have done it. I think any parent who can teach ten GCSE subjects to examination standard should be applauded, though.

The thing is family gatherings & groups aren't usually daily so neither is peer interaction. I did child psychology as part of my teaching degree. School provides daily, the chance to learn peer group skills like communication, negotiation, listening, comprehension, sharing, group dynamics, emotional intelligence etc as well as social etiquette & norms, boundaries & routine. All hugely needed in adult life. Also, sadly, stats show Home Ed is often a factor in isolating children deliberately, famous cases like 'Child C' here, the Turpin family in the US. I'd want my child to learn & have the skills I mention, & have them reinforced daily as from experience teaching one day they've got it, the next, maybe they haven't. Revision & re-inforcement is needed. Also, everyone thinks they can teach. It's not just 'chalk & talk' or leave them to search stuff on the Internet, why do you think it requires a degree?

Home ed is not "often" used to isolate children. There's a lot of prejudice on this thread.

Gingerginger, the stats beg to differ if you read the relevant research papers on common factors in child abuse & child death statistics. I'm not plucking it out of thin air, it was part of my studies & also reinforced by a long stint in teaching, then social work.

Oh dear! Justin
why oh dear? Do you have kids in primary school? They are not exactly sitting at a desk quietly doing personal work all day and only interacting with each other at break time.

Of course they are socialising pretty much all through the school day, why do you think they are not?

I think the most important thing about school is dealing with NOT getting along with people. Home Ed doesn't really give you many opportunities to do that.

I think one important difference between school and home ed is that if a child is struggling socially at school (which can certainly happen), then both the school and the family are aware, and can try to support the child. The child has two potential sources of support.

If the parents of a home ed child are failing them, it is quite possible that the child will have no other source of support. Cases of isolation and child abuse in home ed are not the norm, but they do occur.

As a result of my own childhood experience, which did involve isolation and abuse (though not in nearly as extreme a form as the famous cases mentioned above), I am passionately in favour of more oversight of HE families.

I can't count how many times I've come across an article about child abuse by parents, and somewhere in the article (as an inconspicuous detail) is the mention that the child has been taught at home.