To think that home schooling is a bit cult like?

[WobblyWellies]

This is purely anecdotal but based on a group of friends who are all home schooling now, it makes me feel like there is a cult like element to it. There's definitely a click amongst the mums. One of my friends in the group has changed quite a bit since she started home schooling. She's almost become a bit militant about the whole thing. She often posts things on social media about how terrible schools are for children and how home schooling is much better. I feel like she's stirring things up. I am in fact a teacher but I don't push school on people I meet or social media, it's totally individual choice how you want your child educated. I'm not sure if my friend is out to convert people.

However, I do see homeschooling as a privilege to a certain extent because it relies on a parent not working (or part time) and is self funded for the majority. My friend has a house with acres of land and woods, she does loads of outdoor learning with her kids which is great but I wouldn't say it's the norm to have that.

So this group of friends are very clicky over homeschooling and it feels like a them and us scenario now.

Aibu to say it's like a cult for some people?

If I don’t think school is the reality of later life either. No where else in later life I can think of where you put 30 plus completely different people together for 6 hours a day and expect them to get on and I’m not an advocate of home schooling

Sorry.
Meant to say it seems to be a very socially conservative thing to do. In the US it is usually done by religious fundamentalists.

I know quite a few families who Home educate due to my line of work. I would say many do so due to the lack of support for their children with SEN. For them it's a necessity, not a choice. It requires dedication and time and resources. I got a taste of Home education during lockdown and it wouldn't be for me. But each to their own.

I home educate (its not home schooling in the UK). When we first started HE school friends and acquaintances were very judgemental. One broke contact immediately. Two so judgemental it just was not possible to continue the friendships. One had no judgement, Two fully supportive of my reasoning for home educating. Whenever I bumped into acquaintances from school I got the embarressed/awkward vibe. I was aware I had been talked about behind my back (came out in a court case, teachers gossiping too, v unpleasant and unnecessary). Very cliquey and unpleasant.
The judgemental ones were clearly taking my decision personally? I am not evangelical about it. If attacked (as they did) I repeated the reasons and some of the benefits and round up with, but it's not for every child, many do better at school, and vice versa. That still did not save friendships. Nowt so queer as folk.
As for cult like. In 10 years I've seen so many come and go from the scene. You find those HEers who are being judged tend to post most about the HE positives on social media, and can appear a bit MLM. A number of lovely religious families (v nice mums and children, had no idea for years they were regular church goers). Some hippy families (fun to know but I still don't believe in crystals or angels, and all are now anti vaxxers which concerns me). Parents who do it as a fashion status, they never stay the course. Parents who want to HE from the start (can also be zealous in a defensive way). So so so many SeND children or children with medical conditions mismanaged dangerously so at school (we're talking diabetes, ehlers danlos etc). And a growing cohort of teenagers who cannot deal with the stress of the school environment.
Cult like? Depends who your friends are, and if they are aware of being continually judged by friends and or relatives?
Personally, I'm still on the fence. HE mums can be just as cliquey. You still get bullying in HE. Same as at school. Its a case of what is best for YOUR child, no one else's. Only you as a parent know what is best for your child.
Personally I really valued our school friendships. It's a shame our school friends could not be a bit more open minded and accepting of others choosing a different route. But they also judged me for being vegetarian so generally judgemental (again I don't talk about it, it's raised by others looking to judge and sometimes be rather rude about something that is none of their business).
Meh, I would put you firmly in the judgemental teacher brigade. Maybe crack open your mind a bit and be interested so they don't feel so defensive? Be a supportive friend? Unless there is more to this?

Yeah, sometimes homeschool groups get like that. It's bonding over a similar lifestyle and they start to do a lot of things together. You also get the recent convert enthusiasm. A lot of that is come by honestly, because you do need the support, and a lot of people call them crazy so they get defensive too. Like any primarily 'mum group' thing it can turn into a weird clique unfortunately, compounded by the fact that most of us are rebellious weirdos anyway 😄

Fwiw - our homeschool community is certainly not made up of the very privileged. There's a huge range but many are making pretty extreme sacrifices to be able to do it, we have single parents and very poor families etc.

Usually they settle down when the kids get older. Parenting teens is a humbling experience and a great leveller 😬

Been homeschooling over a decade, seen a lot.

In my experience social skills aren’t taught in mainstream schools either. Most kids just pick them up naturally without any specific teaching which is great for majority but if you have a kid with asd that can’t then they may actually benefit from specialist provision (tough to get) or home schooling where there can be more focus on the actual teaching of social skills which is something that is going to help them later in life, being stuck in a mainstream school and constantly excluded isn’t really going to help with this. My asd child is now in specialist and a large proportion of their time is spent on social skills, managing emotions etc. I had to fight to get him into this school including taking la to a tribunal and unfortunately its just not an option for everyone as there aren’t enough places in schools like the one he’s at. When I was going through my really tough times when he was in mainstream then a lot of advice I got included “have you considered home schooling?”. I knew from early on I didn’t want to home school, selfish as it sounds I need a break from my child, but I can see how lots of people get pushed into it without their being another option

For those who commented that home educating families are a bit "cliquey" and don't integrate particularly with school parents, and wonder why this might be....just read through this thread.

The judgement and assumption is oozing through the comments. The utter insistence that children can ONLY learn certain things through school is utterly ridiculous. Apparently if I home educate my children I'm either anxious, a conspiracy theorist or a right wing fanatic.

My DC went to school until they were 10, Y5. Lockdown occurred. We all realised how much more peaceful life was at home, and how much they preferred learning in a different style. I loved the experience of educating them and they were very keen not to return to school So we deregistered.

Incidentally, I work full time too. I'm self employed so I can flex my hours around the DC. I work very late at night frequently, but it's worth it.

Home educated families in this country are absolutely persecuted in some counties. Other counties are bloody wonderful in supporting families to make the best choices, even if that means home ed. And I'm not a conspiracy theorist, nor am I against school. I was a school governor for many years; there are lots of wonderful schools and teachers. Some children thrive in school and are utterly miserable in a home ed set-up. Others do better in a home ed structure.

In this country we are all brought up not to question school as the "right" place for children to learn. But this isn't always the case. Most of us don't ever question it because it's not easy to accommodate. If I was still employed, I certainly couldn't. I'm extremely fortunate to have the choice. And it took a global pandemic and everyday life changing for me to step back and think, hold on, this works so much better.

The home ed community all have a massive eye roll at the comments re socialisation etc because they're so far away from reality, it's ridiculous. And as for safeguarding, only a tiny, tiny percentage of children who are abused are home educated. Most attend school. Contrary to popular belief we are very tightly monitored. I have to provide reports to my local authority showing exactly what I'm doing, and what progress my children are making. We're not given free rein to do fuck all.

The home ed community is frequently ostracised, mocked or just roundly criticised because we're opting for a different path. There are many, many examples of home ed children who have gone on to have wonderful careers, and are confident, successful individuals. Some children are home educated due to bullying or SEN. So all the anecdotes about children who were home educated lacking social skills etc, maybe have a think about what their journey has been, and why they might have turned to home education in the first place. Not all problems stem from home ed - many children go through hell before their parents pull them out of school.

I knew I'd hate reading this thread, and I was right. It's just bloody frustrating. So many ignorant people just being rude about something they know nothing about. Also, the term you're looking for is home education. Home schooling is what's done when a child is off school long term sick etc. We aren't a school nor do we seek to replicate it. Hence home education, not home school.

@Morph22010 I don’t think school is the reality of later life either. No where else in later life I can think of where you put 30 plus completely different people together for 6 hours a day and expect them to get on and I’m not an advocate of home schooling

A workplace??

@DanielTheGhostGangbanger
I don’t know if your a regular on here but I am and I appreciate your post but it’s a bit too long and many people will just think they can’t be bothered reading such a long post and not even read it.

Your post is very relevant.
x

Well said @DanielTheGhostGangbanger.

People have some very strange ideas of home education. We home educated for years.

To people who have never home-educated, home educators must seem like a homogenous group of social outcasts. But in reality, it isn't like that at all.

The people we came across are much more varied than if we had simply sent them to the school down the road which is primarily white middle class.
During our time, we came across people of all kinds of religions, different socio-economic backgrounds, cultures, heritages and nationalities.
It was like the UN. We knew people from the UK, France, America, South Africa, India, Ireland, Germany, Portugal, Italy, to name a few. We knew Catholics, CofE, Methodist, Baptist, Jehovas Witnesses, 7th Day Adventists, Muslims, atheists, agnostics.
The parents' occupations were doctors, dentist, software engineers, unemployed/non-working, carers, accountants, sales reps, retail workers, solicitors, writers, chefs, scientists, civil servants, social workers and lots of ex-teachers just to name a few. And there were some people into MLM, too - there's really no escape from MLM, it seems.

We knew people who lived in huge houses with acres of land and tiny terraced houses, new builds, 1930s semis and Victorian red-bricks and those who lived in boats and caravans. Had they simply gone to the local school, they would have only known children who lived in houses very similar to ours.

The reasons why people home educate are so varied. Some people chose it from the start and others come to it because of difficulties at school - usually bullying or un-met SEND needs and some that aren't particularly struggling at school but still want to try home education. And those who chose it from the start do it for different reasons. There are some who do it because they disagree with mass education, school teaching methods, but others do it because work means they move around a lot and don't want to keep changing schools, religious reasons or to avoid religious teaching.

People home educate in so many different ways from completely child-led to very structured. Some follow the national curriculum and some don't. Some are at home a lot and some are always out.

Also, in reality, home educators are not all in agreement- just like the parents of school-going children don't always agree.
Everyone knows a home ed family who they would not choose to spend time with, for example. It isn't one great big love-in or cult.

Home educators aren't all insular either, they do all kinds of clubs and activities too and their parents are just as likely, if not more likely, to be volunteering in things like scouts and other community groups.

Most home educators are massively concerned about socialisation and put a lot if effort in to ensure their children are isolated. However depending on the child and the area, home ed children may have fewer friends but from a wider age-span or a wider geographical area.
However, the number of genuine friends (as opposed to classmates and acquaintances) that school children have varies too. Very social children will have many friends but quiet or more introverted children may have only one or two. Home educated children are the same!

Some home ed children come out with fantastic grades at GCSE and A level, some come out with average grades and some (like school pupils) don't get any at all. Some go to university and others don't.
And some home ed children go onto be doctors and vets and others go on to be circus performers and everything in between.

It's such a common but lazy generalisation to assume all home educators are either anarchists or hot-housing elitists.

even in a workplace you don’t end up with completely different people to the same extent as a school, people tend to go into a job in which they have some sort of interest on the whole and that suits their personality, so an introvert for example probably wouldn’t go for a job in sales where they are having to deal with people all day. School is just the whole cross section of interests and personality’s thrown in together and expected to get on. Then in the workplace if people don’t get on their is the option of leaving and finding somewhere else which is a lot more difficult with a school.

This.

Not sure where that fits in with parents being "weird as fuck and totally co-dependant" though 🤔

Also OP, you're a teacher but spell clique as click?

Disclaimer: the more I was exposed to HEing, the less I ever wanted to ever do it. Most things HErs extolled as advantages of HE: I saw as disadvantages. And (imho) HErs are definitely far more prejudiced against school-ed than other way around. No one else says this and it's definitely not the most important thing... most of the long-term HE kids I know are under-achievers academically as adults. Which makes sense if you were raised being strongly told how unimportant and low value are things like: material wealth, qualifications, fitting in with your community, prestige....

That said, I've know a dozen families who did HE over the decades. New HErs especially can be especially evangelical about HEing. But among themselves, sometimes ferrets in a sack. Big diversity of perspectives and strategies. Some more hands on than others. None of the HErs I know are "unschooling is wonderful!" believers. Most of them despaired & were sneery about unschooling. About half of them only HE'd for a relatively short period, maybe 2-3 years. It's a very broad movement.

And also: "Even doing those things it's still a small pool of like minded kids; hobbies and special interest." - @tobee

You're assuming that home educators are a homogenous group of people who all think the same - they aren't and they don't.

My children probably saw more diversity from a cultural, racial, socio-economic and political perspective in the people they had to mix with at home ed groups and activities.

if they had gone to the local schools they would have mainy mixed with middle class white children of Conservative voters, because that's the demographic of the school catchment area we live in.
it is difficult to see how that would have been more varied.

I home schooled my eldest two children for a while. What I learned is that you definitely do need other home schooling families around for support which is perhaps why this group appear ‘clicks’. My main reason were both children were July and August birthdays and I didn’t feel they were ready for a school environment. At the time I was working part time, opposite shifts to my partner so it worked well.

I had to stop though when I had my younger children as there simply wasn’t the time to devote to all the children’s needs and we had moved area (not by choice) away from the support we’d had.

I became a single parent a few years later so HE has never been an option since as you do need to be able to support the family financially too.

I traveled in my late 20s with a guy that had been homeschooled by his lawyer mother. He was very interesting and very bright but socially awkward and a smidgen odd. Home schooled til Alevels.

I also have an American friend, the middle of 3 daughter, part of a very Christian group, who were homeschooled through high school to keep them pure. They married the first person they kissed.

She was charming, traveling in a safe way, lots of home skills, jam making traditional American recipes, knitting, sewing etc. She'd have preferred school. But they did get through the curriculum by April so got to have a really long summer break.

Most parents who homeschool do so out of necessity because the state school system is wholly inadequate for children with any kind of SEN; and many of those kids won't have a diagnosis of ASD but they will be struggling in mainstream, usually in a social sense. So it's often done in desperation at a crap state system and a lack of any alternatives. Also, in terms of the actual "education" that state schools provide, they are right, it is crap. And I say this as a teacher. We churn out minions who learn to do as they are told and question nothing; it's important for maintaining the status quo. God forbid we should encourage children to think critically. If we did, those at the top would be in trouble.

"In terms of statics, privately educating children do better than state educated and actually home schooled children do better on average than privately educated children." @Aretheyhavingalaugh - where is this statistic from?

"However, I do see homeschooling as a privilege to a certain extent because it relies on a parent not working (or part time) and is self funded for the majority."

Everyone who I know does it because there is no suitable school for their school.
Some 'chose' in that they pulled their child out of school because of what was happening in school ( child's needs not being met).
One was told by the school to choose between exclusion or home educating.

Others had no choice because their was no school for their child. Some of these children actually have 'education other than at school' but this was provided after huge battles with LA who didn't want to fund it even though they couldn’t offer a school place.

He was very interesting and very bright but socially awkward and a smidgen odd. Home schooled til Alevels

See. He's not like this because he's home schooled. He was like this anyway because he's very likely to be autistic. This is why the mum has chosen to home school because her kid was probably being excluded and bullied at school.

I find Home Educators fascinating I inadvertently stumbled on a network of them during covid where we attended a local forest school. I typically found a degree of evangelism (they were passionate about doing the best for their children), a rejection of mainstream education (for many reasons) and often an element of wanting to live an alternative lifestyle without so much government intervention.

To be honest I agreed with a lot of it, i generally think our society is geared up now to get women into some form of work so they are contributing £££ to the economy. To do that there needs to be childcare/full time schooling. I don’t think that’s necessarily best for children especially primary age.

Personally for my family I would love a hybrid method of home education where kids are in school part time and home educated the rest. It doesn’t exist so my child goes to school but I certainly see why parents opt out of traditional schooling.

Do you worry that they'll miss out on the social side of school?

Academic performance is important, but isn't hanging with your friends, playing silly games and chatting over lunch important too?

My son's a similar age to your eldest and whilst I can see some benefits to homeschooling, I can't imagine keeping them back from the "softer" benefits of school. Mine loves preschool at the moment.

I don’t see it as very likely that this persons children will be entering the ‘normal’ work place (or work at all) from their post about incredible luxury.

What do people think the child would prefer? I always feel sad for home schooled children, surely they don't get the same
Social interaction with friends 🤷🏻‍♀️ I am however poorly educated on home schooling but I always wonder if the child would pick home schooling over mainstream school x