Why are so many parents anti-school?

[DrowninginMaryBeardsBeard]

I'm a member of a few homeschool/ unschooling groups as I like their ideas and I want some tips to encourage learning in every day life. My kids go to school. This isn't perfect and both have gone through stages of school refusal. They are genuinely happy now.
But in generally, schools are good right? My kids do so much more at school than I would be able to offer. They have trips, forest school, sports, technology, science labs, art supplies. I could never provide all that.
I get that there are many SEN kids who can't attend school and I have so much sympathy and empathy for those parents and kids. But parents who call school 'twelve years of prison'? Where's the justification for that?
Is it due to the parent's bad experiences? Wanting to be in control?
Term time holidays?
Plus there's the problems with socialising, monitoring screen time, getting them into university with non standard education? It seems like it's quite an extreme choice and I'm not sure I understand it? Most of these parents went to school, so how can they know that not going to school is best for their children? Where are those children's points of reference when they see children go to school?

There are unhinged people in every walk of life, and no matter the subject the ones who are most vocal are the ones who are most batshit. You only have to read every thread in here to see it. Home Ed groups are no different.

@Fionaville some HE kids can go to university. But you have to do qualifications and some HE parents do not facilitate this. Which means for the children to go to university they have to do extra study first after their HE finishes.

@Exasperateddonut I think any more unusual lifestyle choice attracts more than its fair share of these people. I am vegan and vegan groups used to have too many slightly unhinged people. As it has become more mainstream, that is no longer the case.

School is an unnatural environment for children to learn. They’re restricted by the curriculum and forced into less than great friendships especially in small schools. There is little respect for children and they are treated poorly eg not allowed toilet, drinks. Having said that my children are in school because I have to work. Only the youngest is happy. They eldest 2 in general have hated school

@DrowninginMaryBeardsBeard

I think they're brave

If my daughter was that unhappy I'd want to take her out and do a different approach if I could. Which financial I don't think we could.

Children are allowed to use the toilet and have drinks, but there are limits.

IRL I haven’t met anyone at all who is anti school, but then I don’t go on Facebook groups of ‘unschoolers’. So you are probably just interacting with a tiny proportion of the population on these groups and the vast majority think school is ok? For me personally, of course the school system isn’t perfect, but I think it’s a better option for my kids than homeschool, I don’t feel qualified to homeschool them at all, also I have to work, and am too lazy/need the break from them while they are at school . I make the most of the school system we do have, mine are primary age but will fill in any ‘gaps’ I see with tutors, as much support at home as we can give when they get to exams/secondary 🤷‍♀️

I think a lot of the problems with schools are the other kids in them.

It's all very well saying you have to get on with people you don't like but if you are being beaten up/bullied secondary school is a really unpleasant place.

Most primaries don't have that level of violence and/or verbal abuse.

Teacher for 20 years.

control freaks who expect every adult who cares for their child to care for them exactly how the parents wants - these are the parents who complain about ordinary language used to correct a child's behaviour because it is not the words they would use.

I know/knew very few home schoolers, but they were very much like this. They simply couldn't hand over any control to school and teachers. They wanted their child to be treated as an individual at all times, and not to have to fit in with anyone else's rules, or have to compromise in a group.

I'd lost track of those families by the time the kids were teens, so I don't know how they turned out. But I do wonder how they fitted in to the world of work.

@Inmyonesie that's not my children's experiences. They can drink, go to the toilet and have genuine friendships that aren't just my friends kids. Trouble is that HE becomes a bit of an middle class, white echo chamber. Your children will only mix with those who can afford to home educate.

@Inmyonesie do you mean secondary school for not being allowed to drink or use the toilet? I recently went in to observe some lessons in DD primary school and they are allowed to use the toilet whenever they like and have water bottles in the desk and are encouraged to drink often!

And some school kids can go to University.
Will there be some home ed kids who should/could have gone to uni if their circumstances were different? Yes. Just as there are plenty of school kids who could/should have gone, if their home life was different.

I didn't feel those things. Does that help? In fact, I had an amazing childhood and loved most of it! You can't ever know what would have happened, that's always the problem. I think it's odd that you're on home ed groups and seem to have a fairly restricted view of home ed though tbh.

You don't need to 'imagine' when you can just read about the reasons people choose to home educate.

If you think school is wonderful for every child I think you have very rose-tinted glasses!

School is a bit narrow and restricting at times. It felt that way when I was a child, when I was a teacher and now I am a (school) parent.

Home education done well is an amazing thing, a personalised education tailored specifically to a child's interests and needs. But school education is definitely easier if your child can get on with it!

In secondary schools students are not allowed to bring water bottles into specialist rooms like science labs, computer rooms etc. this is because they don't want water spilled all over the computers/ someone drinking sulphuric acid because they think it is a water bottle etc.

So only in some lessons are students allowed to drink when they want.

These are really narrowminded views, you clearly don't know much about home education or the range of people who do it.

@NoCloudsAllowed

Why on earth do you think the school curriculum is a random and chaotic then?

Very quirky way of thinking 🤔

some subjects are not allways going to be everyone's individuals child's favourites subject,
that's called life,

also nowadays they do have chill out space rooms in schools or pastoral care services,

and there is more emphasis on emotional health wellbeing for obvious reasons Covid, lockdowns.

I can see why parents have issues with schools in general, especially if they have experienced bullying, or went through a difficult times cause of bereavement, parents divorcing or any others traumatic experinces,

it's obviously emotionally tricky, problematic emotional minefields then,

it be good in regards of our children's education equation to come into this with a clean slate,
but in reality it can be easier to say this then think like that,

High expections of teachers to be like a cross or aspects of between counsellors , social workers ect...

@SutWytTi so you can hope educate well on benefits as a single mum?

You can HE on benefits as a single mum. But you will not be able to stay on benefits. You will be made to take a job.

Unrealistic expections expected of teachers.

The idea that home ed is for white, middle class people is absolute nonsense. People from all walks of life home educate their children. There are plenty of single parents on very low incomes home educating in our local area; the home ed community is extremely supportive and there are lots of formal and informal groups, activities, and cooperatives to allow parents to work part time, for example.

Agreed

School was absolutely awful for me and for DH. We fully planned to home educate our child. Then we met our child who craved social interaction and decided to try school.

She suffers from many of the same problems we did growing up because like me she has ASD. DH doesn’t quite meet the criteria but he is close. Her school is so much more adaptable though so she is having a much better experience. If she wasn’t, we would pull her.

we still are torn sometimes. Academically she thrived in lockdown. She grew by leaps and bounds when she didn’t have to deal with the problems caused by being in a classroom with other students.

i think many people end up home educating because they or their children really struggle with the school system. It’s not surprising they have some hostility towards a system that failed them.

I personally know 3 single mums who home educate. One is self employed and fits it round HE. One works from home with flexible hours and one is disabled. Our home ed group consists of rich people, people on the breadline and all those in the middle. Plus people of different cultures and beliefs. It really isn't this restrictive little group you seem to think. It's probably more varied than schools in the sense that there is no catchment area.

I think it's a bit of echo chamber effect. There are not that many reasons to be drawn to home ed, and most of them are related to having had a poor experience at school (your child or yourself, sometimes both) and/or believing that home ed is objectively better, therefore school must be crap in comparison due to fundamental aspects relating to it being a school that can't/ won't ever change. There's also a decent chunk of people in the home ed community that are extremely anti any kind of authority/ government/ establishment in general, and a proportion of that group who are outright conspiracists, so they will absolutely never even consider school as they think of it as a tool of the elites.

All of these experiences and views feed off each other culminating in an image of school which is negative-biased, exaggerated, and often quite outdated as well. So you'll get people fixating on bad teachers and then extrapolating that experience to mean every/most teachers are like that. They will pick up any bad press about schools and use that to reinforce their own opinion as well, even if it's irrelevant (e.g. something relating to American schools when they are from England). They aren't generally (IME) interested in positive information about schools or if they do hear of something like that they tend to write it off as "Yeah but that's just one teacher/yeah but that's just that one school, most of them aren't like that" or greet it with an air of pleased surprise "Oh really? That's amazing, so glad they are starting to see!" thinking that the home ed mindset is truly the future of education in general and maybe schools will eventually catch up (this is the optimistic evangelical home edder )

I do think there are home edders who genuinely think yeah - school suits some, home ed suits us, whatever floats your boat is fine. But they seem to be in a minority.

A huge amount of neurodiversity in the home ed community as well - among the parents and the kids. Neurodivergent people often struggle to cope with a mainstream school system and since home ed is much more flexible home ed can suit anybody.