A wave of illiterate “home schooled” children

[RedSkyatNight25]

Prepared to get torn apart, and I know many homeschool because the school environment isn’t right for their children (SEN, sensory issues - whatever else) and their needs aren’t met by school with a chronic lack of SEN placements and too much demand etc. I’m not naive to that. I also know some parents with adequate resource will ensure their children have a rounded education whilst being homeschooled.

But there seems to be a movement to homeschooling by people who are simply anti establishment with a point to prove. Their grammar and communication on social media tells me they’re not equipped to homeschool a child. Not least I think the socialisation and soft skills school provides are hugely important too. I suspect most of these parents either haven’t considered the benefits of school or hugely underestimated it, especially past primary are parents really equipped to teach ALL the subjects with sufficient skill if they lack the knowledge themselves? Are they not underestimating the skills and expertise of qualified teachers?

AIBU to think it’s really concerning? These are the next generation of our workforce and infrastructure. I personally think we are hugely privileged to live in a country with free education - I know it’s not perfect but I’m not convinced homeschooling is better for a vast majority.

Of course it depends on the individual that’s the point I was making, you can’t just write it off as ‘unrealistic socialization’.
I have lifelong friends from both primary and secondary school, not saying everyone does.

So children shouldn't be home educated because they might make lifelong friends at school. How about football? My son made lifelong friends from his football club, should we make all kids play competitive football?

I'm genuinely glad for you that that was your experience as a child and parent, but it is not shared by many others, and for some the reality is horribly dark.
For some it was pretty much the worse thing that could have been inflicted on them.

Post Warning: don't read beyond this if unvarnished reality of how bad things can be is too much.

The "lifelong friendship, resilience and shared history" for mine, was not friendships, just being terrorized, bullied, injured, sexually assaulted, and for one, as well as all that, literal attempts made on their life requiring police protection to attend school.

For another of their cohort with learning difficulties it was to be lured away to be gang raped and have drain cleaner poured over them to try and destroy the forensic evidence afterwards. Their terrible screams as it burnt their organs where what brought attention to what was being done to them by their merciless school cohort peers, as a direct result of their "long term close association with peers in school."
Two others where simply murdered by their school cohort peers, but because it wasn't on the premises (one was outside) how they came to be the targets is simply ignored.

Could anyone possibly call this 'valuable socialization?' They are not alright, they are unlikely to ever be alright.
Mine, who had nothing to do with it, other than as a victim, is also not alright and holds survivors guilt for thinking if they had been listened to about the nature of those perpetrators, this might not have happened to this person, and also lives with the knowledge while they couldn't have been lured they could have been seized and bundled, and it could just as easily equally been them, as they had been threatened, survived a 'lower' sexual assault, and also seen as someone so low in their peer hierarchy as to be suitable for what was called 'downloading.' It has not served them well.

Some of those who did it where caught and are being punished by loss of their freedom, which brings no relief to those suffering the life long effects of that being their "long term close association with peers in school."
Others who sexually assaulted, manhandled, filmed and jeered, but where not considered the leaders, are already back out on the local streets playing their parts in more violence, and mine have to live alongside them constantly aware that they are known potential targets for them, as lifelong connected school peer association makes these dangerous violent people feel they 'own' them because of their shared history and knowledge of them.

They also happily try to face off and intimidate me as the mother of their prey and thus something to target. Their siblings, cousins, nieces, and nephews are all also potential targets by association to these 'shared histories.'
We can't move, and must suffer and try to be resilient to all this, while others gaily say as they don't have these consequences, it's all good and why wouldn't you welcome all comers to your childrens lives?

For one of mine their 'shared history' is being the survivor of those now serving life sentences in HMP, some for the above, others for gang murders, while they attempt resilience in living with the MH effects, physical scars, and what now look to be lifelong injuries inflicted by them, still causing them pain and disability. The 'shared history' haunts them daily.

That so called 'socialization' and how to try and recover from it and build a successful adult life despite it, has actually been very valuable to the children they have gone on to help working within the education system, and I am proud of them for using it in such a way, but the price paid for a childhood based on such lived experience was way, way, way, to high and the dark side of that 'valuable' coin is silent suffering still and periodic screams of terror at night as an adult.

Those younger than that one, have thankfully 'suffered the loss' of having none of those experiences, and just normal good friendships with mainly (but not exclusively) home or alternatively educated others, as well as some of those peers school siblings, and school attending members of clubs etc they have struck up friendships with, and a good education, and listen up to the older ones about how to stay out of the sphere of the violent criminals who have that supposedly 'valuable' 'shared school peer history' with them.

Um I said nothing of the sort. I was disagreeing with a sweeping generalization that’s all. I don’t doubt for a minute that some people have a terrible time at school and home schooling is their only option. But more than one thing can be true!

It might be a loss for some but it isn't a given that it's a loss. My time at school hasn't given me any of those things. My experience is not all socialization is valuable, in fact some scars you for life.

You are lucky that you have no understanding of that.

Can you see your sweeping generalisations? Eg all socialization is valuable. Would you honestly expect Elleherd to feel that,?

That all sounds awful, I wasn’t saying good experience was universal but then neither is your experience. Just pointing out there can be value even if that’s not what you’ve found. And, as I said, to the other poster I don’t argue anywhere that home schooling is wrong or worse/ better. Or that I don’t empathize with people who have had a very difficult time. More that everyone could do with a little nuance rather than blanket dismissal and defensiveness

No she might not feel that, but the whole world doesn’t need to write off the experience of school because she doesn’t agree with it’s value.
maybe I should have said ‘all POSITIVE socialization is valuable’ and some people do have positive school experiences and SOME children do benefit hugely from it

To be fair I haven’t been too impressed by the literacy standards of kids who go to regular school…

Yes I wouldn't have posted any such response to your revised statement, because I entirely agree. Many children do well and benefit, but those who do not, are expected to be accepted collateral damage.

And this is the point. We don't have universal experiences, but when people object to those home educating, they so often do so from a place of choice and privilege that they just assume to be normal, as if that was what we where walking away from and choosing not to be part of.

Traditionally the lovely alternative MC families where in this position of choices, but for so many of us nowadays, that's just not our story but we're treated as if it is.

Like many I have photo's of my older ones on their first day, all lick spittle smart in their new slightly oversize uniforms, photographed by their proud mum full of hopes and dreams, having worked hard to ensure them kitted out and fitting in, just before we set off, thinking they where about to be making new friends and doing exciting things beyond what I'd ever be able to give them, with no idea how it was all to actually play out.

I also have their first few annual school photo's as little faces went from beaming at the camera in nursery class, to haunted unsmiling unsettling captures as they went up the years, that still I paid for, because I wanted them to feel they belonged and that this would pass...

I would have absolutely loved to have had my children go to half decent schools, been given decent education, had normal friends, and great experiences, staff who didn't predate them, (one of ours who tried to target one of my Ds's joined the HMP crowd for what they'd been at) as well as the standard 'falling outs' and 'leveling' that takes place and teaches without deep harm, and freed me up to have had an education, and a career, and a pension, instead of what I've had to do to keep us afloat and give us what others would not grant us.

I believed (still do) deeply in education, and back then the idea that all teachers where better than me, and was in awe of their superiority, and having not experienced much education myself, listened and obeyed the claims of what would make school successful, and entered it fastidiously believing in this 'partnership with parents' that was then sold. It was smoke and mirrors for the likes of us.

Such a situation of decent schools, would indeed have potential value and I'm absolutely not anti school per se, but I am anti the destruction of children and childhood to allow those with choices to gain them by the channeling of a slice of of us into hell holes and sink schools, and then failing to acknowledge that's the price paid by our children, so that their children may congregate in healthy leafy environments with others whose parents have at least vaguely aligning values and care what their kids do, and 'key management personnel' may cream off public tax money to send their children to good private schools.

Three of mine that have been home educated have taken themselves into schools as their careers, very much encouraged by me.
But they are not the sort of schools they had childhood access to. They work in fundamentally decent, nurturing places, all be it with the inevitable flaws that any education system has, and I periodically attend performances and similar their pupils put on and see what a good school and good school life can look like, but they aren't places that any of mine or many like me can access as places of education for our DC's or GDC's.

So when the positives are lauded as universal experiences supposedly being removed, discounted, or ignored, by those home educating, I will stand up and say, they are no more our universal experiences, than ours are universal for those with actual and better choices.

The issue is too many people readily dismiss the effects of negative socialisation and refuse to acknowledge them.

Poverty and losing the family home or work full time was the choice I had.

@Monty27 Entirely understand that, hear it and sympathize.
But had your Dc's situation pushed you to it you probably too would have taken it.

We where lucky to be renters so didn't have the potential to loose a family home, though at one point we did face eviction. It was just choose poverty, working full time at nights / unsocial hours, paying for 'childcare' that didn't qualify for assistance, exhaustedly limping through, while I figured out how on earth to up my game and what educating actually meant.

The alternatives at the time where unthinkable: wait to see if (one) Dc died next time, wait to see if terror caused them to succeed in taking their own life first, give them away into 'care', or remove them to safety regardless of any other possible consequences.

We each try to make the best decisions we can with what choices we have and what we face at the time, and accept the consequences. Yours was probably what was the best for you and yours at that time in your circumstances.

If I had known then what I know now about how to do things it could have been better, which is why I post openly about our journey

I met my best friend in high school I'm now 41 and she's still my best friend 💜

Well that proves what I said, depends on the individuals and how life develops. It isn't really a reason why every child should be in school.

Children's books are often labelled suitable for 7-9 years or whatever - so any parent should have an idea if their child is up to speed or not.
Just sit and read with them regulary.

Mine were home educated (not home schooled) I sent them for the socializing, pe, art, music etc plus thinking ahead to secondary level.
I taught them the academic stuff as there were some teachers whose knowledge was amazingly lacking. My DCs were often in trouble for questioning what the teachers told them.

In school it really matters if a child is not 'up to speed' as they will struggle to engage with classwork once past a certain point.

The Ofsted from our local secondary stated that "Around 60% of pupils enter the school in Year 7 with reading skills below those expected
for their age"
I find that figure quite shocking.

In home ed if they take a bit longer to get up to speed it really doesn't matter. I had two early fluent readers and one who wasn't 'up to speed' until they were about 8. I fear they would have been lost in a classroom but instead we read anything they needed reading and acted as scribe where necessary, discovered they were great at strategy games (and excelling in that kept their confidence up), we sat and read their Pokémon cards to them at Pokémon tournaments until they had memorised enough not to need help. As a result, they developed a better memory too than they might otherwise.

That’s not true. If a child is in mainstream school the parents don’t need permission to home educate even if the child has an EHCP.