For not wanting my kids to mix with 'them'?

[ConcernedParent]

I suspect this may come across as snobbish and namby pamby so I've name changed.

Basically I am very concerned about my children's future.

We live in a city that has been voted the worst place to bring up kids year after year. There are smack heads on every corner, drunks, chavs, fishwives...everywhere.

My boys are not allowed to play out because I do not want them mixing with the local kids. This is because most of the locals have at least one relative who has been in prison and the kids are heading down the same path. My kids are too good for that so they are not allowed to mix. Instead, they do out-of-school activities to socialise and keep active. They are not allowed to 'hang around' on the streets and never will be.

My eldest son is coming up to secondary school age. I am VERY close to withdrawing him from education after year 6. I have a feeling he will be bullied at secondary school and he will be dragged down with the other asbo offspring that go there.

I am thinking of home-schooling him and then my youngest when he's 11. I've just been reading ex-teachers accounts of what goes on in secondary schools in this city with drugsm alcohol, assault, pregnancy and I just do not want my kids exposed to it or involved in it.

I'm not talking about secluding them from their peers completely, I will keep them well socialised with clubs etc but I don't want them mixing with these types of kids AT ALL.

AIBU?

I have met an awful lot of adults and children, who are very very well off money wise but certainly do not have a high IQ lol!!! Doesn't actually go hand in hand does it!!

Absolutely. My key requirement for a private primay and a private secondary school for my children is not that the other parents are posh and rich but that those children are the one in ten or one in 5 who can pass a very competitive exam or test and that 99.9% get A - A* in their GCSE etc. IN other words I am paying for the children to be put amongst other very bright children (just like our state grammar school system used to do). The fact some of the other children there may be relative well off as most parents are paying £10k a year for day school fees, is an added bonus as they tend to be from homes where education is favoured and the parenst have financial stability.Win win all round and all comes about when a woman picks a high paid career, works hard at it and is then able to buy a peer group and set of friends for her children in the way the original poster wants.

"able to buy a peer group" hmmm that's a phrase I find frightening in its coldness.
It takes a bit more than money to give your children a good network of friends and classmates, though money helps, of course! But effort can get you a long way too, without you having thousands of pounds at your disposal.

OK, more suggestions ConcernedParent:

Do you rent privately or are you a council tenant? Are you on any council or housing association lists? If you are a council tenant is this why you know you can't move easily? If your area is so bad, presumably you can't do a house swap as no one would want to swap with you. If you have low priority on the lists is it worth appealing to get yourself more priority? Have you taken advice on this?

If your children were to travel an hour on public transport each way to school, would they find anything better? FWIW I am aiming to get my ds2 into a school that will require this sort of bus journey. The school (a non selective one) is oversubscribed, but I have researched their very specific admissions requirements and we now have a year to prepare ds2 to meet them. If ds2 doesn't get a place, I will appeal. If we lose the appeal I will make sure ds2 is on the waiting list and I will phone up every term to see if anyone has left.

I have got my sons to ovesubscribed schools in the past - my ds1 has been to two primary schools which have far more applicants than places. IME places do become available when famililes leave the area. At my sons oversubscribed church primary, about six children in his class have left since reception year and children on the waiting list have taken their places. IME It's always worth being on the waiting list and keeping in contact with the schools you like.

Agree with suggestions about getting private tutors to supplement what is being taught at school. Or look into getting bursaries from private schools. Do your boys have good singing voices? Can you look into Choral scholarships? You need very good advice here - do lots of research.

I too would not want my son to go to a school with 18% getting good GCSE grades. I do sympathise with you.

batters, I wish our local comprehensives got those sort of results!

I lived in an area like that until recently, actually where we were was lovely but the town centre was horrific. We moved and it was the best thing we have ever done. I never stopped dd playing with anyone though.

I think saying to someone get off your arse and do something about your area is all very well but quite unrealistsic. I lived in a shithole area for years, I was a homestart volunteer, taught in local schools, on endless groups etc and did my best but although I think I made improvements the area was a shithole.

Xenia I think my dd has been reading your posts. She is 7 and we were talking about her aunty who is a nurse. I said to her would you like to be a nurse and she said
"Oh no Mummy doctors earn far more money."
I then said so you would like to be a doctor, she replied
"Doctor, fashion designer, rock star which ever earns more money, why would you choose a poor job"

I totally sympathise and suspect you may live near me also (Hull?)

Almost all our schools are crap and the decent ones are near on impossible to get into unless you litrally live next door to them.

I'm naming 3 good schools on DS's form, all of which I have a very slim chance of getting him into. If it comes to the worst case scenario...I will allow him to go to the lesser of two evils which is still a terrible school (under 20% passmark) and see how it goes. First sign of bullying or him mixing with the wrong people, he'll be out and home-schooled.

All of this will be temporary whilst I continue to try and move house of course.

And my kids are not allowed to play with locals either. I don't care if that makes me snobby. I don't want my 10 year old smoking behind some empty house thank you very much...and peer pressure is stronger than people give credit for!

I also believe that some of the posters who have reacted angrily on here do not appreciate just how bad some areas can be.

Right, stop all the politically correct shit. I grew up on a council estate, dad unemployed a lot and not there a lot of the time. However, my mum did a fab job at keeping me on the straight and narrow and I went to university, got a fab job and am basically extremely fortunate now and my kids and very privileged, for which I am grateful every day. The OP is NOT being unreasonable to want the same for her kids and to keep them away from bad influences. Snobbery is about making assumptions about things you know nothing about. The OP knows more than she needs to to make the right decisions for her kids. So, if you are now chippy and think you got where you are because of where you came from, think again, it's in spite of where you came from. So, Concerned Parent, good on you and all the best.

Indeed. Children tend to be influenced by who is around them and as they get older it's more their peers not their family that is the influence. It's one reason I don't like boarding schools - too many too rich children, too much a smoking and drugs ethos and no parental influence around to curb it. It's another reason I want the chdilren at very selective academdic schools where 100% of the class will go not just to university but very good universities. They then follow that herd, particularly those who are more easily led.

It is interesting to speculate why my mother kept us away from her 52 first cousins and their chidlren when we were children. My mother moved class very effectively. We only really noticed it at her funeral as there were such stark contrasts between our family and those of her relatives who turned up - lovely people but it was such a gulf and she seems to have done it in part by distancing herself from her large family and she had no siblings and no father anyway.

Xenia, even though I am not in a position to pay for my kids to go to private schools, and am fairly lucky that they go to decent state schools, I do actually agree with you. In that the way you descibe does give children the best chance in life. But not every woman can achieve that!

So, had I planned this far ahead at age 16 and planned a nice career for myself, and given myself 10 years to climb it and get that high salary, all well and done.

But...what about women who have no clue what they want to do when leaving school? And even if they did pick something that pays well, do not have the ability/intelligence?

unless women have it all mapped out it is very easy to find oneself 10 years down the line after leaving school, in a rubbish paid job with certainly no spare cash for private eduation for the children.

Oh Xenia, that sounds so sad- distancing yourself from lovely people who are your own family because of class

My family have also done a bit of a class journey over the last 100 years (some of them much higher than my branch), but we've all stuck together and it's a lovely thing to have, that sense of belonging that transcends transitory things like money and status.

OP - YANBU to want better for your children. Have you met the headteachers at the secondary schools? SOME heads in poorly performing schools are trying to turn them round, and have the passion and conviction to do it.

If not, then I would do everything in my power to move ASAP. And I certainly would try to keep my kids away from (this sounds really old fashioned) bad influences. It's all very well saying you should get involved in the community blah blah blah but you can't turn round a whole town all by yourself. Peer pressure is a serious influence on teenagers.

We moved house when I was a teenager and I spent a year in a sink school. Terrifying. I was so glad that a. we weren't staying there for eve and b. I'd been to good (state) schools previously and had parents who read books and so on so I knew there was more to life than getting pregnant at 16.

YANBU over this, I have taught in some very difficult schools. Even where the staff are good, the nice children can suffer (by nice children I mean their personalities - am not commenting on background!). Its difficult to stay focused in a class where many of the students refuse to behave in an acceptable manner. Class sizes can make it difficult for the teacher to give a lot of attention to the pupils who are trying learn.
Mind you did see some terrible bullying when in working in a private girls school!

I agree with moving. But if moving is out of the question, then you are doing the right thing with all the after school stuff with people more like you and your values. Churches are great places for that sort of community thing.
Hats off to anyone that home-schools, if you think you are up for it go for it. It's the ultimate way of influencing what your children learn, but make sure it's the one that suits you and the needs of your child.
Good luck!

I've never distanced myself from anyone but my motehr found the 52 cousins etc a bit over whelming I think or perhaps she was so clever and well educated she ended up feeling different from them. I'm not sure. She did still see some of them after we left home and one of those a girl only in her 20s helped organise her care at home when she was dying. What was interesting was she kept us her children - the ones who were middle class and went to Oxbridge etc away from her working class roots. Or perhaps it was simpler than that - some people don't get on with their extended family so they confine meeting them to CHristmas.

I didn't mean everyone could earn enough to pay fees although plenty of women return to jobs paid £20k a year solely to spend 100% of it on fees or get children to choir schools by helping them with their singing when they're 5 and 6 or whatever. But girls intheir teens what's to stop them doing what I did in my teens and looking at what jobs pay what and making an informed choice> It's not very hard to find out that information.

I am with Xenia.

There is nothing wrong with wanting more for your DCs than a life of crime.

Peer groups are massively influential for children.

My questions to the OP are:

(i) If you feel this way, how did you end up in this situation?
(ii) Can you really HE hormonal teenagers in a range of subjects that you in all likelihood have forgotten?
(iii) Do you think it is reasonable to isolate your children like this?

All best