Convince me to not homeschool..?

[TawnyT]

Hello MN. I think we're going to homeschool my DD.

DD is 2 now. DP and I both work currently and she's in nursery 4 days a week (I work PT). We jointly earn about 150k and would loose a third of that if/when I quit work to homeschool. Based on our current ongoings its financially feasible.

I just don't think our school system quite cuts it anymore. Not sure it was ever great really, but the attendance crisis, increase in bad behaviour and decrease the number and quality of teachers, the introduction of questionable 3rd party teaching material, increased focus on exam results, and generally bad reports from teachers/sudents on their current school experience... has me thinking there might be a better way to do things.

We're considering homeschooling and potentially travelling a bit (DP can work from anywhere). We would enrol in a local homeschool programme while in the UK (there's lots in our area) to cover the social aspect and provide a bit of structure to work to. DP and I currently work from home so we know we can spend a lot of time together quite comfortably and are good at instilling a work-like structure at home. We'd let DD have input on what to learn and when, and give the option of traditional schooling if she wated to...

It feels like a massive step though, and so against the norm. So I'd love to get other views and opinions... has anyone homeschooled and loved it? Hated it? Why? What worked, what didn't work? Anything I haven't thought about? Anyone having a great experience with schools (as a parent or teacher) and think I should reconsider?

So, we home educate our 6 and 8 year olds. We decided to home educate when my eldest was 2.5. I was a teacher before having my children (there are a lot of us in the home ed community)

One is very social, welcomes new children into our regular home ed groups like a pro, makes friends where ever we go, and can hold a conversation freely with children (both schooled and home educated) and adults. She attends a mix of home ed and afterschool/weekend classes.

The other is much more reserved, and takes a long time to feel comfortable in a friendship and has not attended classes until recently, because she struggled to cope with the adult scrutiny. She has been like this from very young, and we have been lucky to be able to work with her to gradually build her resilience to a level where she can now attend classes and play freely with friends.

I think, for me, that balancing of needs, between my very social daughter and her sister who needs more alone time, has been the thing I have thought about more than anything else. If you do have another child, it will likely be something you have to think about too. My friends who have only children, spend a lot of time trying to facilitate social groups for their children too. It's definitely possibly for children in the home ed community to form close friendships, but it takes a lot of work and regular meet ups on the part of the parents.

In terms of academics, because your daughter is only 2, now is a good time to research different educational philosophies. It is likely that the type of learning that works for her now, won't necessarily be what works for her when she is older, and the philosophy that most appeals to you might not be what works best for your child. I was very interested in Montessori when my eldest was little. She is definitely not a Montessori child, and the Charlotte Mason philosophy suited her, and the rest of us as a family, much more.

If you're not sure about home educating, and are not sure you know enough either way, it is a good time to research all of your local options - local state schools, private schools and the home ed community and activities that are on offer. For home ed activities, this can often change year on year, depending on what parents have organised around what their children need. It's important to realise that often things will clash, and it's impossible to do all of the things.

Another thing to think about, is how things will work when you are ill/less able to facilitate your children's learning. I'm currently in the first trimester, and the tiredness and nausea is hard. I'm managing to continue to take my children to their groups, classes, home ed activities at museums and to do our morning table work (2-3 hours of Maths, English and a wide variety of other subjects in short lessons), but know that if I felt much worse, say with vomiting etc, some of those things would be much more difficult to do. Do you have supportive family who can help with taking your daughter to groups etc?

For books from a UK perspective on home education, I really enjoyed Another Way to Learn last year. It's from a Christian publisher, but can be read secular enough. For a more specific book around the educational philosophy we use, Leah Boden's Modern Miss Mason is a lovely read, incredibly reassuring just as a parent. Also Extraordinary Parenting, which is mostly about educating/parenting under pressure, and was written by a British home educator during the pandemic, but feels to me like one of those books that gives you a hug.

Lots of people have raised other important points, so I'm going to leave it here, but I'm always happy to chat home ed, if you want to learn more. It's definitely not the right decision for every child/family though, so it's great that you're looking for different perspectives to help you make a more informed decision.

In my experience, and the experience of all of my friends and family, primary schools in the UK are fantastic. My son is currently at primary school and loves it. He’s happy to go every day, has amazing experiences, a lovely group of friends, and I have a great social circle with the other parents.

The issues that you list mostly apply to secondary schools, and certainly not all secondary schools. Where I live there are some fantastic secondaries that I would be happy to send my son to. It sounds like you haven’t researched your local schools which is odd when you’re about to make such a life altering decision.

Also, giving up £50k of salary to avoid some of the pitfalls of some state secondary schools is a huge sacrifice. You could send your child to a very good independent school for half of that amount and have the same outcome.

Once you do it, you’ll realise it’s really not ‘outside the norm’ at all. It’s a really popular decision. My son now attends school full-time but he was flexi-schooled for 18 months whilst I fought for a special school, and the majority of his friends are homeschooled. There’s really nothing extraordinary about it. They are happy little kids, some are thriving academically whilst others aren’t (but they were also not thriving in school, but at least through home Ed their mental health is prioritised).

I wish I was in the financial position to have been able to home Ed my son rather than put him through mainstream school, as much as I now love his special school. It’s a big change for secondary so it’s entirely possible I will home educate him then.

on a practical note is your house suitable for Dp to wfh and you both to make noise in the house

if DP would be working when you travel would you enjoy things as much and same question as above on space. Also are there financial implications such as tax if you travel abroad.

I agree completely!

All of my children's best friendships have been made at school. In fact I would go as far as to say that they haven't made any real friends at the numerous extracurricular activities they attend because there are always kids from school there who they will naturally gravitate towards. My kids also don't really play with the neighbours (neither do any of their friends) as they rely on playdates with school friends instead.

You really can't underestimate how much schools support the forging and reinforcement of social bonds. Socialising is literally laced throughout the child's whole day at school and can't be replicated by seeing someone at scouts once a week. Of course there will be difficult and painful moments as part of this and bits most parent find extremely hard as they watch their children grapple with other kids being a bit mean (sometimes their own kid being unkind) or switching friendship groups but this is all part of it. It's what builds real social skills and resilience and it is this that I think is lost most in a more adult led HE world where children often aren't abundant enough to form a truly 'child's world'.

It definitely is outside the norm. It might be the right thing for lots of families, but it’s not not an unusual choice, especially for a healthy NT child.

Personally we found a nurturing primary school, and it works well for us.
One observation for me this week was snow day, I offered DD a day off to play in the snow, but she wanted to go and play with her friends at school.
Also friendship groups change rapidly in school, home ed groups are smaller and less children to find those friends you click with

Just read the homeschool recovery Reddit thread. That's from adults who were homeschooled. Lots of it isn't relevant, such as very religious families, lots of parents with health anxiety. But I think their views are relevant. Especially in regards to the missing out on the socialisation aspect. You can take them to groups but that's not replicating they things they see on TV about school, proms, lunchtimes, nativity plays, school trips, assemblies, sports day,

School doesn't have to mean sitting down. Research your local schools well and choose one with a good EYFS setting and who incorporates a play based curriculum throughout KS1. Let her go to school and then make a decision if an issue arises.

Deciding to write off school for a 2 year old seems crazy to me. I am a KS1 teacher and see plenty wrong in our education system but my two children absolutely love our primary school and not attending would have deprived them of so many amazing experiences and fun. My DD loves school so much that she hates the holidays 🤷‍♀️ They're both thriving.

I have three children and we home edded them from the start. Eldest is at an RG uni. Second is in 6th form college and youngest is still home ed doing GCSEs.
I have managed to always work a bit while home edding and am really glad I didn’t give up my career entirely. I’d really recommend you think about this. At times I just did one day a week and we got childcare to take the children to a home ed group. Probably the worst thing about home ed is the fact my career has suffered. I did professional exams while home edding (which was tough) but that helped a lot.
Personally - I’ve mostly loved home edding - not so much the GCSE years though. It’s pretty hard at the teenage stage when they want to move away from you - to be the person responsible for pushing them through exams. If you have money though you can pay for tutors and there are so many online courses now - that there are options.
I do worry that they might have done better academically if they’d been to school - but I’ll never know - they might have done less well.
Socially - they are all fine. They are all pretty social - eldest and youngest very much so. Eldest seems to have transitioned to 6th form and Uni with no problems. We always went to home ed groups a lot - probably 4 out of 5 days a week. They had quite a few friends that they’d see most days at different activities. I helped to run different groups and I think that gave the kids confidence. They had a chance to try lots of different sports. We’ve been on lots of home ed residential trips and lots of term time holidays that we wouldn’t have been able to afford otherwise.
The kids followed their own interests to an extent. They met other children from lots of different backgrounds. They were always good at mixing with both sexes and with older and younger children as that’s what happens in most home ed groups as they aren’t segregated in the way schools are. I loved (mostly) having so much time with them. I’ve made lots of friends in the home ed community.
The cons are real though - financially - you lose a lot of money and you’ll need to think about where your career will be at the end of home ed. It’s a big responsibility and there’s no school to share the burden with. Although mostly it’s been good socially (we live in an area with lots of home edders) there were a few times when one of mine felt he didn’t have enough of a friend pool as a teenager. He also went through a bit of a stage of not liking the idea of being different as a home edder.
If you choose to do GCSEs with them it can be tough to get them to work enough - especially when they are used to having lots of time to follow their own interests - and there is less peer pressure than there might be at some schools to work. That said — I know some home ed kids who were very self motivated and self studied for exams with no stress.
A lot of home ed parents are pretty anti school but there are definitely pros and cons of both options. I think we generally had more fun as a family doing home ed - but there was also probably more stress about whether they were doing ok academically.
I’d recommend seeing if you can visit local home ed groups as soon as possible to talk to people and get a feel for the local community. ‘Doing’ a day a week home ed when your daughter turns 3 probably wouldn’t really look any different to what you do at the moment — reading books, making art, going out and about, meeting up with friends etc.

So you're not actually at the school stage yet? Whilst there are problems in schools particularly with retention and recruitment of teachers and with support for kids with SEN, we haven't found the stuff in the media matches actual school experience which has been overwhelmingly positive. It may be area/school dependent, but we've used primaries in two counties because of work relocation and it's been fine. DD has loads of fun, learns a huge amount and loves school.

I have a couple of friends who home ed and whose kids have never been to school and they do seem to share a lot of misinformation on their social media about schools when they have no personal experience of it. Probably they're using it to back up their decision to home ed, but it's frustrating because it doesn't match reality.

I do have (more!) friends who successfully home ed and whose kids seem to be enjoying themselves and learning well but it does seem to take a lot of time and energy (unsurprisingly) and definitely wouldn't work for every family. Same as with school, really!

When DC1 was approaching school age, I knew a lot of homeschoolers, and they filled me with fear of what school was like,but I arranged to have a look around my local state primary, and it was love at first sight. There were children from a wide range of backgrounds, teachers who were passionate about their jobs but also about other interests which they brought to the classroom, the opportunity for children to do all sorts of things that i didn't enjoy or found boring, or had no experience in, or wasn't confident in, or was quite frankly afraid to do with my kids, but they found interesting. I found a community that welcomed and included me, and supported me as a parent. My children had a chance to grow and develop and find themselves in a space away from parental pressure and expectations.

I think that home education can absolutely be the right choice for some children, and a good alternative to a bad school for others, but is rarely the default best choice for most children.

I was considering homeschooling because of issues with local schools. To get myself ready for it I trained as a teacher, ended up getting a job in the children's school and it worked brilliantly. You do only tend to hear the horror stories on here--most schools work well and many children love them. You can still be a very engaged parent and even take time off to travel for big trips; I have two friends who took a year out when children were in late primary and it was great for them.

A lot of views from parents but as a child I was home educated from 7to 10 due to being bullied by my class teacher after we moved house.

I would strongly recommend against it unless there is some very pressing to do so.
My experience was of feeling quite lonely and claustrophobic even if you meet up with home ed groups often, it is nowhere like the friends you make friendshops you make in school.
There are so many aspects of school life too that home ed just can't replicate and these are my fondest school memories such as nativities,whole school art days and so on

Your relationship with your mum/dad is too claustrophobic.By 5 or so ( certainly by 7) you need to be striking out a bit on your own. It is too claustrophobic that you parent knows every detail of your life.
Both my parents were teachers so I didn't suffer educationally and went on to fulfill my potential at high school.Do Not home educate your secondary age child you totally screw-up their life chances

I think the main considerations for me (apart from the main do they suit school) would be:

1. Is my child a child who listens better to me or better to others? Will my child need external input for some subjects they’re reluctant to do for me?
2. What social situations are they best suited to? Do they need daily social activities or is a few times a week suitable? What am I putting in place for this?
3. Where are my weak areas of knowledge and how do I tackle this (especially if they’re my child’s strong ones)?
4. What clubs are available in my area that meet to do either physical or academic or just purely social activities?
5. How will I feel educating my child and will I need to put things in place to ‘fill my cup’ so to speak?

My ds has ADHD and currently benefits from the routine and social input at school. However, I think one of the big things for me would also be how I’d keep my own brain engaged enough and get time for me to do adult topics/conversations. It wouldn’t put me off, I’d just want to know id facilitated space for that before starting.

I should add as well, that I am pro school despite my dd having special educational needs and not always wanting to go to school. I've considered homeschooling many many times but ultimately I know she is in the best place. She comes home full of stories and knowledge. She has friends whilst I don't know if she would have in the home Ed community as apparently they're not always as accepting of autism as you would think.
A big one though is that, without school, I would have missed her autism and learning difficulties all together. I just didn't see the signs. You think you know but I think you're a bit blind to your own children's ability and characteristics. Just something to keep in mind.

Just be aware that it might limit their options later on. The home ed kids I know only have a couple of GCSEs and can only apply to certain unis. They are also lacking in friends

You'll never get a straight answer from parents once they've made their decision about home education and stuck with it, no one is ever going to admit they got it wrong and have f'ed up their child's education, they've got too much at stake if they did.

So you have to think through YOUR next 16 years and be realistic. And also don't be a martyr to your child, home educating would have a massive toll on your career and economic status now and into your retirement. Plus it makes you very vulnerable should a marriage breakdown occur.

I have a couple of friends who home ed and whose kids have never been to school and they do seem to share a lot of misinformation on their social media about schools when they have no personal experience of it. Probably they're using it to back up their decision to home ed, but it's frustrating because it doesn't match reality.

I've experienced similar with regards to sharing misinformation and I often wonder if they repeat the same lies to their children. Within the families I know who home educate there seems to be a fear of the child trying school, as they might decide they would prefer to attend rather than continue being home educated.

Your daughter sounds like she would thrive at school. Most kids do enjoy school, especially primary - but we don’t hear about them, clearly people generally discuss problems (especially on mn) so what you read isn’t a reflection of real life.

It’s natural to want to keep your toddler close - but your 7 year might love school.

I have experience of he children - one came to my brownie group (I’m the leader). She wasn’t being he for any particular sen or other reason, just parental preference, and she did go to a he group (but with like minded people and her mum!). She gradually had less and less in common with her peers, found it harder to work in groups and when they were chatting about school had nothing to say and got quieter and quieter. Ishe was good at doeskingwas really sad when she left (because they liked family weekends away) as it was pretty much her only chance of mixing with a varied group of people.

I think what I'd do is see if you could 'trial' it age 3.5/4 before your DC is school age. Can you take a block of 2 weeks (or longer if annual leave will allow) and see how it feels spending that much time together with your child day in day out without the break of nursery? When I became a SAHM I was shocked tbh about how relentless it is, and I know personally that I don't want to homeschool for that reason. We're both happier when we have some time apart. I guess that does depend on how many external activities they would participate in as part of your homeschool approach and whether your partner is taking on part of the homeschooling too.

Home schooling sounds lovely but COVID showed me how bloody hard it is.

I have a child that didn't struggle in COVID. He's naturally shy, doesn't mind his own company, has a great imagination for play and can amuse himself brilliantly. He wasn't really fussed about returning to school and probably would have been a good candidate for home school.

But I can see how brilliant school has been for him. It is a lovely, small village school. He has a little group of friends now and the school ethos is just brilliant. Not sure they are necessarily the best academically but all the different year groups mix and know each other. They cheer last place struggling child on sports day as though they have won.

Most kids (obviously not all) love primary school.

Yours is in nursery and already quite socialised. Personally I don't know why you wouldn't give school a try and see if it suits your child.

For those it doesn't suit, I can completely understand home schooling but I'd be saving the option for later in the schooling process rather than starting there.

Apologies for not reading the whole thread, so this may have already been said. In your position, I would also want to talk to the teens/young adults who were homeschooled and hear their thoughts and experiences. Do they wish they had been at school? What do they feel they missed and what to they think they benefitted from?

Agree. You only ever hear from parents who have done it and they are not likely to say they made a bad decision for their children. Speak to the people who have been home schooled

It seems like such a big gamble. Out of pure curiosity I follow a few unschooling groups and there's parents who seem to be doubting their decision. Poster: 'My eight year old has spent the last ten hours on Minecraft, when is he going to self regulate and turn it off to do some self directed learning?' Group members: 'oh he will, just keep praising him and leaving books around, he will get there and then aged 16 he'll pass all of his GCSE's!' Kids needs adults to guide them. Most of them are not capable of self regulating or learning independently. It's just not going to work!