At what age do you officially say your HE?

[lifeas3plus1]

Warning, This may not make any sense (30weeks pregnant, tired and hormonal) but if it does I would enjoy reading your replies.

My Ds is 15 months and we are definately planning on Home Educating him and Dc2 for various reasons.

I wouldn't say I'm home educating him yet as like I said he is only 15 months. We are just doing what I imagine all other parents with toddlers do. Swimming, reading, going to the park, shopping, pottering around the house/garden etc.

I was thinking I wouldn't say that Ds was HE until he reaches "school" age but in theory we will be doing it a few years before then anyway won't we.

(Anyone else confused yet?)

Why do you need to 'say' it? To whom? Why?

Not being aggressive, just genuinely interested, because as you say, it sounds a little weird.

At pre-school age, I guess you are just 'raising' him?

Other home educating parents will understand what you mean when you say you are home educating your young children. Other people will think you are a bit odd for saying that, and may imagine you are hothousing them. On the other hand, it does send out a clear message of confidence. I imagine people are less likely to question your decision to HE if you say you ARE doing it already than if you say you WILL be doing it.

I don't know, the issue didn't arise for me. My husband didn't agree to HEing my older daughter until the eleventh hour, just before she would have gone to Reception. I've referred to the younger one as home educated almost since she was born, just because it's quicker to say "my girls are home educated" than to say "my older daughter is home educated and my younger daughter will be also." I think people know what I mean!

We said to people that they would be home educated, and felt a little thrill to ourselve when they reached the term after their 5th birthday when they were officially home educated!

Of course we all know that nothing changes at that point, and you just carry on doing what you always did!

Definitely agree with Saracen about the clear message of confidence. Family started asking which school we would send DD to and when we needed to register when she was just 2 ½ there is also a massive assumption the DCs will trot off to nursery 'because it is wonderful for getting them ready for school'. DD is 3 now so I sort of feel like we have opted out of the system already. I haven't told all family and friends yet, I mean I don't go around making a special point of telling them, but I will mention it if it comes up in conversation.

I am anticipating the thrill factor on the day that DD would have started school too mrswobble! That said I may follow the European/Cambridge report lead and not start with very much until DD is 6 or 7. We will see how it goes.

Perhaps it will feel more real this time next year though DP has agreed to consider going to HESFES!!!!

I didn't HE at that age so I've no personal experience, but I would have found it very strange if parents had said they were "home educating" before school age, because I do not label what parents do with their pre-schoolers as "education". Obviously, in a wider sense, it is education, and has been from the first moments they spoke to their baby or showed them things. But it's also just raising a child, and not something that needs to be labelled as education.

So, if a parent of a 3yo said "We're home educating" I would think they were making a weird point. If they said "We're planning to home educate" then that would seem a much more logical statement, because "home education" is what they are planning to do instead of school.

I was vague when people asked when/where my DS would be going to school before he was 5 as I wasn't 100% sure we were going to HE. I can't believe how many people now ask my DS where he goes to school/has he had nice day at school/is he having a day off school etc. It's just not something I would think to ask a child (so many more interesting things to talk about than school IMO )

This may not exactly answer your question, but imo home-edding actually begins from the moment a child is born, all through their babyhood and toddlerhood, and it only stops the moment the child is sent to school, so technically I'd consider you to be HE-ing right now!

Thanks for all the replies.

There's some very good points.

I suppose, when I come here asking for advice I would say that I am Planning to HE my ds rather than saying that I am actually HE him due to his age.

I feel it probably wouldn't be a bad thing to say that I'm actually HE him once he reaches pre-school age maybe.

I already have lots of questions asking what my plans are for his education and when asked what they mean I am answered with "Will you be sending him to state or private" I get a bit confused by this question (Yes I am easily confused lol.) so I just say we haven't thought that far ahead yet when in reality I have and the answer is "None of those"

I just don't feel comfortable saying that we have already made the decision to HE given his age.

Context helps! I agree saying that you are HEing looks pretentious and might get people's backs up.

I knew that I was going to HE from before the DC were born. When people started asking about nursery, I said that I was going to home educate. If you think the questioner might be hostile or go on to ask more questions that you would not be happy to answer (e.g. about socialisation or exams!), you could say "private". It would be true - this is the ultimate in private education.

I think you are right about the pre-school thing. If everyone in your circle are sending kids to nursery, then that is when the questions will intensify. I would be inclined to seek out a local HE group for that point. It would give you an answer to the socialisation question and would also help to make you and your DS feel less odd. Books and TV for that age are full of school propaganda and he may well ask about it.

If people are hostile or ask uncomfortable questions, I'd say that you will reassess it when he is seven - again, not a lie as you will constantly re-assess what you are doing, IME. By that age, you will be more sure of what you are doing so the questions will either not bother you or you'll have good answers to them. Most people will accept that 4 is too young to start formal education and you can point to most of the rest of the world, especially Europe, where school does not start until 6 or 7.

"Will you be sending him to state or private" I would just say private
DS is 3 and we are still just 'planning' to HE. He would have started nursery this september had we decided to send him.
Mind you if I'm asked what school we're planning to send him to I'm still saying undecided because my last attempt to bring up HE at playgroups was met with hostility and comments about weirdos.

@Tarenath, I think you have a typo. Shouldn't "comments about weirdos" be "comments by weirdos"? Where "weirdos" means "strange people who think that sending a 3yo somewhere that their parents aren't welcome is a good thing to do".

rofl, something like that!

I have been told off on here for saying I home educate but the fact is that the vast majority of children DD1s age are in nursery for at least 15 hours a week. She gets asked what nursery she goes to within five minutes of meeting new people. When she says "I don't need to go to nursery, I just play and learn all day with mummy and daddy and my friends" people always then look at me for an explanation.

I am actually of the opinion that anybody who has a child home educates, it is just a matter of degree and whether it is combined with anything else.

The fact is, we are going to be quite structured and that has already started- ie we have workbooks that she does when she is in the mood, she watches muzzy, we "do" phonics, we do projects, and so on. I don't see anything magically changing in 2 years time.

DD2 is home educated too. Her curriculum for today was mainly in what happens when you smear toast in your hair and how to sit up

Butterpie, how did you get around the issue of your dd wanting to go to nursery/school because everyone else is going?
I work as a nanny and my eldest charge is in school. When I first started doing the school run he would throw a major wobbly that he couldn't go too. He quickly accepted that he didn't need to go yet and we did lots of other fun stuff instead. However, my youngest charge (younger than ds) will be starting nursery soon so I think he's going to start asking about it. I'm just reinforcing all the fun stuff that we do that we wouldn't be able to do if he was in school all day like day trips etc.

ah yes the ol' toast-smearing. a valuable lesson

I still feel quite sad we're not going to officially HE our DD. Tarenath - it's actually because she was so desperate to go to nursery, and is enjoying it, that we've decided against HEing, but we won't hesitate to take her out if school doesn't work out.

I do agree that HE starts from birth, but I guess I wouldn't call it that. I've started being more organised and doing proper activities with DD (and blogging about it!) so it's the kind of thing we'd do if we were HEing. I agree with Butterpie, it wouldn't suddenly change at age 5. In fact I hope we'll still do all this stuff around her time at school so I guess she'll be schooled AND HEd!

I just say that some children go to school, but she doesn't need to because I work at home so we can learn things together and go and do things with our friends. She seems to be happy with that.

Tarenath, I knew that would be an issue for my daughter because she was a real conformist.

I did let her try nursery, because she was so keen. However, I was very laid-back about attendance, and asked her every day whether she wanted to go. I wouldn't take her late, so she had to take the initiative to get herself ready if she wanted to go. I wasn't about to nag her to get ready to go to a place I didn't particularly want to take her anyway! So if she didn't respond the first time I said "if you're going to nursery then you need to eat your breakfast now" then she didn't go on that day. Like many young children, she lived in the moment and often didn't want to interrupt whatever she was doing in order to go somewhere else at a fixed time. Partly because I wasn't actively encouraging her attendance, and partly because she didn't love nursery as much as she'd expected, her attendance dwindled over the course of a few weeks until she agreed that it was time to give up her place so someone else could use it.

School was less of a problem because she knew lots of home educated children by then, and nursery had given her a taste of what school might be like. (The things she'd disliked about nursery, such as having to sit still, were things which happen even more at school!) So she was less keen to try school. I made an extra push to do even more fun stuff just before the time she would have started Reception. More playdates with home educated friends, signed up for a home ed music class, got her some swimming lessons, started her at an "under-5s" music group... all of which would have had to go out the window if she'd gone to school.

Knowing plenty of home educated children helped my dd to feel that the path she was following was a "normal" one. It also helped that two of her older cousins could see the advantages of home education. Hearing, "Wow, you don't have to go to school! You are so lucky! I wish our mum would let us leave school" was a good antidote to all the other people telling her how much she would love school.

I told them, honestly, that school may look great in books and on tv, but that it's not great all the time, and remember that if they want to go, they have to go every weekday, without fail - no picking and choosing - and they have to go most of the day too. And I can't go with them, and neither can their sisters. That was enough, TBH!

And also spending lots of time with their HE friends - they wouldn't be able to go to the HE groups they love if they were in school.

Incidentally- I was working at a nursery (I sell books, and hold stalls in all kinds of places) that was really nice on saturday, and DD1 asked if she could go back, so I agreed to ring up and see if there was a place. She grinned and said "so you and me and daddy and the baby can play and play?" I said no, but me and the baby would come in for a little bit, then we would go for a walk and DD1 could play with the other boys and girls. DD1 suddenly changed her mind, and cried bitterly, saying she wanted to stay with us.

She's three years old, I'm not about to leave her somewhere she isn't 100% about. She is very outgoing when she knows I am only in the next room, which I think is enough at this stage.

I might try her at the nursery if she changes her mind for two days a week or so as she quite intense atm, but not if it upsets her.

DS hasn't actually asked to go since I stopped doing the school run at work, he just knows that eldest dissapears to school and comes back at the end of the day. So we're sort of in a 'don't ask, don't tell' stalemate which is fine by me. I'm also making sure I sign him up to a few activity classes so he doesn't feel 'left out' iyswim.