How do I convince my 14yr old that home schooling is not weird?

[Cathscuth]

Hoping home edders won't mind answering a couple of questions though I notice there have been a few other posts about starting home ed recently.

My 14 yr old daughter has had a very traumatic time at secondary school.She has been off sick since October because she is so stressed by it all. We are about to take her off the roll of her current (private) school, as she can't face going back there (or to any school, at the moment).

HE seems to be the only option, but DD says it's "weird" & she couldn't possibly tell her friends she is going to be home educated.
How can I begin to show her that it might be a positive way forward & is worth considering?

Also a question about deschooling- does it really mean letting them do whatever they want, or just not thinking about learning? My daughter spends all her time on the internet & watching TV from 4pm onwards, so we don't at the moment have TV or PC on before that unless "educational" eg wildlife programmes.(She struggles to get up in the morning so it's not that long) I'm afraid if I give up on that rule, she will never do anything else. Also her two brothers who do go to school would think it very unfair.

Very grateful for any thoughts on this

Hiya,

Whereabouts are you? There are plenty of social groups across the country for HE children. Do you think she would benefit from attending one and talking to other children around her age that are HE'd?

As to the TV/PC issue, personally I would keep the 4pm rule in place but that's just me. Deschooling I think just means not trying to do any formal learning with them (unless they ask of course!) I haven't had to deschool a child though (eldest is 4)

It sounds as if in a sense your daughter has been having an autonomous education life since October, but without the benefit of knowing for sure that she won't be going back to her previous school or another one unless she is determined to do so.

I think home ed is more of a state of mind rather than the activity itself. For me it is realising that I am in charge rather than a formless 'them'.

What really matters is your daughter's happiness, yes? How you get there can be called all sorts of things, but the names are only attempts other home educators have made at describing paths they have taken with their own children.

The ball is in your court. Take what is helpful from whatever you read about deschooling, but put the rest to one side.

In our house teenagers wake late and do lots of computer and tv related activities. It sounds very familiar :)

Is there a home educating family in your county who are willing to have you over for the afternoon to chat and check out the wierdness level?

There may be a yahoo group for you to join, search home education and your county on yahoo groups.

Would your daughter like some tutors and call it being home tutored or privately tutored? The legal phrase is electively home educated though. Maybe she is not yet ready to move on to another stage and feels more comfortable with her tenuous connection with her school?

What else? Would she like the idea of summer holidays starting right now this year? That is one way I explain HE to people.

how about an internet school if she still wants to feel part of a school. my daughter was too ill to go to school and was also bullied when she was there. this option worked really well for her!She loved to feel part of a school still.
my other 2 children are autonomous.

It sounds like what your daughter fears is not the reality of home education but its image. If she can see the appeal of HE then she shouldn't have too much trouble communicating that to her friends. Perhaps the words "home education" don't have a good association in her mind. But let's face it, the reality of home education would appeal to almost every teen, if they realised what it involved. What teen wouldn't enjoy the following:

• Getting up late (and therefore being able to stay up late the night before)
• Time to pursue her own interests. If she wants, she can become a very good drummer, learn all the words to the latest pop songs, get a paper round so she can save up to go to concerts, go shopping, study whatever is actually relevant to what she wants to do without fear of timetable clashes or school not offering what she needs.
• Going where she wants, when she wants
• Wearing clothes she has chosen instead of school uniform

(I know not all parents would be happy for their teen to do all of the above, but I'm sure your daughter would get to do more of those things if she were HE than at school.) The idea of not going to school is seen as very desirable to a large number of teens. It wasn't for nothing that a high street shop sold t-shirts a few years ago with the logo "Too cool for school."

My daughter finds that other kids are sometimes a bit puzzled at the idea of HE, but in just a minute or two they have decided it sounds very cool. Conversations may go something like this:
"What school do you go to?"
"I don't go to school. I'm home educated."
"Oh, your mum teaches you?"
"No, I just learn things myself. I use books and videos and go to lectures and things. Whatever I want. Like university."
"How many hours a day do you study?"
"As many as I want. Not very much though! Most of the school day is wasted. It doesn't take long if you just do it."
"What subjects do you do?"
"Any ones I want. Right now I'm doing drawing, fashion, writing short stories, lots of sport, Portuguese, music and dance."
"So what hours do you do school?"
"Whenever I feel like it. Only my sports and dance and stuff happen at certain times, and then I fit in everything else whenever I want. All the rest of the time I just read and listen to music and see my friends and go shopping."

She has a collection of one-liners. She knows it isn't nice to gloat, so she only uses them in the rare cases when someone is being a bit nasty to her about home education:
"I don't do mornings. Is school really worth getting up at such a ridiculous hour?"
"I just couldn't make the time for school. I tried it last year but it interfered with my social life too much."
"I wouldn't want to be cooped up with the same people day after day. I meet more people this way."
"I don't like being told what to do. I'd rather decide for myself where to go and who to see and what to learn."

I'm sure your daughters' friends will soon see why she would want to be home educated, especially knowing how unhappy she was at school. Unless they are the type of "friends" who put her down every time she shares something good that's happening in her life: are they? In that case, maybe the best thing is to assure her that she deserves a new peer group which will treat her better, and that such people exist. That kind of nastiness can happen outside of school but is much less common. If you have a home ed gorup nearby, you could go along to some of their events. If not, a week-long home ed camp might be just the thing for a bit of intensive socialising. Or what about non-school-based activities - does your daughter do any of these at the moment? Kids tend to engage in rather less nasty behaviour in such environments than they do at school, because it isn't a fixed peer group where they are stuck with each other all the time and all social interactions take place under the eagle eye of the rest of the group.

You could buy "The Teenage Liberation Handbook: How to Quit School and Get a Real Life and Education" and see whether you think it would appeal to her.

Alex Dowty said that Oxford tutorials were like home ed.

www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/education/article6872998.ece

"Before I turned 18, the only exam I had ever sat was Grade 5 theory of music ? but I seem to be able to survive exams now. I got used to them quickly at Oxford, because we take them every term. Here, we have a tutorial and are sent off for a week to write an essay. Minus the tutorial, that?s how my home education worked. I wrote bits of essays at home because I wanted to, not because my parents told me to.

There are disadvantages to not having the conventional markers of education, and some universities obviously took a dim view of my application, but I have a lot of work experience because I was able to go out and work. I don?t think home education is perfect; it?s just another valid model, though I?ve done well from it. I had a nice education, it landed me a decent place at university and it didn?t cause much misery on the way."

Many thanks for all your comments- will follow up on the ideas suggested. We're in SW London & have found a local contact who has been helpful.

Also have heard of someone has got a place at 6th form college after learning at home since primary school - told my daughter about that & she seems a bit more prepared to consider HE & more hopeful generally.Hoping it will help her to tell her friends too.

Looking out for The Teenage Liberation Handbook at a reasonable price on Amazon - just got another book by Grace Llewellyn (Real Lives) to start us off.

Thanks again.