We've finally jumped ship!!

[montymoocow]

After posting two or three messages on here, dithering and asking for advice on whether to home educate or keep trying with school, we finally de-registered them.

If I'm perfectly honest, I partly feel relieved that the decision is finally made but also rather scared at the enormity of what I've taken on. They're both high school age (yrs 7 and 8) and so the possibility of exams/college/starting work are in the not too distant future.

School though became a living nightmare. The complaints of pupils screaming, swearing, throwing things across the class, teachers unable to take proper control of lessons, my eldest being physically attacked and my youngest being sat with his class in front of a blackboard with the words written "you are all going to fail in life so why bother trying". The list goes on and on. Things were far from good.

So - here we are, on our new adventure. Pretty scary and challenging but rather exciting too. Our two children are already happier, and have been getting along so much better since the Easter holidays. I still worry that I've done the right thing and hope I haven't ruined their future career prospects, but they are safe and they are happy and I suppose we'll cross all the other bridges when we come to them.

Many thanks to all those who responded to my previous messages, and who gave words of advice and great wisdom.

Hi, I haven't seen your other threads but I am glad that things are better for you all now.

As for exams, have you joined the Yahoo thread for exam age home edders? they are a mine of information and reassurance.

Thanks CheerMum, I shall look for the thread you suggest.

Hi Montymoocow, don't ever regret what you've done. You'll be so happy you did it. Together you'll be able to design your own family's life in a way that suits you all, and believe me your kids will learn so much more, in such a better environment than at school, in a shorter time, and with their self-esteem intact. Your world will change for the better. My son is 13 and I'm already mentally freaking out about GCSES but I have to remind myself that it will all be ok. We took him out of school in July last year - four days before the end of term - it has become that desperate we didn't even want him to stay until the end of the year. In the nine months since de-registering he has returned to the happy boy we knew, and has taught himself so much stuff. We hope we are teaching him ok, but we are not teachers, so we just muddle along, but he has rediscovered his own love of learning, and always has his head in a book now, whereas before, when he was at school, he was too exhausted from endless homework and from being there that he just went into a kind of paralysis when he got home. All he wanted to do was play video games. Now, he hardly plays them at all. Please keep posting so we can support each other. Warm wishes, Tara xx

Thank you so much Tara for your wise words!

I'm so glad your son is happy and doing well now. It is such a hard decision to make at secondary school age isn't it? We home educated ours at primary school level for a couple of years and then they went back for high school. I didn't feel such a sense of concern when they were younger but I really am aware that the time will fly by and we shall then need to decide what to do. We're hoping that by then they will be old enough to know what direction they want to take and what exams they'll need, if any.

We have a toddler too, so have another little person to consider.

As you say though - I too am rather relieved now the homework is behind us as it was really the last thing they needed when they got home shattered and grumpy. At least I don't have to nag them to get their homework done now.

Thanks again for your support (I think I shall need plenty in the coming months), and I shall indeed keep in touch!

Very best wishes.

Hi. I am really glad to read this thread. You should be proud of what you've done. There is loads of exam support out there for a few years time. Secondary level work can be so interesting and fun but is made dull by the rigidness of school. I am seriously considering home educating after primary school as I think secondary schools are terrible places and are getting worse. Well done and thank you for giving me some hope!

Hi Montymoocow and threesnocrowd, I got so much out of your posts. It's funny though because I feel so much better now we've pulled him out of secondary school. It was so much easy when he was in primary school, but in later primary and early secondary it became hell on a stick. I feel so protective of my son, and so glad to have pulled him out, so glad he's not part of the school culture of bullying and skiving off, and getting into nasty things. I might be depriving him of sub-cultures that will form his identity but to be honest, he'll find his own way when he's ready. And for that I am grateful he's home and happy. He even hates using the word school - bless him. He refuses to use it. He says he's learning but never that he's home schooled. Warm wishes, Tara xx

Hi Monty,

Congratulations!! I'm really glad your boys are happier already and you are feeling excited. Of course you haven't ruined their career prospects. It would be hard to go on to develop a successful career if the message "you are all going to fail in life so why bother trying" is constantly in front of them. (My dh and most of his five siblings are remarkable underachievers professionally because they absorbed this message so well - from their parents, sadly. It's frustrating to see lovely talented people staying in jobs they dislike because they think no one else would want them.)

Here's a site with info on exam options, and a link to the Yahoo group CheerMum suggested: www.home-education-exams.org.uk/

Enjoy yourselves!

Tara, you said "I might be depriving him of sub-cultures that will form his identity but to be honest, he'll find his own way when he's ready."

My 11yo daughter goes through spells of really wanting to conform. The fact she is home educated actually makes it easier for her to be a success in the preteen subculture. She has so much time on her hands that she can learn all the lyrics to the pop songs. She's making a close study of style at the moment. She can join in classes to learn "cool" things: the latest dance styles, songwriting, rapping, computer animation and filmmaking, website design. She often mixes with older teens, which her same-age peers think is desirable.

If your son is interested in doing these things, he could focus on them too. If he isn't, then subjecting him to this subculture would only make him an outcast as he wouldn't fit into it.

And too, have you ever thought about the possibility that inclusion in youth subcultures may equate to alienation from the rest of society? An obsession with footballers, pop stars and hairstyles is harmless in itself, but I think it indicates a feeling of being excluded from the rest of society. In "The Myth of the Teen Brain", psychologist Robert Epstein observes that teens are well integrated into mainstream culture in pre-industrial societies, which don't have the phenomenon of a separate teenage phase: "a series of long-term studies... suggests that teen trouble begins to appear in other cultures soon after the introduction of certain Western influences, especially Western-style schooling, television programs and movies." drrobertepstein.com/pdf/Epstein-THE_MYTH_OF_THE_TEEN_BRAIN-Scientific_American_Mind-4-07.pdf

If it's true that you are depriving your son of the subcultures with which he might otherwise identify, in doing so you are giving him better access to the wider society in which he lives. People often remark that HE young people are noticeable for their tendency to interact with adults in a normal way, looking them in the eye and having proper conversations rather than skulking off or being rebellious. I'm sorry to say that I have such a strong expectation of unsatisfactory interactions with young people that I'm still surprised to see HE teens behaving like normal people. It surprised me when a 12 yo girl outside an HE group saw me looking lost and offered to show me the way, when a young man at a home ed camp took over cooking dinner for me and chatted with me as I tried to calm a fretting baby, when a boy volunteered to stand nearby and help me manoeuvre my car into a tight parking space. Unfortunately, these aren't normal occurrences in our society, because most young people feel so excluded that they avoid engaging with adults.

Sorry if I am preaching to the choir! It doesn't sound like you are terribly bothered about this, but I know a lot of parents do fear their children may lose out on the chance to identify with others their age and I think this fear is usually misplaced.

Dear Saracen, thanks for your detailed and truly inspiring post. I did try and reply many days ago when I first read it, but I hadn't logged in and it kept chucking me off deleting my response, which is a symptom of not being logged in. In the end I gave up, mentally promising to respond shortly. The 'shortly' has become a few weeks now - apologies! But I am all logged in and will respond.

Don't think you are preaching. It's uplifting to have the ol' brain steered back to perspective when one gets nervous about one's actions in life. I am probably not a person with a whole lot of confidence, so home educating my boy has been a bit of a shaky thing for me to do on one hand, but on another very empowering. I do take your point about sub-cultures, and what you said about the fact that if a child is not into certain things then being at school just reinforces the 'exclusion' is so spot on.

My boy's confidence has really grown since he left school, and he has time to just live in his own world of his own interests - which he shares enthusiastically with us - his parents. I see groups of young teens on street corners just doing their thing and shiver - because I remember how alienated I felt when I was at school and due to peer pressure engaged in rubbish activities that meant nothing to me.

Please keep posting as I find you insightful as I am sure others do.

More soon, but for now, warm wishes, Tara xx

Congratulations. :-) So remember those first days. It felt like stepping off a cliff with no parachute, just hoping without good cause (in our case) for a soft landing, and thinking nothing good could come of it but at least he'd have a chance to not hate what was left of his childhood.

Son's gone from having low future prospects, to the world potentially being his oyster and from constant failure (that I was unwittingly supporting) to success and high flying ambitions. Our only regret is that we didn't realise we could do this earlier.

If your son is interested in doing these things, he could focus on them too. If he isn't, then subjecting him to this subculture would only make him an outcast as he wouldn't fit into it.

Son's inability and lack of desire to be part of subcultures was one of the things that made school a nightmare.