Help me prepare to suggest HE to reluctant DW

[confidence]

My DD (5) is currently in a local infants school that we are pretty happy with. When she leaves there at the end of year 2 (in just under 2 years) I would really like to consider home educating her. Primarily because:

• the junior school alternatives here are pretty dire

• she is academically MILES ahead of any of her peers, and going by my experience with her older brother, I just don't trust state primaries like those around here to actually educate her.

• she is extremely able and motivated at music, and I'd like her to have some time during the crucial early years to put her very best into that without going to school, wasting the best hours of every day and getting knackered in the process.

Both DW and myself are self-employed and make our own hours around parenting duties, so in a sense we're in an ideal position to do it. The problem is that DW is much more conservative than me and tends to be reluctant to challenge the status quo. We did discuss this before when DD was a toddler and her main objections were the old saw about socialisation, and the fact that teaching requires so much preparation, and she wouldn't have the time to do it properly and doesn't really want to be her daughter's teacher anyway. TBH though I think the root of her objection is more of a generalised desire to follow the crowd and she'll always find arguments to justify that.

However we just had a conversation with a friend, also a parent, the subject of poor school choice came up and DW seemed very unhappy with any of the possibilities. I made an off-hand comment that "perhaps we should start a free school" (although I don't honestly see this as an option) and both she and friend made very positive noises about the idea. So I'm sensing a chance. One factor is that we are in a grammar area, and DD looks already like she'll walk the 11+. So I could sell the fact that she'll end up with a "normal" secondary education, as making it easier to swallow a bit of risk and experiment at this stage.

TBH I've been thinking about this for ages without mentioning it to DW, because I know there's just be a kneejerk reaction against it and I want to be prepared, and do it at the right time armed with the right counter-arguments. Did anyone here have to convince a reluctant partner who just wanted to do things the "normal" way? What sort of objections did they bring up? How did you bring them round?

Thanks in advance.

It is Dead, not Dad (not that it matters, only that I dont want you think I am a man, not that this matters either) (It is a Halloween name)

I get you know. Your reasoning seems fair.

now, not know.

Thanks Lastsummer that's a good perspective. I certainly agree that the more concretely I can prepare the idea for DW, the better. That's why I posted here for a start.

If what Musicposy says is true - and I have no reason to doubt it - then we could possibly get round the question of who does the tutoring by sharing the time being home to look after her, but with the days I do it involving more actual tutoring and days DW does it being free and more exploratory, going out places or whatever.

It's not that I feel any problem about it because I'm a dad. Simply that, given the potential for the relationship between child and parent/teacher to become quite intense in HE, it would be best to spread that between two different parents to give the child some variety and change of perspective.

Please don't ignore the socialisation issue- it's important.

most people panic about socialisation before they start HE, but that quickly goes away. HE kids aren't locked in a cupboard all day you know. My dd has more friends now than she did at school (and she enjoyed school and was popular).

find your local HE group on Yahoo and see what they are up to.

I didn't say panic- I said don't disregard. It it an issue, and it's silly to petend it's not.

confidence you will find that a bright child will teach themselves a lot more than you think, and the relationship between parent and child in HE isn't as tutoring/ intense as you suspect, even if you start that way. My eldest by age 14 has 6 good GCSEs (mainly A grades and nothing less than a B) often in subjects I know absolutely nothing about. My youngest is now working towards IGCSE Chemistry of her own accord; I never did Chemistry and have no input into it; she gained a good GCSE in Physics at age 11. An 11 year old friend of hers is currently doing similar, so this isn't ridiculously unusual. When they meet up they seem to discuss protons and electrons.

These are absolutely not hot housed children. We have probably less than an hour of what you would call formal tutoring each day, and then you'd probably call it guidance rather than the kind of intense stuff you're thinking of. Most of the day they play, draw pictures, go on facebook, meet up with other children, dance, skate. A bright child will just soak up information in things that interest them. All you have to do is enable - provide books, internet, resources. People just don't understand how well this works until they witness it for themselves. If your DD is as bright as you say, spark her interest and she will just fly - it's not going to take much hard input from you.

A different opinion: you say that you can't afford a private education. Even with you being self-employed, surely if you/your wife are spending all day with your daughter then you won't be working, so is the income you'll lose due to time spent on HE more than what a private education will cost you?

Btw, my husband works full time out of the house and I work part time self employed (around 20 hours p/w). My children are older, but my youngest was 8 when we first home educated her and copes very well with this arrangement. I don't have a lot of time to do any "teaching", but as I said, they don't need it. They just get on with stuff while I work. So I don't think you would need to change your hours to do it.

The nice thing about home ed is it's very flexible and doesn't have to be on a Monday - Friday, 9 -3 basis. We fit in the education when it suits. Friday nights are our best time for more structured work- they take turns to have ballet lessons and I sit with the other one!

Thanks musicposy that's all really interesting.

I must admit I'm not comfortable with the idea of older DC leaving secondary school for home ed. Mainly because there's a completely different relationship of skills and knowledge involved. I'm a musician and teach my DD music, which is her passion and which she'll happily spend hours doing every day. I also taught her to read and am confident enough about my input into things like English and History.

But her brother never really showed much interest in music. He does read a lot, but shines mostly at maths and science. He had the same kind of orientation to science at her age as she has to music. But I'm pretty ignorant in that area and TBH I reckon he already knows more than I do.

I take your point about their own self-teaching but I just think it would be a waste of resources for him to come out of school. We've arranged things to get him the high level input he needs at an excellent grammar school, and he'll have far more to gain by mixing with people there - both staff and students - with similar talents to his own, than he will from us. OTOH music, as I'm sure you know, is pretty much a non-entity in most state schools and DD would have far more to gain from doing it with me and maybe a carefully chosen teacher of another instrument.

I'm not a home ed fanatic or anti-school per se. I'm just willing to consider every situation on its own terms, and think out of the box where appropriate to get each kid what they need. I do take your point earlier about fairness and resentment, but I'm not sure how valid that always is. The fact is that all circumstances and all DCs are different, and parents have a duty to provide what is appropriate to each, not just what is the same.

MrsHoarder -

That's certainly one way to look at it, yes. Thing is at the moment, there's already an adult home three days a week, so it would only be a question of another two (or less depending on how much we can hook up with others). We wouldn't be losing a whole income. And we both prefer parenting to working.

And then there's the question of whether private schooling is actually what's best for her anyway. The only private options here are one where standards are not much higher than in the state sector, and although class sizes are smaller much of the teaching just lazily takes advantage of that, applies little imagination and doesn't differentiate much anyway. And one which is very expensive and very religious (which we do have a problem with). To get anything else there'd be substantial travel time involved, which would be difficult to coordinate with longer working hours to pay the fees, and impact upon DD's wakefulness and alterness for doing her own stuff.

not ruling it out though.

If your wife is not comfortable with it, I would seriously consider how realistic it would be to involve her.

I am not a born parent. I love my children to bits but if I had to spend all day every day with them (or anything close to that) I think I would go mad. I would certainly be irritable or snappy as I think I would miss the intellectual space to be me. Not saying that this is your wife, but I think you need to ask yourself carefully whether she could do it in a constructive way if she is not the driving force behind the choice.

Interesting that you are not prepared to address the socialisation issue!

When did I say I'm not prepared to address it?

He's not prepared to address it because all home educated kids and parents know that its an old cliche that anti HE'ers trot out when they've run out of other things to moan about. We hear it ALL THE TIME! After a while, there is no point arguing. Just nod and move on.

Well, I am an adult who was HE and I am aunt to 7(count them, 7) HE children. I also have a lot to do with several HE groups and I used to be very much involved with Education Otherwise.

But what do I know?

Perhaps if your wife isn't keen on it but isn't against it in principle, she can up her working hours while you focus on the teaching? Teaching, even Home Educating your own child, really isn't for everyone and I think if you are not fully committed it is not likely to work.

OP Have you found any HE groups local to you?
I'd see if your dw was willing to go along to meet some families who already HE and get a picture of how it works for them-it might also go some way to reassure yourselves that socialisation will not be an issue if you choose to go ahead and HE.

There are of course many ways to home educate...perhaps buying some literature for her to look at might help. I know that us 'teaching' our bright but dyslexic children did not work at all- so we became completely autonomous/informal home educators, and raced along with what ever interested the children.
They are have out performed all of the predictions school made for them and are all in Higher Ed now-and fully intending to home educate their own children in the same way, when the time comes.

It might be worth getting a copy of Free Range Education where 20 families have each written a chapter, describing how HE works for them

Exoticfruits - are you opposed to HE in general? You seem to have a lot of arguments against it here, I'm not sure why. That's the only reason I can imagine you insist on moving house as a better alternative to doing it.

No, I'm not opposed in general. A good friend does it.
BUT
I think that

1. It should come from the DC-has your DD requested it? It seems to be driven by you.
2. It is lifestyle and to be successful the whole family need to embrace it.I would hate it, I want to enjoy being a parent and I don't want to have to make everything educational. I get the impression that DW has similar views to mine (could be wrong) and I wouldn't like to be bulldozed into doing something I don't want. e.g. I wouldn't want my DH asking like minded people on the internet for ideas to persuade me.
3. The main argument seems to be from the music point of view. Music is something that you can get very heavily involved in out of school but it will all be outside school hours to cater for the majority of musical DCs. Have you loked into the provision for music in HE groups and the standard? Most musical DCs are bright academically and can cope with the school day, music lessons, orchestras etc on top.
4. If she is very talented musically that is one of the best areas to get a scholarship. I know an 8yr old boy who has just got a very good one.
5. I wonder how realistically you view her abilities-you say that she is miles ahead of any of her peers-how do you know this? Schools are generally very reluctant to say and most schools have a share of very bright, intelligent DCs. The other parents may not be aware e.g. I know one boy in yr 5 who is so advanced in maths he goes to the secondary school once a week for a special master class-his parents don't make a big thing of it-I doubt whether many other parents are aware.