anyone experience with husbands who say no to home ed

[hemumof4]

I posted on here yesterday "upset" and things have developed and I feel that my husband has made up his mind that we should not do home ed. There are no specific issues really with school although ds1 in year 1 i feel is still not ready and is always getting told off for not sitting still etc.. has concentration of a much younger child (although bright). Fed up of them asking me to talk to him about sitting still! I mean for goodness sake how do you do that with a 5 year old!
Feel certain my hubby will say no tonight but not sure what I can say to him. i don't think he will listen to anything as in his mind school is the way to go and now having had a conversation with the school (goodness knows what he and they have said) he wants to reassess after agreeing we could home ed. I'm gutted, have told people and kids are excited. iv also taken my ds1 out of school already having asked them to take him off register they ob haven?t as they have told dh that there is still a space for him. I?m really annoyed with him for changing his mind and I?m really annoyed and resentful with the school that they contacted him and not deleted his name.
Sorry for ramble. Thought this was supposed to be good but only met with opposition, heartache and upset.

It isn't that I am not sympathetic to OP, I can see she is gutted but it doesn't help her.
We can all say what we like but it doesn't alter the fact that she can't physically do it without his agreement and her only hope is to talk him around.

HE requires a family commitment. If the parents are living together then they both have a role even if only one of the bid doing the e bit. But in the op 's case i would be really pisses off if her dp won't explain why he has changed his mind- he has a right to do it but he has to justify it. And what was the school doing ringing him when the decision had been made?

As with so many other things, it sounds like the issue is not the issue (HE or not) but how OP and her DH communicate. Sounds like she feels that he is not taking her seriously and paying attention to something important to her. I do agree though that this issue has a default, which is to school (much in the same way that other defaults are not to send your kids to a place of worship, not to send them to boarding school, to let them eat non-vegan food, etc. - note I am not making equivalents here, just saying there is a social 'default' value for these decisions).

OP: if you husband sat down, listened carefully to your thoughts and gave a reasoned explanation of why he prefers schools, would that change your feelings?

I agree that the real issue is communication.
He agreed, she rushed into it. She told the DCs-do you not think that they should have done something so important together?
They hadn't agreed when they were starting, how long it was for, or how they were doing it. Do they even see HE in the same way? As ommward pointed out-it isn't school.
I think they need to learn to communicate first, before they can resolve the issue.

I would say that because it is a communication problem, and OP went about it in the completely wrong way, all is not lost.
It is a major, life changing experience and she rushed into it like a child let loose in a toy shop-I'n not surprised that he panicked!

Points to think about.

1. Sit down when you are both calm and the DCs are in bed and discuss it properly.

2.Have lots of reasons for the positivity of HE ranging far beyond the fact he won't be forced to sit still. Have at least 6 concrete reasons.

1. Keep off the negativity of school-you want to concentrate his minds on positives, not negatives. (it is like election time-you want to know what the party is going to do-what the other party is not doing is an irritation that makes me stop listening). The negatives give chance to do what I did e.g. bring in the orthodontist and I will tell you that I didn't have the slightest problem.

KEEP POSTIVE ON HE.

1. Agree a time scale. Is it an experiment to be reassessed? Will it be until key stage 2? Will you think of secondary? Or will you just be open minded with no time scale. (this is one that you might have to compromise on)

4.How are you going to HE? There are just about as many ways as people doing it! Are you merely a facilitator or do you see your self as teacher? Will you be using work books and sitting down in a formal way? Will you be ditching all conventional ways? (again you may have to compromise her)

1. Have you checked out HE groups in your area? Do you know what is on offer?

1. Do you know what resources are in your area? Do you know what you can access for free?

1. Have you answers to all the socialisation questions that he will bring up?

1. Do you know what resources are available on the internet?

1. Agree a start date. What was the point of rushing into it when there were 'no significant issues'? Why couldn't you have waited until the Easter break and let DS have a proper 'good bye'.

10.Discuss it with the DCs together. Ask DS what he thinks and be quite sure that he really knows what it will mean. (the fact that you told them alone would have annoyed me if I was your DH-you are missing him out of the loop from the beginning)

11. Write the de registering letter together. Go and see the school together. You are equal parents and supposed to be a team.

12. Make sure that he knows he will be involved and will have input. He won't be just the person who leaves the house in the morning, comes back at night, having earned the money while you and DCs have a separate life that he is paying for but from which he is excluded. (I can hear you saying 'he won't be'-but he might feel like that)

I suspect that OP hasn't done that amount of research-therefore(if it was me) I would say to DH -'I realise that I rushed into it too quickly without enough thought-however I feel that it is the way to go -give me a couple of weeks and we can discuss again'.

Despite what people are saying -it is a major lifestyle change. You do not want to rush it-what are a few weeks (or even the end of the summer term) if your DS has 'no significant issues'? (it would be different if he was deeply unhappy)

@exoticfruits: "it doesn't matter what you say, it simply doesn't work if both parents are not in agreement" and

"Why should she just be ignored? particularly IF she is the one doing the actual childcare?

Because she doesn't have to do the childcare and he is paying for it."

Nothing works terribly well if the parents disagree. School doesn't work very well if the parents disagree either. Home ed worked reasonably OK for us despite the fact that my dh wasn't keen. I don't see why parental agreement is essential for home education and not for school education. Especially if a child is unhappy at school, school takes a lot of work and commitment on the part of parents. Like Isla, I found it harder to use school than home educate, even though my child wasn't unhappy at school. There would be some major rows in our house if I was told I had to take an unwilling child to school every day when I felt this was harming her!

Your point about kistigger not having to do the childcare, and the fact that her dh is paying, is an interesting one. I think that if I were in her shoes, I would propose to my dh that I would go out to work full-time and leave him to sort out the child's education in whatever way he sees fit. I would bet that when confronted with the job of getting an unwilling child ready for school every day and dealing with the emotional fallout after school himself, he would change his tune. I think this is the reason why it is commonly the main caregiver (usually mum) who is keener on home education for children who dislike school: because she is the one who is there really seeing the effect school has on the child. Few parents are so heartless as to witness a child's prolonged misery firsthand and then allow it to continue if they know there is a realistic alternative. I expect that part of the problem is that at the moment he doesn't really realise just how unhappy his child is.

Say what you like school is the default position. If my DH wants to HE and I don't I phone up the LEA, and tell them that I am not co operating in any way and as the DC has to be educated he has to be sent to school. It is a fact.

There would be some major rows in our house if I was told I had to take an unwilling child to school every day when I felt this was harming her!

There may well be some major rows, but unless you separate from your partner school is the default position-unless you talk him round. (and then can you afford it?)

Read my last post which is the reasoned, sensible, advice except that I missed out point 13-discuss finances.

It really doesn't matter what we all think-she has to communicate a lot better (and so does her DH) than they are doing at the moment!!

Sorry can you afford it on your own?

The reason that she has to communicate better is that she simply can't do it unless she talks him around.

You are also reading your own situation into it Saracen. There is no mention of being unhappy-to quote from OP

There are no specific issues really with school although ds1 in year 1 i feel is still not ready and is always getting told off for not sitting still etc.. has concentration of a much younger child (although bright). Fed up of them asking me to talk to him about sitting still! I mean for goodness sake how do you do that with a 5 year old!

There isn't a word about 'prolonged misery'.

It depends why you want to HE...my DH is dead against HE because he thinks it creates over dependence on the mother and limits a child's ability to form peer relationships and cope with the wider world. We have also seen HE that is actually done because the mother doesn't want to separate from her child, not for any consideration of the child's needs to form friendships and also someone who HEs because they don't think any school is good enough for their child. The child is very needy and was a friend of DD until the parents decided the singing lesson teacher "wasn't good enough for their DD". Ahem

The best thing would be to find out what the main objections are that your husband has to it.

Learning to sit still and concentrate are basic skills to enable any education and if your main reason to HE is this, then by extension 99% of boys would be HE.

In that case I would work on concentration and sitting still. One of my lovely memories is DS sitting still aged 3yrs talking to his great, great, aunt about life when she was a DC. All 3 have been able to sit still and take an interest in listening to others-particularly the elderly-of which we have a lot in the family and who were not into constant movement.

A good reason for discussing what you will expect and how you will achieve it with DH.

Saracen, I might agree with you if we were talking about a massively unhappy child. But we're not- we're talking about a parent who's unhappy with the school, not the child.

exoticfruits, when a 3 year old (or a 5 year old, or 7 year old or 14 year old) can't mange to sit still and concentrate (or such sitting still doesn't seem, for them, to be conducive to learning) do you think this is because they have not been taught, or have failed to learn, the optimum learning/socialising skills?

Are there walks of life in which having learned to sit still to concentrate might be disadvantages?

exoticfruits - "If my DH wants to HE and I don't I phone up the LEA, and tell them that I am not co operating in any way and as the DC has to be educated he has to be sent to school. It is a fact."

Show me the law which states that! A child must have (I paraphrase but this is the gist of it as I'm sure you know) an effective FT education appropriate to her age, aptitude and ability at school or otherwise. Where is it "a fact" that a child has to go to school if one parent refuses to co-operate in HE but the other is fully capable of doing it without their help? It's a fact that the OP has every right in law to withdraw her child from school and to HE and it's a fact that the school should have taken her DD off their roll from the moment that they were informed of the withdrawal.

And, btw, it is perfectly possible to afford to HE as a single parent.

It is all by the way. If you ignore all the whys and wherefores, you don't have a massively unhappy DC and I think that my post of 12 points was very sensible for anyone of any persuasion
OP hasn't come back but I doubt where she addressed any of them bar the fact that she thinks her DC too young for school (a very valid point if voiced correctly) and she wants to HE. I wonder how much that plays a part? If her DH said 'OK -you earn the money and I will stay at home and do it' -would she still be so keen? Bearing in mind the DC comes central and not what she wants to do.

exoticfruits, when a 3 year old (or a 5 year old, or 7 year old or 14 year old) can't mange to sit still and concentrate (or such sitting still doesn't seem, for them, to be conducive to learning) do you think this is because they have not been taught, or have failed to learn, the optimum learning/socialising skills?

Are there walks of life in which having learned to sit still to concentrate might be disadvantages?

Grahamtribe-firstly my DH can't force me to HE if I don't want to-I think that is perfectly simple and no one could argue with it.
However, he can't HE if I am expressly against it and fight it.

It's a fact that the OP has every right in law to withdraw her child from school and to HE and it's a fact that the school should have taken her DD off their roll from the moment that they were informed of the withdrawal

Since when have schools listened to one parent? Her DH went back in and asked them to have him back.

Luckily I can't imagine being married to someone with such different ideas to mine.

If we did get to that and he was wanting to do it when there were no major issues (most young DCs have difficulty sitting still) then he would have to have my agreement. Firstly I would be wanting at least joint custody and secondly I would be putting the case to LEA that our DCs were better at school.
If he won that round I would have the LEA inspector in every term and a written report. He would need to be able to prove that it was in the DCs interests.

And, btw, it is perfectly possible to afford to HE as a single parent

I would be using that in my argument-that a, I wasn't paying a penny towards it when I didn't want it and b, if he was working part time I wanted my DCs somewhere that they came first.

It is all hypothetical. Luckily most people have DCs together and are in agreement. OP isn't in that lucky position.

I generally get carried away and you can ignore most of what I say, BUT I don't think that anyone could disagree with my post of 8.32 this morning.

She isn't talking to the converted-she has the hard job of talking to the unconverted, and therefore would do much better to take the advice of the unconverted to talk to him. Some of the views on here are bound to antagonise him.

I am not really interested in sitting still ommward, bar the fact it is another disagreement with her DH -he obviously thinks they should fit in with the school and she doesn't.

It is first and foremost a communication problem. There is no way forward until they agree and they need a proper talk with my 12 points+finances.
Meanwhile the default is school-I don't think that one parent can remove from school when the other tells the school to keep him there!
The rest is superfluous.

Sorry exoticfruits, I think we have had a miscommunication: I was talking about the situation of kistigger (whose child apparently is very unhappy about going to school) whereas you are talking about the OP. I'll discontinue that discussion now because it is too confusing to talk about two entirely separate families' situations at length on one thread!

I missed any reference to kistigger, but I agree that if your DC is utterly miserable at school it is a completely different story.
OP hasn't come back but it would be interesting to know if she has more arguments than:

her DS is too young
sitting still is a problem
she wants to HE.

I can't see anything wrong with them but they wouldn't be enough to persuade me-it would take a lot more.

I have only one point, that I am making extremely badly and getting into silly scenarios, but the one point is valid-you can't successfully HE unless both parties want to do it.

GrahamTribe was completely wrong in saying that she had the right to withdraw her DC - I dare say she could, BUT her DH had the equal right, that he took, to put him back on roll! They need to get their act together!

Both parents-rather than both parties.

School is definately not the default - If I'm the one who's actually doing the physical child-caring, he would find it very difficult to force me to do the 'default' school thing. There's nothing 'default' about it - default is my children being with me.

Could you do it without your oh's support?