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.

I believe I could HE without his support easier than I could do school by myself yes. If he was going to put his foot down about school, he'd have to a) have the kids on side and b) be prepared to put his money where his mouth was and get them there/deal with it all.

He could simply leave you seemedlikeetc. You couldn't do it. He could also fight for custody. Even if you managed to be the main carer you would have problems if he fought the HE.
He still appears to be with you, and letting you do it.

I don't see how it works if one parent is so against it they split up over it.

I also can't see a very good compromise-one side effectively has to get talked around. OP needs to do that. If she can't manage it I fail to see how she can avoid keeping her DS at school.

And in seemedlikeetc case I would definitely put my money where my mouth is in her DHs case and say 'you go to work and I will do the school run etc' . Where would she be if he actually did that? She can say it happy in the knowledge he won't call her bluff. She is relying on his agreement, if not his full support.

I'm only being difficult to show that people manage it because they get their DH on board. They may do it saying things like 'you sort school' but they know full well that their DH won't call their bluff and won't leave them over it.
OP hasn't got that-I still don't see how she can do it if her DH is adamant about staying at school. It isn't even as if she has an upset DC in the mornings.

exoticfruits you seem to have a lot to say and I'm afraid I don't agree with everything you say. Yes parenting is a partnership, and doing school/HE with each parent wanting the opposite would be challenging as both myself and hemumof4 are finding out. Yes, on the whole school seems to be the default position so to speak, I think that is often the problem, there is a real stigma surrounding the 'weirdos' that HE! We discussed, as a couple, many things before we even got engaged, on grounds that we were in this deal for life, and on the whole we are/were in agreement, occasionally we are completely opposite, like I'm sure most normals couples are on completely random things, and it is at those times that we either have an argument or sit in complete silence seeing who will give first!!! We always planned to use school, DS is in Y4 and tbh is not the sort of child who would pay me much attention in terms of learning and has always been like that. DD on the other hand was a pleasure to have at home and was advanced from when she was tiny, but we thought school would be best for her, even I did. I want the school system to work but sometimes you get to the point where you see your child is horribly frustrated and upset, you fully understand what they are going through so you want to do something to help relieve the problem. If hemumof4 can relate to DS not being able to sit still and concentrate, then maybe she would be able to help him with those skills better than anybody else!

Saracen thank you for the sympathy! I guess his will trumps because he is earning, while currently I am studying for a degree with OU and doing all the school runs etc. The long-term goal is to be a teacher and he sees HE as getting in the way of that. Ironic really cos HE is exactly that in many ways, I just wouldn't get paid for doing that!!! I really really want to open my own school... I missed the Government deadline for the next lot and so if I went for it next year it wouldn't open until 2015 or something (if it even got accepted first time and I could find some financial backing to start it up)! There are other local parents who are unhappy with the local provision (I discovered over the weekend at a kids party). I wouldn't have a clue how to go about all the documentation and DH is what you might call a pessimist and would see all that as wishful thinking rather than something concrete and achievable! Several of my friends would take their kids out if the school was up and running now! I think also DH really does believe all the stories about HE delinquents who have no social skills, no qualifications and no hope of future jobs and most importantly I discovered today when I probed again today, that once I start I will never let DD back into school, at which point I said that a lot of HE kids go back into school for secondary, he gave that look of yeah right! I really need to find a normal HE person locally that can show him that it isn't all bad, rather than me have to try and persuade him!

hemumof4 if it helps... a lot of children have concentration and sitting still issues at 5, especially the boys. My DS concentrated much better in Y2 after we had his eyes retested and found out that he needed glasses, we had a hearing test cos we thought he had problems on that front but found out he was ok and we asked his new teacher about sitting nearer the front cos of the possible hearing/vision problems and allow him to concentrate better (in Y1 he sat next to a child who understood almost nothing each lesson and spent the whole time talking to DS, he learned very little that year)! Someone made suggestion of seeing health visitor/doctor, probably a good suggestion, even if they tell you all is well, it's one more thing to rule out!! A sight test might not be a bad idea, especially if others in your family have to wear glasses/contacts. Ask about where your child sits during 'mat time', it may be your DS does not have a good eyeline with the teacher, that someone else is distracting them, or that they are not always understanding what is being asked of them/said! At least if you try lots of other things and make you OH very aware of all this and still find no improvement, he may change his mind again! I still live in hope of course, I have been into school many times and still DH is anti the idea, although only broached the idea about 3 weeks ago and I've been reading up on it where as he still refuses to get out the dark! I think I need to prove that I can study, do a school run for DS, HE DD and earn money all at the same time before he will allow it to happen! Sometimes I swear that in an argument or heated discussion you have to jump through many rings before the court swings your way, I'm hoping it doesn't have to go that far!!!

oh sorry doing mega posting today...
hemumof4 Does you OH go to parents evenings with you?
Mine won't. He seems to think he has nothing to say, that I know more, it's almost like he's trying to opt out most the time from their education, he seems to forget that parents evening is as much about you seeing your child's work and being told by their teacher how lovely/awful they are, as it is about asking questions, in fact more so cos there is never time for your questions, you normally have to book another time to see them for that!!!

I was responding to one particular poster kistigger. You didn't ask advice, and if you had, my advice would have been completely different.

Everyone is saying to her-'of course you can do it, and lone parents can do it too'. They have missed the fact that even if their DHs were against it they have managed to talk them around, or at least persuade them to start it.

OP hasn't done this and I don't think that advice like 'tell him to do the school run' is the least helpful. She hasn't got a DC who makes a big scene every morning-it isn't an issue and quite possibly her DH could just go to work a bit later and take him first, for all we know. She has never come back with an update.

If you have a DH who is against it it seems much better, in my view, to have the advice from someone else who would be unhappy about it.
I would want a lot more than the 3 points that she has come up with. I think that my 12 points to consider were very good. Has anyone actually got anything against any of them?

She only has one course of action-and that is to persuade him-bearing in mind that they need to live happily together as a family.

Her only other possible course of action to to propose a compromise. A sensible one would be to do it as an experiment until key stage 2. Suggest they do it until the summer of 2013 and make up their mind whether it is school or home in the September of the start of year 3. If I was her DH I would be amenable to that-with a few provisos on my side.

Every HEer is different-you can't lift advice for one to apply to others.
My advice is for OP, who rushed into it with wild enthusiasm and no preparation-as far as I can see.
She needs to take time and do the preparation-enough to impress her DH and be able to answer all his questions.

"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."

The LA aren't in a position to judge whether a child is "better [off] at school", their remit in law is merely to content themselves that the child is receiving a FT education appropriate to her age, aptitude and ability and any SN which she might have. There is no default and there is no "X is better than Y". LA's might and sometimes do try to tell you that there is but that's not what the law says.

And you cannot "have the LEA inspector in every term and a written report" upon the HE if the parent providing it doesn't wish that to happen. Taking up your hypothetical argument I'm assuming that you're speaking of your DH providing a home education without your co-operation. The LA has no automatic right to make regular visits, meet the DC, meet the parent/s, visit the home or see samples of work and the HE parent has every right to refuse them permission to do any of these things. That's the law too.

Personally I'd HE and tell my DH to take a hike, but that's just me. :)

My whole point is that if you decide to HE alone, and your partner doesn't want it and separates over it, you can't possibly say that you will get everything that you want. You may not get custody for a start-how can you HE if you don't have the DCs with you? Even if you manage to get to be primary carer the father will get some say. I can't see any court just dismissing him and leaving it all to the mother. They will at least have to listen to his concerns. They will go for mediation and the compromises that the couple should have made in the first place.

I know full well that the LEA can't visit unless you allow it.

If I was OP's DH that would be one of the provisos that I mentioned. The LEA inspector would have to be allowed in when they wished, they would have to see the DCs and I would be there too. If he compromises by going ahead with HE I think that it is perfectly fair that a compromise comes from the OP.

My other proviso would be that we were in it together as equal partners. I get the impression that OP just wants to do it, the way she went about it shows that she isn't including him-he is just supposed to go to work and leave her to it!

At the moment I don't get the impression they are equal partners-he is more a father figure who was persuaded into agreeing and she shouted 'whoopee' rushed off and did it with no thought of anyone else at all! The poor DS has had a whole life away from her (as she has no significant worries he must have had friends) -she just took him off with no chance to say goodbye, exchange phone numbers, take in sweets for the rest of the class, bring his old books, art work home etc. Just 'here today-gone tomorrow'. She didn't involve DH is how they were writing the letter etc.
Do they even know if they have the same aims with HE? I doubt it.

I don't see how it is helpful to have couples who manage to agree on HE to just say 'tell DH to take a hike'-if he takes a hike he could kick up the hell of a fuss and she still couldn't do it! Much better to actually communicate, work as a partnership and be prepared to give and take on both sides.

What about coming to a compromise and asking OH if you can take her out after the summer half term to see how things go and if it doesn't work out then you'll put her back in September. That way, in his eyes, she'll only miss six weeks of the summer term and you can have twelve plus weeks to get used to home ed. I think to make it a success in OH's mind you should provide him with tangible evidence that she is learning at home so I wouldn't deschool in this instance. By all means do as you wish once he's decided home ed is the way to go - just don't tell him! ;)

I think that the way you bring up DCs is far too important for one to do anything underhand. If OP is simply not telling him she is still acting as if he is the adult and she is the DC who needs permission. I think the whole problem is that she has gone about it in a very childish way. They need to sit down and discuss it as adults and both recognise they need compromise.
Could we have an update? Where are you up to now?