Social aspect of home schooling a teenager - your experiences please...

[asmuchasapeasbrain]

I am seriously considering home schooling for my very shy 13 year old DD. After an optimistic and enthusiastic start to year 7, she was bullied and had to change class and although the bullying has stopped, her confidence and enthusiasm for school have never come back. She has a couple of good friends out of school, and belongs to out-of-school clubs, but no friends at school and spends every day alone at lunch and break times. Taking her out of school would not affect her social life one bit. I know that my DD is much better in smaller groups and I would really like to know your experiences of home schooling at this age up to GCSE, particularly in relation to the social aspect. Is it just a case of joining as many groups as possible etc.

hi. have you joined your local yahoo groups? search yahoo for home ed xx area and you should find them. there is also a fab exams group too...groups.yahoo.com/group/HE-Exams-GCSE-A_AS_Levels-OU-Others/

my dd is 10 but has found a nice little group of home edders that she enjoys spending time with. there are four of them, two sisters aged 13 and 15 and a lad aged 13.

i think it is like any other friendship search, you will go along to some events/meet ups and then over time will find others that you "click" with.

i find with home ed that age doesn't really come into it, a group of kids from toddlers to teenagers will merrily play altogether. it is weird at first, but i think it is because there just isn't the peer pressure that you find in schools.

hope this helps x

I deregistered my children from the ages of 13, 11 and 8. All three had similar issues in school.
We home educated them until they went onto FE college, where all three fitted in well academically and socially.
They are all in Uni level education now.

Along the way, their self confidence and self belief returned, as they socialised with home educated people locally and nationally. We went along to events locally in Worcestershire, where we live-but if anything came up in the LAs closet too us, that the children were interested in, we travelled to it. We also went along to home ed camps, as we go to know about them.
Our children ended up with a social life that was the envy of their schooled peers

Remember too, other non HE activities- dancing classes/choirs/sailing classes were popular activities for our daughters, which gave them friends outside of the HE community.

Thanks for the positive information everyone :). cheermum i like the sound of mixed ages together, my DD has always got on better in this sort of environment. I've found the yahoo group for my area so I'll be joining that.

Hi there I have a 16 year old (Year 11)who came out of school at the end of Year 7 and a 12 year old (Year 8) who came out of school at the start of Year 4. My 16 year old goes to sixth form college in September through her own choice; my 12 year old says she will stay in home ed until 18 - but she is of course free to change her mind at any time!

My 16 year old has kept in touch with some school friends, has friends she knows through the family, has made friends at the ice rink and ballet and a few from home ed, though not so many close friends in the home ed community. She's also very close to DD2. We don't really expect our children to be best friends, but mine are and I think that's a direct product of home ed.

My 12 year old lives in a social whirl of children from our home ed groups. Like julie, her social life is the envy of children she knows who goes to school. Sleepovers on a Wednesday? Why not? :) She didn't keep in touch with anyone from school, really, and doesn't tend to make such good friends in organised activities (like ballet) as DD1. She's quirkier than DD1 and seems to have found her best friends in the home ed community. She's going to miss DD1 terribly in September but has loads of brilliant friends to keep her busy. It does take a bit of effort, but less so as they get older and just organise stuff themselves.

asmuchasapeasbrain.....how are you getting on? How is your DD? I'd be really interested to know because I pulled my DD (13yrs old) out of school yesterday and plan to HE her once things have calmed down - she's been dreadfully bullied and the school have done nothing to help her - they even blamed her for being such a sensitive girl and too nice hence she encourages the bullying?! She's been a victim for so many months and we felt extremely disappointed with the way the school dealt with the many issues she had up against her - the final straw was last week when she received a burn during a lesson (cookery) done deliberately by the ring leader of a group of nasty teenage girls that were, once upon a time, very good friends. I really hope you are getting on well with your decision to HE......please can you let us know? :)