Any regrets

[maggi]

To all He ....... Do you have any moments of regrets about homeschooling.....are your kids not progressing as you'd hoped.... is it impossible to get your child to do any formal written work....do you end up worn out from planning.....what are all the pitfalls and more importantly how have you overcome them?

( Im just having a few doubts whether I should take the leap as my ds school report just arrived and wasn't half bad. )

I would be very interested in this thread. HE has crossed my mind so many times. We are not having a good time with DS's school right now, he's not progressing. On the other hand, he is socially confident and enjoys school. Can I add a question?

If you moved your child from school to HE, do you regret it?

I have absolutely no regrets
I've got what I hoped for, which is a civilised, knowledgeable, resilient, witty, creative, self-confident young adult with various money-making irons in the fire
Yes it's impossible to get him to do any formal written work (or I assume it would be, but actually I have never tried)
Planning isn't the tiring bit, staying responsive is the tiring bit (active listening)
Pitfalls vary with each individual I'd have thought. In retrospect I'd listen (even) less to my family's objections as they have all come round in the end and I Always Knew I Was Right

We home educated from the start and my son is 19 now.

HE from the start here too. No regrets.

are your kids not progressing as you'd hoped?

I don't fantasise about what they will be interested in at a certain age, and what they will learn at a certain age. It's hugely unlikely to be in step with the national curriculum, since "one size fits all" is unlikely to fit any individual terrifically well.

is it impossible to get your child to do any formal written work?

No idea. It probably would be impossible, but I don't know because I don't see any value in externally imposed formal written work, so I've never tried to force that.

do you end up worn out from planning?
No. I don't plan anything, really. Sometimes we come across (and acquire) a cool resource, and sometimes it is indeed a cool resource, and sometimes it comes into its own 3 years later, and sometimes it always was rubbish, really, so we take it back to the charity shop from whence it came.
Like Fiona says, the hard thing is staying responsive, especially when there are multiple children all wanting to talk about something desperately important at the tops of their voices at the same time (getting them to tell each other is of course the moment of glory)

what are all the pitfalls and more importantly how have you overcome them?

Biggest ones for me:

1. overscheduling, so that we are so busy whizzing around between museums and zoos and HE meet-ups that we forget to have quiet days at home where we all just mosey around and tidy up the scrap yard sitting room.

1. Worrying about whether a particular child has got to a particular developmental stage yet, without concentrating on what they themselves are learning at that particular point, and how I can help them. I get better at not having my own agenda, and instead providing resources and conversation around what they want to talk about

My only regret is that I should have done it sooner, but I know I'm not alone in that. There's not a home educator alive who wishes they'd hung on a bit longer in school .

HE has been nothing but positive for my family. My son (13) has AS/ADHD and it was impossible to break down and analyse his problems and provide the right support when he was under constant stress from school. Being in a calmer environment has enabled us to pick apart his difficulties, which has meant we've been able to repair the damage done and plan for his future. He's doing far better than I'd expected and working on several IGCSE subjects now. Apart from the hormonal stroppy teen stuff at the moment, he's rather lovely and happy. If he'd stayed at school he'd have been facing a future of violent behaviour and limited prospects because nobody was actually dealing with his problems, and just punishing him instead.

One of the things we discovered was that his problems with handwriting and producing written work were largely due to his diagnoses and additionally we found he was hypermobile and actually in pain when he tried to write. We've got round that by letting him use the laptop for most of his work and have been pleasantly surprised by the standard of his output, which was very limited before because he would handwrite as little as possible at school. It also helps with his organisation and planning, which again was impossible for him before.

Pitfalls? I'm not educated and I often feel out of my depth. He's a very clever lad and surpassed me years ago - I get around that by accepting my limitations and I get help where it's needed, eg tutors for specific subjects that are way beyond me but he wants to study. Like ommmward we're always busy, and it can be exhausting, but we are happy and have a good life, and I think those sacrifices bring their own rewards. Another issues is that there's not a massive HE scene where I live (lots of families but quite widespread and different lifestyles/beliefs/education choices) so it can be a bit isolating at times, but we make do with a smaller HE social circle than we'd like and make up for it by still seeing a lot of people who are still in school.

I do find the planning hard but that's because of health issues that mean I'm tired a lot and don't always concentrate well. But that's a problem with me personally and not HE.

No, no regrets. I have my wobbles, but none of them ever involve imagining my kids at school. My self-doubts are all about whether I should be home educating in a different way, because sometimes I think other people are doing it so much better than I do.

My kids often don't progress as I had hoped. They do some things earlier and others later than I might have hoped and expected. It's been hard for me to come to terms with that, but it is a good thing. It is proof that they are unique people and that they are following their own lights and not being pushed along by my agenda (or anyone else's) for them.

Formal written work and planning - I wouldn't know, I haven't tried. I expect my older daughter would go along without too much fuss. She has always been rather too eager to please. Her little sister is a different story, and wouldn't do anything if she didn't see the point. She's as stubborn as her mum and I'm sure we could have some almighty rows.

Pitfalls... in the past I have sometimes been inclined to feel a bit disheartened at the prospect of eating dog food in my retirement. I never intended to have quite such a long career break as this! But then I give myself a shake and look around at my friends who are working parents with children at school. They don't seem to be having an easy time of it. Some of them lurch from one childcare crisis to another. School-as-childcare leaves a lot to be desired. I have no idea how people manage to cobble together childcare to accommodate all the half-terms, inset days, kids' illnesses, and parent-teacher meetings. If I dropped my kids at school and picked them up afterward then even if I worked round the corner that would only allow me to work 9:30-2:30, which most employers wouldn't want to accommodate, certainly not in the industry in which I used to work. So the answer to that one is just a reality check! I don't really think that "free childcare" in the form of state school is all it's cracked up to be.