what are my kids missing by not attending mainstream school

[redberries]

I have a four and six year old I'm constantly being told they are deprived because I home ed

I think in both school and home ed the quality of the education depends on the quality of the educator / teacher. At least in school teachers are trained and monitored whereas with home ed you can only self evaluate. Am I alone in having watched the programme about huge families where one mother was teaching WW2 at home and getting things (basic ones) factually wrong?

My son is 5 and 'odd'. We HE for this reason.
As compared to his peers so far I think he is missing out on:
-learning he is not very good at drawing, writing and reading (summer born boy)
-having his name written on the board when he can't sit still
-being told he can't play with someone because they have a better friend
-wearing a uniform
-being assessed and monitored and tested in phonics
-homework
-spelling tests
-being told to sit on his bottom
-the experience of being controlled and of having almost no choices about his daily life

And if anyone could give me one example of a child who was 'odd' and socially awkward and whom school cured (i.e who got gradually better and better until by 14 or so they were popular and accepted by all) I would love to hear it. All the odd children I knew at school stayed odd and mostly got more and more miserable as the bullying got worse until they left. Ditto the 'getting on with people you don't like' - no one I knew at school ever did this, they just didn't talk to them for years. Or bullied them.

Tinlegs, most HE families don't operate like this (at least speaking from my own limited experience). The parent isn't pretending to be an expert on every subject and "teaching" in the way that a traditional school teacher does. I haven't seen the programme you are referring to, but of course there are plenty of idiots both in and out of the school gates. Do you have much first hand experience of HE?

Have taught HE pupils who were brilliant - really well educated - but their Mum knows what she is doing. I am a qualified and experienced teacher but would balk at teaching some areas / subjects beyond primary level, as did she. I think you need the challenge of debate / discussion and disagreement with peers as you reach the teens. You can't get this at home as easily. Also, I think, as I said, both come down to the quality of the "educator" - even if they are not "teaching" in the traditional sense. Home Ed that is done in order to present a narrow view of the world, or by someone who is not educated / has no experience is IMO not in the best interests of the child.

Chocolatecrispies I have three children (18, 15, and 12 years old). They have all had a combination of HE and school. My oldest son I believe was made less odd by school. Of course, there are good and bad sides to becoming less odd.

He is happy now, and doing well, but he could have turned into a fanatical mathematician if I hadn't sent him to school. I think he is happier as he is (other mathematical fanatics in the family). When he was about 13, he started to want to figure out how to fit in with other kids his age, and he put his mind to the problem. School helped, especially the experience of leaving one school, spending time HEing, then going to a new school and reinventing himself.

I remember when my first child was 5, like yours. I remember how desperately I wanted to protect him from the things you mention and much more. It is impossible to to get it right, and over the years I think I have learned that compromise and muddling along are important, as well as idealism and inspiration.

Tinlegs, yes I agree with you, and a parent who is narrow minded. ignorant or incurious would never be able to HE well, I don't think. Some people do a terrible job.

I just meant that at 14, my HE son's understanding of maths, for instance, was far ahead of mine, but I was still able to help him to follow his interests. At school his love for maths was completely stifled by the narrowness and inflexibility of the system.

I have always said that we home eductaed because it worked best for us at the time. Now our children are at school because it is the best thing for them, but just as we looked at things each year when we home educated we will look at things every year now they are in school to see if we are still doing what is the best thing.
I think home ed kids can miss out on some things, just like school children miss out on some things. You just have to decide which things you think are better to miss out on.

Ha! Home educated, not eductaed!

DS1 could be described as 'quirky' or possibly 'odd' when he was younger. In his first couple of years at school he did struggle a bit to make friends and fit in and on a couple of occasions asked me to Home Ed him (we have friends who did HE). I said no for lots of reasons, including that I thought the social environment would be good for him. His confidence and social skills have grown over the years in large part because of his school experience IMO. He is not bullied and is now part of a good social circle with lots of friends. Personally I think HE would have been a disaster for him.

All children are going to miss out on something, you can't have it all. I would say that flexibility is the key and continually evaluating choices. It would be interesting to know OP's motivation to ask and whether she wants to try and provide anything missing or whether she just wants replies for the critics.

I never understand what is so wrong with 'odd'; all my life I have liked the 'odd' people who don't conform.

I'm also often bemused by the people who insist that HEd kids are always socially inept / strange. Leaving aside those who came out of school because it wasn't meeting their needs (for SN or whatever reason) the HEd dc I know are pretty much universally charming, socially competent and lovely. Many have moved into school or gone to college (the FE college here takes a lot of HE dc at 14 for GCSEs) as they got older & wanted access to specialist teachers etc.

Takver Maybe they're talking of their own experiences of meeting people who were HE when they themselves were kids. I admit that the few people I met at Uni who had been HE were quite "socially challenging", mainly in terms of being quite tactless/ not reading when "not to go there"/ pushing debates into arguments (I'm still traumatised by one particular one over Israel). However, as you say, firstly, there's a massive cause/effect assumption. It's more likely that school didnt suit those children because of how they were, rather than HE making them like that. Secondly, I think HE has moved on a lot in that time (I'm nearly 40) and I imagine the internet must have massively facilitated the growth of HE networks etc. so that it's easier for HE parents to meet other like-minded families for weekday meet ups.

You are going to get the whole range of personalities in the same way that schools do. The difference is that if you meet the socially inept/strange, you don't say 'school made them like this' and yet people do with HE. But the reality is that they would go to school and remain that way.
I think that nature is far stronger than nurture. I was told on here that things like trainers were no longer an issue without peer pressure at school and yet the teenager that I knew who was HEed lived in the middle of nowhere, outside a village, ten miles from the nearest small town and he managed to know exactly what was the 'in' thing and want to wear it! His brother, in exactly the same circumstances couldn't have cared less what he wore. They are now adults and haven't changed.
If someone is socially inept/strange then the school or parent is going to have to work on it with the child and, most importantly, the child is going to have to see the problem and want to change.
HE doesn't make them that way, it just makes it less easy for them to share, see other points of view etc if they are already that way inclined.
HE is down to the parent, if they are socially inept, not willing to have open house to friends of their child that they don't personally like, not willing to give their kitchen over to science experiments, let their children get their hands in paint,get dirty gardening, join outside organisations like dance class, football clubs, go off on Brownie camps etc then they are probably better delegating to those who would do it all i.e. school.
Generally people's views come down to personal experience. If you loved school, and your children love it, you are not going to see any point in HE but if the opposite is true then you are likely to see HE as the ideal solution.
It is pointless OP trying to explain to people, their mind is made up before they ask the question. The only thing that will change it is a huge success with it in about 5 yrs time, or possibly longer.
It would be nice if OP came back to say whether she wanted to convince herself, convince others or know what she needed to provide that she was lacking.

"My son is 5 and 'odd'. We HE for this reason."

You know, I find this incredibly sad. He's 5. Not odd. 5.

Basing his education on th fact that you have decided he's "odd"- presumably well before he was 5 - seems to me to be soooooo wrong. HE may very well be perfect for him. But surely not because you decided he was "odd" at 4?

The only thing I find odd is that at 53 and with children aged 19 and 15 I have never ever met anybody who was or is home educated.

If this is becoming more popular then I think it may well be in direct response to the increasing homogeneity of schools; the one size fits all philosophy; the one that says children of all personalities, all abilities, including those with quite significant neuro atypical needs. Children are different and they need different schools: big schools, small schools, faith schools, secular schools, schools for the clever, schools for those who need a bit more help, schools for the sensitive (there was a fantastic one in Putney but it was closed), schools that can emphasis science or art, etc., etc.. You know the days in my generation when schools were allowed to be different and parents had more choice in where there children were sent.

The things that are bad about schools imo are how long it takes to deal with a poorly performing teacher, failure to deal with bullying - by teachers and children, staff who set poor examples of behaviour and conduct (and yes that includes the heavy handed dinner lady). There are many behaviours in schools by children and staff that have no place in the real world. And this business that children learn to get along with everyone and they need that skill in the real world is nonsense. In the real world one has smaller groups of friends who tend to be like minded and it is easy to avoid the unpleasant and those who are trouble.d In the real world if a worker thumps someone, or thieves or call someone something unspeakable for the sake of it they tend to get disciplined and those sorts of behaviours generally warrant gross misconduct and dismissal.

The argument that school prepares young people for the real world is I think rather dated because increasingly schools do not prepare those who need the most support for the real world. We removed our dd from a school where thieving, assault, disruption, etc., were becoming the order of the day and the patronising head told me that schools had to differentiate in the context of sanction where children were from deprived backgrounds. Well how does that help either the majority who are not fulfilling their potential due to the unchecked behaviour of others or the minority who are not being prepared for the rigours and expectations of the real world.

I wouldn't have home educated a 12/13 year old because I simply don't have the skills. But we were able to transfer her to gentle, nurturing, small caring school which does not tolerate disgraceful behaviour, which has a broad curriculum and where there seems to a great deal of mutual respect between parents, leadership, staff and the girls. Fortunately we were able to do so because we have the money to do so - when we resigned the head asked oh what can we do to keep her she's one of our A/A^ pupils? Too late love we said, you have painted your ethos already for us and it contradicts all of the ways we live our lives and want our dd to learn to live hers by.

Also have never ever met a home Ed person. It sounds very intense for the parents. What do they do with their lives once the chicks finally fly the nest - if they ever do?

My ds has a close mate who was home ed. they are both 19 now. They met aged 11 skateboarding. Ds invited him back with a load of other boys and he was no different He was a champion skater sponsored by local and national skateboard companies and is just the coolest nicest boy. He has done all his exams and is at Bristol university so has not suffered at all. I think his hobby and brilliant parents helped him.

Another things hecwasvmuch more capable than ds and co wrt things like travel ad self organisation and I think they learned a lot of that stuff from him. He was au fait with trains directions booking things etc at a young age ad had a grasp of money and banking which I am sure s advantageous now at university.

dementedma It isn't intense as such, but it is a lifestyle choice. My kids have just gone back to school after being home educated for 6 years and so I am now looking for paid work. I miss having the kids around more than I can say, the house feels empty without them during the day. They were ready to move on to other things though and are doing brilliantly.

I think we are gonna home ed too cos what I really wanna make sure the learn is how to 'Shoehorn Linux on to it, then I'll be able to run it up the flagpole and push the button on that'

"I think we are gonna home ed too cos what I really wanna make sure the learn is how to 'Shoehorn Linux on to it, then I'll be able to run it up the flagpole and push the button on that'"

Is this a wind up? Or will you be hiring an English tutor who can spell?

Well we've parented children who have gone right through school and home educated the youngest three, very informally with no written work at all, from when they were deregistered aged 13, 11 and 8, right through their teens until they took themselves off to college and then university.
I know literally hundreds of other autonomously/informally home educated/unschooled home educated young people, who are now employed, self employed, at university or FE colleges. All doing very well indeed. The range of universities they are at is wide, and include Bristol, Cambridge, Edinburgh, Leicester, Oxford etc etc. And the subjects include Psychology, Medicine, English, Photographic Journalism, Sociology, Music, Law and Veterinary Science....and those are just some off the top of my head.

For us, home education was a million times better than school, they didn't feel they missed anything, other than bullying and peer pressure.
Their social life that was the envy of their schooled peers and cousins.
I don't think there is anything positive they have missed out on. We've had every sort of event they might get in schools, plenty of workshops, Christmas play, sports days...you name we've done it and so much more.
In my experience schools can't possibly come anywhere close to all the experiences that our home education has provided.
But then we were always confident we could cover the education, but needed to focus on enabling a social life for our children that they would enjoy.
School had been such a miserable time for them-it's a very lonely place if you don't fit.

I'm not knocking school, it works for some families, and I am passionate that the fact that home education is a viable option and equal in law to school, should be well known, so parents can make an informed choice about what is right for their families at that time.

Our three fully intend to home educate any children they have in the future...but have often joked that they may well send them to school for a little while...just so they appreciate just how lucky they are to be home educated when they are dereg!

My dd doesn't feel like she misses out on anything being H.ed, and she doesn't, that I can think of anyhow.
However, I feel she gains so much from not being at school.

I know school works for many families but like Julienoshoes agree that with H.ed being equal in law and an alternative to school, parents have the right to choose what is right for their family.

I read an article on HE and socialisation by a teenager in the US who had been educated both at school and at home and she made the point that all the things that people say about home ed and school, both good and bad are true somewhere. You just have to decide on the least bad/most good option for you. (wish I could link to it but no idea how to find it again.)

My impression is that in many areas if you HE you could be meeting large groups of children every day, and you would certainly meet a more diverse group than in some schools. The difference is that you have to have the energy to go out there and get the ball rolling for your children rather than just drop them off at the school gate. To be fair, though, it also takes a certain amount of energy to get your children involved with activities and encourage their social life if they are at school. It's just that you don't have to do it between 9 and 3.30.

I think it can be difficult to do some things with your own child e.g. encourage/push them in an area in which neither you nor they are particularly interested. However, all home ed does not have to be delivered by one person. To be honest, many parents would say their children teach themselves (and there are some home ed philosophies that revolve around this - unschooling obviously, but also project based homeschooling and TJed). You can also share education with other family members, other HE groups, tutors, on-line communities (livingmathforum), on-line classes, evening classes etc. etc. etc.