considering HE

[madmomma]

My younger children are 2 and 3 and whilst I think they are the sort of personalities who would enjoy school, I am absolutely despairing of the education system generally. I hate the 'teaching to exam' mentality and the narrowness of the curriculum. My 16yr old has just finished school and I'm disappointed with her knowledge. I don't want to home educate, but if it's the best way of ensuring my kids get a decent education then I'll get into it. Schools around here are all much of a muchness and it's a deprived area which we can't afford to move out of. I don't know what to do for the best. Any thoughts? TIA

Hi, I was in similar position to you a while back. I would suggest going along to a local home ed group and you can discuss your concerns. it will also give you an idea of what home ed life can be like. I've only recently started going to a couple of groups and met some local home edders. It has been really helpful and reassuring in that home ed is the best option for us. What area are you in? There will be a local yahoo or Google group you can join for your area.

Hi super, thanks for the reply. I'm in Manchester. Good idea to get in touch with other parents. I wish there were better schools round here :(

I agree - meeting families who are already home educating can be a great way to learn more about how it can work in practice. In particular, you'll see that different people can use very different methods and have different lifestyles, all very successfully.

So don't be dismayed if the first few families you meet make you think, "I'd never want to do it like that!" Meet some more and eventually you will find someone whose approach feels right and possible to you.

It's entirely possible that your younger children would enjoy school. That doesn't mean they wouldn't enjoy home education even more! All of the older home educated kids I know are offered a choice about whether to go to school. Many, including my own teenager, have tried school at some point in order to see whether they'd like it. Having done this, a few do choose to stay in school. Most don't!

My older daughter was just the sort of person who could be expected to thrive at school: sociable and dominant, interested in academics at an early age, compliant and eager to please, among the eldest in the year group. I don't think she would have been deeply unhappy at school. I just thought home education could give her even more!

The other day she was grumbling about the unfairness of life, because she loves cats and is allergic to them. I agreed that this was unfair but pointed out to her that life is often unfair in her favour. Out of the blue, she said, "You're right. I don't have to go to SCHOOL!" and beamed.

I agree getting in touch with a HE group is a good starting point. I really enjoyed meeting the older HE kids at the first meet up that we went to, it was great to see how they can turn out! The kids I met (who were about 8ish) were just brilliant with my 4 year old dd they went out of their way to make her feel involved and comfortable without treating her like a baby. That was the main thing that sold me on the idea of home ed.

A year later and we're very happy with our decision.

Do you find you get sick of being tied to them all the time though. Do you all get bored of each other?

I found it difficult when my older daughter was about 4-5 years old. She was a fairly demanding child who didn't like playing on her own. So yes, that was hard. I put a lot of effort into getting her together with other people so she could bug them instead of me get her social needs met. I didn't have to be with her ALL the time. I worked a few days a week and sent her to childminders (home educating childminders, as it happened, so there were other big kids for her to play with).

There are also childcare swaps, or you could send your kids to an "after-school club" or similar. And try to arrange more playdates.

But you know, I think many four year olds can be quite hard work regardless of whether they go to school. If my dd had been at school then she might well have become ultra-demanding during the hours when she wasn't at school; many parents who have tried both school and HE describe that phenomenon. It's like schoolchildren have a more urgent drive to get what they need from you during the relatively few hours they have access to you. And towards the end of the day is the very time when they are tired and hungry, you are tired and hungry, everyone is busy, you've got to make them do homework... so there is a price to be paid for the "time off" which school provides.

So part of the answer is that maybe it isn't that hard compared to school after all. And part of the answer is that HE parents just get used to having their kids with them all the time. It's easier for those of us whose kids were HE from the start as we have never known any different.

Anyway, since that time it has been smooth sailing for us. My older daughter has got easier with every passing year and is now a lovely and helpful fourteen year old. Her little sister always was pretty laid-back and easygoing.

And too, I should have said that there are parents who do find being with their kids so much of the time really really difficult, who are struggling with circumstances I can't imagine, whose kids' behaviour is especially challenging or who themselves are in difficult personal circumstances.

I guess they are doing it anyway because they know it is what their children need. But sometimes it's too much to cope with, and what the whole family needs is for the child to go to school.

The simple pleasant life I described in my previous post is not everybody's reality.

Still, it's unlikely that you'd lose anything by having a go and seeing how you get on. School will always be there as a Plan B.

Thanks Saracen that's really helpful. My girls are pleasant and content but my boy is like a box of frogs and wants to be out doing things constantly. He also loves being with lots of people, and would soak up the social life of school, but I'm not at all confident that his education would be good enough.

This is a great thread...I have a 2.9yo ds who I have always planned to home ed, but I admit I'm going through a bit of a wobbly patch, because he's been a dream up until now and has just hit the terrible twos stage of behaviour issues. We recently went on holiday together for 3 weeks (I'm a single parent) and being constantly on demand 24/7 put a real strain on me and I did not like the parent I became. I am now worried that I might not have the patience/or be suited to home educating him. I worry that if I become that parent again it would be very damaging for him/our relationship.

I am willing to put 100% effort into avoiding this happening, including putting him with a childminder 2 days a week so I can work (and have a bit of me time), but I am still in two minds over the whole home ed thing.

The school I would send him to is undersubscribed so I think it's worth the risk of going with home ed and seeing how we get on, because a place will always be there for him at school. However my concern is how he would find trying to fit into school, say in Y1 or Y2 (or even Y3) if he's missed out on YR when they learn how school works.

I have spoken with a few friends/people I know who work in schools/colleges and they don't have anything positive to say about the home ed kids they've met, citing that they struggle to fit back into the school environment and their social skills are often poor. Now it's worrying me that actually might be a hidden "social" risk to trialling home ed from the start. Can anyone reassure me otherwise?

OP - sorry to hijack your thread but I thought it might benefit you to as we're at a similar stage with our children and thoughts on home ed!

Ask anyone that works in a school if there are any children that struggle socially and if home ed has never been mentioned they will real off all the children with no friends, all the odd kids the ones that get bullied. We have all seen them we know they are there.
Give that child a year or more of home ed and home ed becomes the reason. I wonder what the reason is when these children started school at 4?

I agree with bebanjo. Kids are all different, and drawing conclusions about home education based on the one or two children they have met is not really right, is it? if I had only ever met a couple of schoolchildren and they had poor social skills, it wouldn't be fair of me to conclude that all schoolchildren were like that and that school had made them that way.

There's another point, which is that home educated kids are a self-selected (or parent-selected) group. By virtue of that it seems probable that they are not representative of the larger population. Those home educated children your friends met, who struggled to adapt to school and who didn't swim easily in a large pool of children - is it not possible that the children have always been like this, always will be like this, and that that is the very reason their parents chose to HE in the first place?

Take one of my kids, for example. She doesn't do school-type things well. Her attention span is very short. She dislikes being told how to spend her time. She isn't like other kids her age. She is several years behind her age peers academically. Because she has a genetic condition which is known to affect brain development, I can confidently assert that home education isn't solely responsible for all of her differences. It's the other way round: her differences are one of the reasons WHY she is being home educated. Some genius glancing at her in the school corridor might easily jump to the wrong conclusions, believing that home education had damaged her socially and academically.

My dd has an indisputable diagnosis, but for most it isn't so clear. I've known any number of kids whose parents recognised early on that they weren't cut out for the school system: too active, too anxious, too solitary, too bright, not bright enough. Maybe it's true that a disproportionate number of home ed children have difficulty when they do later go to school. Even if true, it doesn't mean home education caused the problems.

Snappy and beb. I am watching this thread because i am in a similar position as the OP.

Just to mention however, I spent a few years myself being HE and then went back into a state secondary at 15. It was tough!!!! That does not mean that I became socially inept because of HE. Reflecting upon this, it is probably true to say during the time that I was HE I somewhat lost the ability to relate to my peer group. And getting used to the institution that is school (again) was also an adjustment. I made that adjustment in the end and I held my own and enjoyed it. I struggled a lot to start with (not academically) but fitting in - yes definitely. It was a bit of a shock. HE can by its very nature be quite sheltered. Academically it was great. I missed group work though I think.

If I were to go back to the point where my parents decided I would go back into school ... I would say - find a way not to but let me get out more! I believe my education suffered going back to school, surviving the negative peer pressure took a lot of energy. It is hard also to compete with the educational benefit of 1:1 tutoring.

Having said this am now considering HE for my toddlers. So....Group work/play would be an area I would give a lot of consideration to so that collaborative skills with a wide variety of personalities can be developed. Group/team work is to this day my something I enjoy most (in a secular setting, although I have just become a SAHM) perhaps because of my personality. But my thought is that being able to work effectively with others, including people who you do not like, or do not like you, or have a different skill set or personality style - I think that is important. So this for me would be something to work hard to address if we decide to HE.

I agree with Saracen, I HE my son because he struggles socially. He always has done. That may be for all sorts of reasons but I am pretty sure it's not the HE as he has been different since the age of about 18 months.

madmomma I HE ds since he was very very young. During HE years the style of of learning may change. Many HE become independent readers very early, they choose and organise their interests and what they want to learn or do. This is a great value of HE. Some parents can continue teaching their DC further and later in life and transfer to them skills and knowledge they have even though the DC have become adults. Learning is an experience. I found that connecting with other HE groups was important.