To ask what you think when you hear a child is home educated

[turquoiseamethyst]

I suppose I am trying to gauge a range of opinions.

I am seriously - possibly definitely (definitely maybe?) going to be home schooling my 8 year old for a period of time.

I don't know why I'm worried; perhaps because it's so beyond the norm of what we have experienced before. I don't know anyone who home educates; I wasn't educated at home myself and I think I have known rather a lot of people who are very much of the view that school is all important. I've never particularly subscribed to that view but I've always wanted my children to have a 'normal' upbringing and going to school seems very much a part of that?

Does anyone have any views? As I'm going to possibly be de registering him tomorrow?

Hakluyt, ours was lovely too. DD bent her ear for a good hour, playing her instruments, showing her her work and generally showing off while dressed first as a Tudor, then a Victorian, then an odd looking Princess Jasmine (she had made the last one herself). The dog gave a chicken that had wandered into the kitchen unseen a big lick just as we walked in there to get a top up of tea. I think she thought we were absolutely barking too.

I didn't think that we gained anything from it at all but felt that we had nothing to hide and were doing far better than the school previously attended.

I'm finally reading through the whole thread and just wanted to reply to this post:

One thing that always strikes me on these threads and in RL when home educators list what their kids do in a week for education - I do (well did, my three are teens) all that with mine AND they went to school!

That's all the stuff I wanted to do with my DCs too, and they wanted to do it. The problem was, because of how much they struggled with school (socially I mean) they were too overwhelmed and emotionally wrung out that they couldn't manage much of anything at all. Even Brownies would tip DD over the edge into meltdown (even though she loves it and thrives in that environment) but they both desperately wanted to take part in all the stuff their friends was doing. It was all they could do to manage their reading book and crawl into bed (where DD would then spend 2hrs a night worrying about everything and nothing).

(So in a way they are actually starting to have a more 'normal' life than they did before, and are having a better social life too! It's just that it doesn't take place at school.)

I think most children can cope with/thrive on a full day at school AND all the extra stuff, but for those children who struggle, the 'do all that stuff at home to supplement school' idea doesn't work, sadly. :)

Friends were doing, not was, obviously (must remind DCs to proofread their work...)

Turquoise I'm so glad your thread was moved over here from AIBU. You're braver than me, I'm too scared to even reply, let alone start a thread on that board!

I don't really understand the 'he needs school' people either, nor the 'school fixes all problems' and 'its the best place for children' ones for that matter. Maybe they are the same ones who told me holding my newborn DD while she slept would 'spoil her' or 'make a rod for my own back'

Anyway I'm sure HE will work out fine for you and your DS and DDs. You have his best interests at heart and that's all it really takes to make HE (or any other parenting choice) work out. Just try not to be too harsh on yourself. You likely need time to adjust to everything same as your DS.

Hakluyt my DD did the same as you when we had a visit. Insisted on playing some long, scratchy tune on her violin (that she had only started learning to play 2 days earlier) to the poor woman. She then settled down next to her with a book written in French (she does not know how to read French) cover to cover. A full 20 pages of made up gobbledegook, but at least it showed she has got back her confidence and self-esteem. Just a few months earlier (at school) she was describing her self as bad and stupid and no good for anything.

to your whole post MelamineTeapot, it did make me smile!!

And to you Turquoise, you have come across genuinely lovely and as above, so glad to see this thread is now here in HE. How is it going?

You will get lots of support and also lots of wonderful, sensible advice here for as long as you need it .

Apologies that my post came at a bad time in this thread, and I managed to post it in the wrong 'tone'. What I was trying to say was that I did exactly as you are planning to - a perhaps-temporary period of HE to mend a child who was extremely anxious (to the point of ceasing to speak) in school - and it was fab, both educationally and in terms of 'mending'.

I'm really sorry that it didn't come over that way.

No I'm sorry teacher - I was very grouchy. I'm afraid dd is teething and she's up at 4 - it's draining me!

Lovely posts on here :)

Glad you've found a better place to post turquoise.

I tend to think the school system must have badly failed the parents and the child.