What are your regrets about your time at school?

[Nigglenaggle]

I was just reading another thread about opinions on home schooling and was struck by how many people said that the children would miss out. So probably it's just me and most people had a much more positive school experience. But I thought I'd tackle it from the other end. I will start and say how much I hated being with the other children. And waiting to walk home so I wouldn't be spat on. Not eating because there was nowhere safe to have lunch. Being pushed and shoved. Having someone steal my craft project. As an adult, I socialise fine, but I choose to avoid twats. I wish I'd had that option as a child, as I really did enjoy learning. I await a flood of answers from people who loved school I will add that at the time I was at school, home ed wouldn't have been practical for us, and that I feel that the school I went to was excellent and couldn't have done better - fab teaching.

I think my projection onto my dc was limited to not wanting them to be overexposed to the extent I was, so I wouldn't have sent them to a school that was as many hours as mine was. Not hard, as hardly any schools are that many hours.

Dh was specifically against the system where we live, for what I agree to be very valid reasons, so we weren't going to send the dc to school here, nor will we ever. Dc have no desire to go to school here either, having mostly been exposed to it through the horror stories told by their friends in the home ed group who have been.

We in fact did take ds1 to preschool for a brief time, in a very alternative school in another country. He said it was nice enough but that he'd rather stay home.

We will be moving countries in the future, and one of my criteria is that there should be a school available that would be acceptable to us should the dc decide to go. I think there is a possibility they will, when they become teenagers. Mostly I suspect it will be down to how large the home ed community where we live at the time is. Most of the teenagers I know who have chosen to attend school did so because they wanted to meet more dc their own age than was available to them in the home ed community.

Mainstream school is not a possibility due to the way the dc have been taught, which is not compatible with incorporating them into a system that requires any degree of homogeneity. This wasn't something that was planned as such (well, certainly not by me and dh swears not by him either), it just turned out that way.

AGnu, your parents' not knowing how bad things were for you, and your unquestioning acceptance of your lot, reminds me of Rudyard Kipling's autobiography.

Born abroad, he had been sent to school in England, where he lived with foster parents who abused him. His kind aunt visited him there sometimes, and he stayed at her home for a month every year, but he never thought to tell her about the abuse. He said, "Often and often afterwards, the beloved Aunt would ask me why I had never told anyone how I was being treated. Children tell little more than animals, for what comes to them they accept as eternally established."

This is why in an ideal world (which I do know we don't all inhabit!!) it would be good not to have to send our children to be cared for by strangers in a large group environment until they have become less childlike in this respect. At some stage they develop enough experience of the world to question their circumstances when they are unhappy, to understand that it shouldn't be like that, and to tell someone. When my dd went to school I had no worries at all on that score. By then she knew that she deserved to be happy, and she wouldn't have suffered in silence.

I don't think my younger daughter has that level of self-awareness yet, so I'd worry about her starting school just yet.

Yes, that's it exactly. On the odd occasion that I did mention issues my mum said "it's just the way girls are" so it didn't occur to me that making a fuss about it would've been remotely productive! I still can't imagine what my parents would've done had they known. DM has made it clear that she couldn't have HE'ed me & the school I was at was supposed to be the best one in the area. The others were a little, erm, rough... so I'd have had to bus in to the nearest city. Only one person from my primary school went to a different school. The one I went to was the done thing so I didn't question it. Same as I didn't question doing A levels at the same school or going to university... All huge mistakes for me!

Oh well, I've learnt to question things now... & spend so much time questioning every decision that I get nothing done!

I was accepting of all the bullying going on in primary school. One then two girls were constantly grinding me down all through infants and juniors. I always told the teachers and was brushed off as a clinging nuisance. Around age 9 I begged Mum to go into school and stop the bullying. I was told the same story as always: 'hit them back, don't let them do it, stand up for yourself'. Secondary was a new start with a parcel of 4 dependable and eternal friends. I was able to begin to develop a degree of confidence and begin to recover.

But all through this misery my teachers, my parents and I accepted it as normal and something I'd just have to put up with. I still loved school. I loved learning. Maybe everyone's acceptance, although horrifying to modern society, enabled me to separate the bullying and school as two issues? Whatever it was, I never questioned everyone's acceptance of the situation and my school regrets were that we were drip fed instead of being taught to learn for ourselves.

I am a lurker on this board and am planning on HEing from September.

Dd3 has Asd and I probably have undiagnosed aspergers. I really didnt fit in at school and struggled like mad. I ended up with no qualifications and no friends.

Dd3 is struggling and has done since reception, she is now yr7. DP and I have tried to get her the help that she needs at school but we are banging our heads on a wall. Nothing has changed since I was at school so we are bailing out!

We havent told Dd3 yet as she has to stay until July but I know she will be happy as she has been asking to be HEed for years.

I'm so pleased you're managing to make the leap for your Dd3.

I loved school. I was bored senseless there. Messed around a lot and got sent out for talking to much. Left with 11 GCSE A* -C Most irrelevant past the basic 3 of them. I hated home. I would have moved into school if they would let me lol. Anything not to be at home. I was really happy at school. My 6 and 3 year old are home schooled because the uk schooling system these days is under so much pressure and strain and is the most artificial recreation of "normal life" i've ever seen. I was working in the school at the time as 1:1 for SEN. I quit after witnessing the goings on behind closed doors in this Ofsted outstanding school. I took DD out the next week (who wasn't coping at school at all)

My experience of school didn't influence my decision to hs. My behind the scenes witness of it in place did. However my childhood and rubbish home life definitely influenced my future and that's why I am now a foster carer.

Interesting discussion. I loved school. But this was back in the early 80s when school was less structured and pressured.

I'm a teacher (now out of mainstream) and have seen so many children failed by the current target driven system, it's soul destroying. My own son is miserable in his lovely school and we've decided to home ed for no other reason that although academically really bright he's never been 'school shaped' either.

Thanks Ommm The other day during a car journey I asked Dd3 if she could change one thing in her life what would it be and she said "Never to go back to school!"

It certainly put my mind at rest that we are not making our HE plans for nothing!