Just back from a huge gathering of home educating families on a lovely island campsite. 1500 of us altogether having a wonderful time, with workshops and activities and music all through the week.
So top of my list of Pro's is
-Socialisation! Our children have a social life that is the envy of their schooled cousins and friends, whose social life is restricted to a short time between school/homework and bedtime and at weekends and in holidays.
Our children take part in fantastic activities, camps and gatherings all though the year with their many home ed peers.
-Return of self respect and self confidence
This was knocked out of them over their years at school.
-A return to a love of learning
-Truly personalised education
-Learning about autonomous education, where the children direct their learning and we facilitate that
-Academic success. When the older two returned to FE college by their own choice, they settled in soically and academically and achieved much greater success than had been predicted by their schools.
-Reading and writing at a time that is right for the child. Our youngest daughter left school after 5 years completely enable to read or write a single word. Autonomous education has allowed her education to run ahead whilst the reading and writing caught up in it's own time. Now age 14 she can read fluently and spell well. This would never of happened if she had been left in school.
-A lovely stress free life. People say home educating three children must be difficult-actually taking three unhappy children to school every day is difficult!
-A fantastic relationship with our teenagers and their friends. We have had a teenager in school before and have experienced the resulting stroppy, stressed teenage years. It is definately different for our children who have been home educated.
-Being able to miss out on GCSE's altogether and finding a much more enjoyable path. Our youngest is now looking at the OU to gain the evidence of capabilities, she will need to attend university. It is a fallacy to think you have to do 11 years of compulsary schooling to get to a level for good GCSE results. It is a fallacy that you need GCSEs to do A levels or that you need A levels to get to university.
-No bullying culture. Friendships in the HE community happen across gender and age.
-Realising there is oh so much more to life than school
Cons
-more limited income-but the payoff is definitely worth it. We have managed to be creative in earning from home and around the children, but the children won't be young for ever and I can earn more again when they have grown.
If this sounds idealistic -it is! Happy people live at our house now!
We have three offspring now aged 20, 17 and 14 who are confident articulate happy people who are a pleasure to be with-as are all of the HE teenagers that I have met.