Do any of your dc homeschool themselves?

[Mycatatetherat]

My dc are in primary school at the moment but I don't want them to attend high school. They are both very self motivated when learning things that interest them and can be focused and sensible when given a task. I'm wondering would it be too much to expect them to be able to basically school themselves? I'm a self employed single parent and couldn't possibly stop working (although I often work from home) so kind of had it in my head that I could set them tasks and pop in on them every so often. Am I being unrealistic? How much input do other homeschooling parents have?

The reason for doing qualifications whilst a child, is because you don't have to make study and make a living. I have done qualifications at an older age whilst working full time. It is tough. You have to pay to do the qualification plus fit it in around a full time job. Much easier to do it when that is all you have to do.

I think HE can work for some kids. I am also aware from internet forums that there are a lot of adults who are angry about their HE and who say it has made their life tougher as an adult. So common complaints that go against what has been said on this thread are -

• Being told that GCSEs taken one or two a year over a number of years are not given the same weight by universities as taking GCSEs over the traditional 2 years
• Complaints that they are having to catch up on taking qualifications and doing all the learning for that whilst working full time
• Complaints that HE groups where they were supposed to socialise was full of younger kids, while they were a teenager. And they wanted to be able to socialise with kids their own age.
• Complaints of having no real friends because they had little chance to socialise with kids their own age or only with 1 or 2 kids their own age that they did not get on with.
• Saying that when they were first HE their parents took a real interest and put in the time, but this faded over time until they were just being left to get on with it
• Complaining that they had been told that lots of HE kids got into universities with no formal qualifications, and then finding this applied to a few courses, and in reality they could not simply get into the course they wanted.
• Complaining that HE was great until their parent got ill or developed depression or anxiety, and then in reality their HE stopped for so many years.

HE can work. But it takes real time and dedication. You have to care about your kids education and go out of your way to research how you can support and stimulate their learning.

The reason for doing qualifications whilst a child, is because you don't have to make study and make a living. I have done qualifications at an older age whilst working full time. It is tough. You have to pay to do the qualification plus fit it in around a full time job. Much easier to do it when that is all you have to do

Fair point

I think our dc have more understanding of their futures than we might have.
We look at things like H.ed and think that's not for mine, when it quite often can be best for the child.
I was like this when dd asked to be H.educated. She had her future planned and was well informed, at 8.
When she gained a place at her present school she wasn't going to go if the education didn't suit her needs and if it was too like normal school. She loves it and is thriving but she told me if it turns out not to be for her, she'll leave again. Hoping this doesn't happen as GCSE's next year, but if she wants to be H.educated again I wouldn't stop her as she knows what she wants.

I work with a young man that was home schooled from 8 years old, he has no social skills with his colleagues and quite often will sit alone in the canteen.
He is widely regarded as annoying by most people and is quite immature for his age.
He is 23 and doesn't have any social life at all,just work then home.
He's been invited on various work nights out but always declines.
There are advantages and disadvantages to HS , but regular interactions with peers , especially from different social,ethnic and economic backgrounds will help your children deal better with society when they are adults.

One advantage of home education is precisely that our children mix with people from different social, ethnic and economic backgrounds, rather than predominantly those who live within the catchment area for a particular school...

Hi Ommmmward

Aw, I haven't seen you for a while
You helped me so much when we first started. I was so worried that dd would miss out on an academic education. I'm not sure if you remember but for us we needed to take a mostly autonomous direction. It was hard to trust, so I can see why those who have never tried would have doubts.

So glad to have been able to help!

One advantage of home education is precisely that our children mix with people from different social, ethnic and economic backgrounds, rather than predominantly those who live within the catchment area for a particular school...
I know several of the home schoolers in our area and they are all professional in background, English speaking and white. A South London friend who.homeschools and has kids who are mixed ethnicity says more or less the same.
Whereas our local school has exactly what you describe: professional families, families on NMW, White British, Asian, Muslim, Christian, and various other groups.
I don't think anyone on NMW could afford to homeschool for a start.

Fascinating. I've also found that the HE groups around here are all white middle class, unlike pretty much all of the schools.

Maybe it's just where we live then; the groups we attend are pretty representative of the wider community, with people from all walks of life. By secondary age, to be fair, the thing many of them have in common is that their children have SEN, and/or were sufficiently traumatized by school that their parents finally removed them, even though they aren't naice, white, middle class types.

Of course, people who send their children to private schools are carefully engineering their children's social set to a much greater extent

Thinking further, it's about a third home owners, a third social housing and a third private rental in our social circle, if that helps. There are people on benefits, people on zero hours contracts of various kinds, business owners, and people in full time well paid work. Quite a lot of people with DLA or carers allowance type stuff in the mix (and no schools that have proved able to meet their children's educational or welfare needs...)

Yes my experience of HE who attend HE groups, is that it tends to be a certain demographic. Not all are well off, but they are all culturally middle class and white. I live in a very ethnically diverse area, my friend HE and goes to a fair few HE groups, they are all white.

@jennymanara which internet forums are these? I am really interested to know as I wonder why these children opinions fall through the net for opinion polls/research forms. I really like Peter Gray's paper on what happened to Sudbury valley student graduates - I wish there was something similar for home educators so that actual numbers could be looked at. Otherwise it's so hard to know what's the actual story if both sides are being cherry picked :(

I live in a culturally diverse and deprived area if London It's much more of an ethnic mix than the groups we go to out of our area. Also more of the school at home philosophy.

PlaynTag There is a reddit forum called homeschoolrecovery. That is the most active. Full of adults talking about how their own experience of HE failed them. I do think HE can work.
But interestingly I have seen someone on that forum say their experience gets trotted out all the time as a success story - they got into university with no qualifications, but they view their HE experience as educational neglect.

There weren't many groups near us, we did meet up at soft play a couple of times, but there were no teaching groups. However, we knew this before we started and dd preferred not to become involved as we wouldn't have made half the meetings and they were only once a month.
There was no problem socialising with schooled or H.ed children and she was as involved with as many after school activities as those who went to school.
Our schools have pretty much the same type of parents all the same demographic, it was good to meet people from all over the world, something she now enjoys at school, too.
I suppose if the parents keep their H.ed dc in a bubble then they would find it hard to socialise, but can't say I've experienced this, or met anyone like that.

The most common complaints are lack of socialisation and just being left to get on with it with no real guidance. Lack of socialisation also includes a lot of complaints from HE kids totally HE, that they were the only teenager at HE groups and meet ups, so they saw young kids, but nobody their own age.

I know I have read some HE parents talking about how HE groups as kids of all ages get to mix together. There are some benefits to that. But it is also true that a 14 year old wants to hang out with peers at times, and not always with young kids.

I think properly HE is a lot of work. And yes I know it is not like school. But if you are going to do the following kids interests to educate, then that means research to do that properly. A few HE parents do this, but many don't.

I also think a lot of HE parents who comment online have very low expectations for their kids. They talk about kids learning through shopping lists, dealing with change, weighing when baking. I think that is what a good parent does anyway on top of education. And real education has to be far more than just this basic everyday shopping and cooking that so many go on about.

I've read about 2/3 of the thread so sorry if I'm duplicating too much. I've often thought "in another life I'd have loved to home educate", but personality wise it would not have suited my eldest at all.

If I were you, I would plan to HE but at the same time be thinking about possible future routes and how they might work, so that you have a variety of "next steps" in mind and ways to achieve them when their time comes. Although allowing your children to be autonomous - with adequate resources etc - is probably ideal, you need to be thinking about what you can ask them about, show them, suggest - if necessary! - to reassure yourself that they are learning.

My youngest is very keen on maths, amongst other things. He has learnt a lot of maths and physics from online videos etc, which has given him great understanding. Despite my suggestions now and then, he hasn't sat down and done much practice using the techniques he has "learned". So when actually challenged to use them (currently in year 9), he has found it quite difficult and been slower than his teachers expected, given his understanding. I think this is a good illustration of the pitfalls of independent learning in some areas - knowledge needs to be applied to be thoroughly learned. So that's one thing I'd suggest you might need to be alert to!

We are not white ;)

Or middle class!

Not saying all HE are, only the ones who attend HE groups where I live. There will be other HE who do not attend these groups.

What about when they need a certain number of GCSEs for the course they want to go on or they need certain a levels for university? Who is going to teach them essay technique etc? You really haven't thought about it much.

We live in an area where there is a thriving home ed scene. Loads of groups to attend covering all manner of activities including plus more general social groups and our local museums, galleries and castle all hold regular home ed sessions too. There are local groups purely for teens although mine aren’t at that stage yet. People are well aware of teens needing their own space with peers although of course if teens want to come along to a general group with all ages they would be welcome.
My dc also attend weekly activities that aren’t home ed groups.

The people we mix with are pretty diverse tbh, far more diverse in fact than the all white middle class school I attended but I think that this probably depends on area.

Having said that. I think if you home ed you have to be the kind of person who will make the effort to go to groups with your children. When the weather is awful it can be tempting to stay at home instead of trekking out in the rain with dc to catch a bus or two to go to a group. So I do think it could be easy to become isolated if you weren’t motivated.

Apologies for the random including and full stop in there, I hate typing on my phone!

Thanks @jennymanara that's really surprising to me - I'm in a mostly self directed education bubble - people running spaces, sde projects, sde at home, groups of parents who sde, with offerings. The most common thing I see linking them all is a close relationship between the parents and children...and I find it really hard to imagine these children blaming their parents later for their freedom and the trust they instill. Perhaps though with hindsight some children would say they weren't happy in some way? I wonder why though. If children are allowed choice in their learning and understand that their learning is their responsibility through all the discussions they would have over the years before 16 with parents playing a guide, I find it really hard to see them using that blame game. Would really need numbers though to get an idea of the percentage of children who end up wishing it different. Also wonder on the other foot - how many kids who go through conventional schooling and then find out about HE blame their parents for not allowing them to choose something different. Maybe I should set up a reddit for this one :)

Education is a whole other matter - think it all gets a bit messy because people define it so differently.. and then judging good or bad parents on that. Yeek. I think those examples are given as real life experiences of the maths you learn in school. So the children get the learning with an understanding of why they need it, intrinsic motivation to do so and often deeper understanding of the concepts. I also think that could be viewed as high expectations - to want your children to really get that kind of understanding and to want them to be intrinsically motivated and determined, without the carrot.

How do you know that many don't research for their children's interests? What numbers are you using for that?