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?

Can I just ask - do parents who experiment with the children's education have any academic ambitions for them post-school? Do any of them want their kids to attend top universities? What is the success rate of these "unschooled" kids getting into top universities?

@XelaM I don’t know the stats but school is a social construct and there is no need to live in fear of the future and be unhappy in the now. Home schooled kids learn independence and life skills which schooled kids dont. Some home schooled kids go to uni and some don’t. Not everyone wants to go to a top uni. You can check in with your child and see their passions and progress as they grow. Children are individuals not robots destined for one goal. Happiness is a better measure of success than uni :)

Hi @XelaM, all parents are experimenting with their children's education. School is an experiment, home education is an experiment. What works for one child doesn't work for another. Parents can do everything "right" and yet not all children achieve what their parents hoped they would achieve.

Were you referring to unschooling parents? I did have academic ambitions for my eldest. I assumed she would be like me and would enjoy what I enjoyed, which was a very academic path. Probably the hardest thing I have done as a parent is to let go of my ambitions for my children. They are not copies of me, and I do not own them. They do not necessarily want the same things I did. They have their own ambitions.

So from the point of view of unschooling parents, the relevant question is whether their CHILDREN have academic ambitions, and to what extent have they been able to fulfil them?

But how woukd you know if your child has academic ambitions if you "unschool"? How is the child able to teach himself maths/English/sciences/foreign languages? How does it work? I am genuinely curious

@XelaM it’s a fascinating subject. As I understand it unschooling is not opposed to being academic, it’s more about learning as a whole being. So immersing children in life and exposing them to subjects and then letting them follow their interest and passions. It’s not about just plonking them in front of the tv. It follows principles from John holt I think about the way we learn being holistic and not in abstract chucks input in a school curriculum

I also would add that parents who put their children into school are experimenting too, with their child’s mental health, happiness, stress levels etc.

It’s down to perspectives and how you see things.

Unschooling doesn't mean no academics and no teaching allowed! It means no enforced learning. The child chooses.

You know whether your kid is interested in maths by observing them and by continuing to offer it up from time to time. Mine was really interested in the subject when small and at intervals thereafter. Only this year, aged 20, did she undertake systematic study of it. Before that she read interesting miscellaneous things like the Number Devil, worked through some Pythagoras, discussed the principles of calculus (but without actually DOING much calculus as she hadn't done algebra), went to Marcus du Sautoy's public lectures, had a series of group tutorials with a passionate postgrad and half a dozen other 12yos on subjects such as probability, juggling, number theory, and games theory.

During this time she learn her times tables, familiarise herself with exponents or work through a curriculum of any sort. She went along to an open day at Oxford's maths department when she was 14, where they did some fun challenges. She loved the content, and to my surprise said that that was the very reason she didn't want to go to uni to do maths. She wanted to save it for recreation.

She's now doing an adult education course at a local college, preparing to sit a maths GCSE in the spring. She doesn't love it, but she likes it well enough. It's a reasonably good respectful environment. The tutor knows his stuff and is good at helping people who have a wide range of aptitudes and aspirations. He has promised to support the handful who want to go in for higher tier, but he isn't covering that material in class. It's not clear whether that will be quite enough so she might work with me or a tutor on the side.

Does that give you a clearer idea how it can work in practice?

oops that should read "During this time she didn't learn her times tables..."

@Saracen that’s so great to read :) mine are still young but I am looking forward to seeing where their interests take them as they grow.

OP I haven't read the full thread, and although I don't home school, I have worked with home educating families, and home school co-ops on occasion. My sisters both homeschooled so I can give some insight into their experiences.

One focused on self-directed learning initially and found it pretty successful. Once the kids were older (15/16) making use of remote learning, co-ops/tutors became quite valuable for various reasons. When they were passionate about a subject, it was enjoyable for them to discuss it with others or brainstorm. When they disliked a subject, it helped them plough through.

However, while there were things the kids could always get on with themselves, it wasn't a case of setting the tasks and leaving them to it. You need to be quite on top of what they're doing and engage them in conversations/activities about/around it. One of the brilliant things about homeschooling is the ability to focus on skills or information that aren't necessarily on the national curriculum. Or to engage with those things in a different way because you aren't trying to educate 30 people at once.

FWIW I thought home schooling was insane initially. When my sister told me she planned to do it I was convinced the kids would all be socially inept and odd. What I've found is that home educated children aren't any more likely to be socially inept than children educated in mainstream education. I also found that the majority of homeschoolers found it easier to interact with people of different ages and backgrounds because they spent more time interacting outside their own peer group. Obviously not a given for every family, and requires effort on the part of the parent/educator.

This to me is a real case of 'who, will hate night school?' You or your children.
Lots of children leave their small rural schools and enter large secondary schools and absolutely thrive. Give them a chance.

I've just started homeschooling my 16yo for GCSEs and she's only motivated to study what she enjoys (1 subject at the moment :( ). Anything remotely taxing or "boring" she huffs and puffs or just ignores. I do actively teach her 3-4 subjects and there'll be heavy reliance on external tutors for maths. No way would I leave her to do it by herself, she would end up with no qualifications then blame me.

My children were unschooled and completely self directed. One is now a nuclear chemist, one is a marine ecologist, one is studying sound engineering, one is studying biomedical engineering and the youngest is preparing for college to do an access course for computing science.

Every one of them has been "in charge" iof their own education.

I did some minimal supervision home schooling, but signed up to a formal distance learning school, so we had teachers, work books, tasks set. My parents, who were home schooling more out of necessity than choice, found that there were far fewer arguments if they left us to it. Most of school was condenced into a couple of months of the year when we suddenly needed to submit things for assessment- the rest of the time we did minimal schooling, but we did come out with qualifications.

It's not something I'd ever recommend as a sensible preparation for life though- my own children will be going to school!!

If you leave my 10-year-old to her own devices Netflix would be her only learning tool

XelaM - yep! "School is a social construct". Of course it is, but you're saying that like it's a bad thing? Roads are a social construct, and I'm pretty glad they exist! It would be absolute chaos otherwise!

OP, I guess there's no harm in you giving it a go - you would be able to find your kids a school place later on if it all went wrong, although not necessarily at your nearest school.

Anecdotally, I went to Oxford, and there was a girl who was home educated in my year group. This was 20 years ago, when home schooling was less common too.

And also anecdotally I went to a very good uni and have a good job with further post graduate accreditations.

However, my choice of higher level qualifications was limited as I didn't have enough proper teaching, for example, to be able to write essays at a-level standard to get a-level in subjects I was really interested in. I ended having to pick science options even though it wasn't what I really wanted.

Even then, and even having followed a proper distance education syllabus from a different developed country, my knowledge was far behind everyone else's and I struggled to catch up, meaning my grades weren't high enough for the science based degrees I'd have picked, so I ended up doing a second best subject... still one which is very reputable and 'good', just not what I would have chosen.

A levels were hard work because I wasn't used to being taught in a classroom setting. The degree was better- I found it easier than a lot of other students because I was used to needing to do independent learning.

Work has been mixed- I didn't have the "benefit" of getting bored in a classroom and having to accept authority from people who aren't as bright as I am. I've always done well in my job but struggle with boredom in a way the people who went to school don't seem to.

There's no doubt that my education was far more fun than most people, but in terms of trying to get where I wanted to be in life, it's certainly made it much harder.

I hate that people now seem to think it's a great idea to experiment with their kids in this way, without necessarily thinking enough about how they will deal with getting recognised qualifications etc without being at a disadvantage.

For me it was circumstantial, and not really a choice for my parents, butn the only really justifiable reason I would ever consider it is if school making a child utterly utterly miserable and the only way out is to remove them. Otherwise I really don't think it's fair on the child.

@mynameisnotmichaelcaine Oh, I think there was a misunderstanding @- I am a huge supporter of school-based education.

@Canyousewcushions What a brilliant post and I completely agree that people who like to experiment with their children's education tend to not think about that child’s future career prospects.

My 2 kids are he. My eldest basically did what you are suggesting until she was 10, when she started going to he classes. She is currently 12 and doing a GCSE this summer. She is very self motivated and wants to be a phychiatrist. My youngest, 8, needs more guidance and parenting. Both are very happy, so your idea is 100% possible.

Also may I add she is working at A standard for said GCSE.

"how is a child able to teach him/herself?" @XelaM there is books, the internet, etc. My 12 yr old did this for the first 10 years of her life (learnt to read at 3) and is now at GCSE A standard, taking 1 this summer.

"No child is going to be able to maintain self discipline and motivation for 5 years to educate themselves." It is true for some children, not all. Not my eldest, certainly.

I know that education is more than gathering facts but that's pretty much exactly what school is, isn't it?

NOOOOOOO

School is about preparing you to find out how to gather facts, and consume them properly.

"how is a child able to teach him/herself?"..... there is books, the internet, etc.

How does the child know if the books and websites are accurate and up to date? How does a parent who has no specialist knowledge of a subject know if the information their child is accessing is accurate and up to date? Or even if it's the essential, core material, necessary in order to understand and progress in the subject, or just fragments from the periphery?

Wow! There are some really ill-informed posts on this thread. I'm not saying that OP has necessarily got home ed nailed, but she's doing the right thing by asking questions and figuring out whether it will suit her family. @Soontobe60 do you have any statistics for the many anti-social ex-home-edders you refer to? Otherwise it's either opinion, anecdotal or plain old made up

There are some great and really supportive groups on social media, which may be a better forum for discussion OP. I would start by tracking down groups local to you and meeting up with people if you can, to see how this could work for your family.