Wider family members and home Ed

[Itsnotallaboutyoubaby]

So we have decided to home educate but we are getting very negative responses from some of the wider family. It’s not going to change our decision but it does hurt. Apparently we may damage our children with this action despite the fact that our children clearly aren’t happy at school.

Did anyone else have unsupportive family members when they began? I am sure that they will come to see (I hope) in the future that we did the right thing.

I guess I’m just seeking some reassurance.

When you make any choices that fall outside "the norm", you will always get people both questioning them, and criticising them.

I expect virtually everyone who chooses to HE has unsupportive family members.
If you are confident it is the right thing, that don't worry about it.

It's tough.

One approach which can sometimes help is to reassure the relatives that this isn't a permanent decision. It's what you are doing right now, and you will reassess later, and you remain open to the idea of school if that seems like the best way forward later.

Sometimes people are horrified at the idea that the child will never go to school, but will readily accept that the child might take a year or two out of school. That buys you a bit of time. And then after a few years have passed, the relatives can see how the child is thriving and it's no longer an issue for them.

Another idea, if you are close to your relatives, is to take them along to a home ed group or event so they can see how it looks in action and perhaps chat with other families and hear about how well home ed works for them.

My DH imagined that all HE families were weirdos, until he met a home ed dad who was very like himself. And the kids were chatty and charming, not socially stunted as he'd expected. Suddenly he could see himself doing it and it was no longer something that strange people did.

Yes - my family and to a certain extent DH’s we’re sceptical. Saying that we wanted to see how it goes and give kids the option later to join school if they wish was reassuring (it is also important to me that the kids get an input and also get to try school - though we haven’t done this yet - we are looking into flexi-school as a transition).

They see that our kids are happy, learning really well, despite the pandemic (though it has been hard to do some social activities for a variety of reasons). So now both sets of families are on board and help significantly with it too!

I found that worked quite well to listen to whoever it was talking about whatever concern they have and then respond with ‘yes I was worried about .. (insert socialising/no exams etc) but then I … (insert read xx/met xxx/found out about home Ed groups etc) ‘
My DH wasn’t at all sure about it but went along with home Ed. Now 13 years on he’s pleased we did it. I think with wider family members it helped that they could see they had lots of friends and were happy and learning so was sort of just a matter of time.
It’s really difficult feeling that family members disapprove though.