Has anyone ever regretted homeschooling their children?

[hugshugshugs]

Hi. Just that. Has anyone ever regretted homeschooling their children or wished they had done something differently?

@lemonnandliime Home ed kids don't just sit and receive instruction from their parents. They learn from everything around them.

I knew a single mum who had very low educational attainment and was severely dyslexic, to the point that I often could not even get the gist of what she was trying to communicate in writing. Her verbal communication was also hard to understand. She had a speech impairment and didn't present information in an organised way. She had no formal qualifications. This was a classic example of a parent who, to the average person in the street, might seem incapable of home ed. But she wasn't.

I met her daughter when she was 12. She had been HE since six. She became a close friend of my child, so I saw quite a lot of her. The girl was reading a 1000+ page novel when I first met her. She was a good communicator. I helped her writer her CV when she was 16, and we did some mock interviews. She could write as well as the average person, and was great at communicating verbally. She knew all sorts of interesting things. Now she is in her early 20s. She has had a few interesting jobs and works as an administrator. She's great with people.

The thing is, she wasn't shut up in a box with no educational input other than her mum. Her opportunities were not limited by her mum's knowledge or skills. She also used other resources: the people around her, the internet, her observational skills, library books. She certainly did learn things from her mother: independence, hard work, how to ask for help, self-esteem.

I have two degrees, but I don't think that made me a better educator of my child than my friend was of hers. Her daughter's attainment is similar to that of mine.

I've met three young adults who said they regretted having been home educated. What they had in common was that all had been kept out of school against their wishes even during their teens. Two were American.

However, IME in this country it is quite unusual to home ed without giving kids a choice about it, certainly at secondary age. I know a great many home educating parents. Only a few won't offer their older children the option of school if they want it. If your only worry about home ed is that your kids won't like it, that is easily solved by giving them the choice.

Nope.
My kids do a farm school independently one day a week.
Home ed groups as a family 1-3 times a week.
After school clubs 3 times a week (they're on the waiting list for 2 more).
Plus meeting friends outside of groups sometimes too.
They're well socialised.

We follow a curriculum for each subject, not the national curriculum but probably similar. Also, my own state education was poor, I want better for my children, so a curriculum is useful for that too. My children get far more opportunities than they would at school, a greater variety of subjects and more time to play / be.

They wouldn't have the time / energy for school, and they'd get a worse education

They were out playing with the neighbours kids over the weekend. They're the only home educated ones.
One complained that they hate school, mine asked 'Why? School work is nice'.
Both 6 and already have completely different attitudes to sitting down to school work.

( the one complaining was a neighbours child, not one of mine!)

Oh and the home Ed Facebook groups are not representative of the home Ed community.
I don't know anyone who comments regularly, odd comment & post here and there
Most are busy educating, going to various groups and can't be bothered to argue with 'we went to Tescos and spoke to the check out lady, real life socialisation yo and they learn through video gaming, unschooling 2k22' gangs.

The question should be do you regret being Homeschooled.

You are never going to get honest answers from parents and anybody who says their experience of having HE imposed on them and with negative results is shouted down.

A teacher has to train and study for years to qualify, then have an NQT year and pass that to deem them ready and able to teach.
How can a parent with no teaching qualifications and potentially done with no deep understanding of the subjects, be able to effectively end correctly teach their children?

DS really struggles in a classroom environment so, for him, the advantages of 1:1 attention in a quiet room, outweigh my weaknesses as a teacher.

We use a lot of online resources like IXL maths, Night Zookeeper, Spelling Shed, Oak Academy. These are all pegged to the English National curriculum so we know roughly where he is and what he "should" be doing.

That said, Home Educators don't have to follow the National Curriculum. DS has a number of autistic "special interests" that bring him joy. So I let him spend as long as he likes on geography, history, mythology and philosophy and ignore things he has less interest in (science).

I do insist on a little writing and maths each day. The rest of the time he can geek out in his own way.

Having done home, school, and mixed education for my kids, I have regrets, wishes that things could have been different or I'd done differently with all of them. There is not one of those options I'm 100% happy with how they've worked out. I hope I'm instilling the importance of on-going learning for them to continue their learning as adults.

I wish we had better options or able to afford or access more options, and that some of the options now had been around when my children were younger. I've learned these along the way that I wish younger me had known.

For home education specifically, I wish we had a system like there is in my birth state where home schoolers have a liaison with the school district who reviews a portfolio of work and can give recommendations and support. I'm very envious of those who've had that and while I know many home educators who are against this sort thing being done in the UK, I think something like that could be a great help both for home educators and for families who are facing long wait lists or otherwise can't access schools that they wish because what we have now is inadequate. This would take funding and support that's not really around though and I don't think much of the rhetoric and sharp divide in the thread would help us get there.

Some parents might not have any GCSEs which is a basic requirement to become a teacher, so if a parent doesn't have those and doesn't have even a basic understanding of literacy and numeracy how will be be able to ensure their children have the skills they need to thrive in education?

And some schools are severely inadequate with staffing issues, safeguarding issues and/or are well known for not ensuring children with additional educational needs can thrive there and or don't handle violence and weapons well. We can pick holes in any type of education or go on about horrors of when children are forced to try to develop and learn in these environments. Few kids really get much of a choice in education.

Rather than ask how can a parent with no GCSEs educate their child, I'd ask what options does a parent like that have and why out of those would that parent pick to take on that responsibility? There will be a range of answers, some possibly grim, but many of them will be about a lack of better options and trust.

I don't have any GCSEs because I immigrated at an older age. I know some don't think I should be allowed to home educate based on either or both of those points or because I have disabilities. I've been told that, even by trained professionals - had one go on about how home educating with my accent is the reason my child was being assessed for speech therapy. Even my uneducated young mum self knew how much shite that was.

I now sit on a school board and have worked with data for a local academy trust and the LA, including with information around kids who leave school to be home educated. There is no generalizations I can make on them in terms of ability but what I see is systems so under strain and cracking that some parents don't see schools as a place that helps their kids thrive, many with good reason. Most of those kids do return to school, usually a different school, and I think that's in part because of the work done to help rebuild trust and how the steps that lead to removal can lead to more options being made available even if they're still not ideal ones.

We home edded due to bullying at senior school.
It's neither easy nor cheap and can be stressful especially when you are not doing it as a first choice option.
Finished doing A levels last year with excellent grades.
If I had to do anything differently with the benefit of hindsight and all that, I'd do it from the start.

Excellent post BiBabbles

I especially agree with this:

I wish we had a system like there is in my birth state where home schoolers have a liaison with the school district who reviews a portfolio of work and can give recommendations and support.

I would certainly welcome a bit more support. Specifically I would like it if the home education officer at the council was able to help me access appropriate SEN adjustments if/when DS is able to return to school.

I find the anti-regulation stance of some home edders unhelpful.

@bruffin

The question should be do you regret being Homeschooled.

You are never going to get honest answers from parents and anybody who says their experience of having HE imposed on them and with negative results is shouted down.

My three children were home educated and all now home educate their children.

Out of all the Home educating friends they had only 1 has sent their children to school.

I choose to home educated as I had school imposed on me and had really negative results which was similar to everyone i saw around me in my working class family and community. I decided to do something different and try and break the cycle of poverty that i saw all around me and it worked.

I have friends who home ed and the children are very happy. I'm currently training to be a teacher and have colleagues who've worked in schools where there are a lot of unqualified teachers, TAs and cover supervisors delivering lessons. The argument that the home ed parent is inferior due to qualifications seems a bit bonkers! Schools are hugely under resourced and not always offering fantastic learning experiences.

30 years ago I'd say the vast majority of teachers were qualified and there's been a gradual down grading of the profession recently.

I think home ed is what you make of it. I also have good friends who home educate their children and they are very busy learning, doing groups and sports. Their dcs are thriving in a way that is enviable, both me and dh work full time and home ed isn't an option. I wish we could do it, my youngest dc struggles in school due to the curriculum and lack of support.

My sister has been home educating her 2 sons for the past 4 years. While it has been academically beneficial to them, the boys have really lacked daily social interaction and they have had to have a rethink about the whole thing recently.
They seem to be compensating a lot for what the boys miss from not being in school and seem to spend a lot of afternoons /evenings / weekends and a lot of money on activities and groups.
I personally feel the boys lack independence as they are with their parents so much and don't often have the opportunity to make decisions and have interactions with others without their parents close by. I think this is the main reason they have started looking at school places for September, although I know they have also found it a lot of hard work and pretty stressful at times too.

I know a family who home ed and the ages of the children (there was 5 of them) really varied and for alot of the time, two of the children were babies so I can't get my head around how their mum did it. How do you teach a 10 year old and a 7 year old whilst trying to settle a screaming baby?

I did HE for a few years for my two DC. I am well-educated so the work was never an issue for me.

Positives:
The one-to-one education helped both DC advance at a quicker rate than they would have done in mainstream schools.
The DC have a much broader education than most encompassing a wide spectrum of topics not included in the standard school curriculum.
Desk work was concentrated into five mornings a week. Afternoons were spent doing activities and outings.
We were able to spend considerable time abroad that would not have been possible if the DC had to attend school in one place.

Negatives:
DC missed some of the socialisation that only happens in school
DC missed some of the group type activities/team sports etc that happen in school.
Some aspects of the science curriculum need to be supported by practical activities that are difficult in the home environment.
It is difficult to access resources - the cost of teaching materials is often prohibitively expensive.

We used HE through primary and middle school levels, returning to mainstream for GCSE and A Level. By that age, both DCs were keen to go to school and so it was not an issue for them. I believe we did what was right for them at the time and although I have a few regrets about minor aspects of the home-schooling, mainly around the socialisation and team sports issues (problematic due to our location and language difficulties), I think the DC both benefitted from it in the long-term and are now well-educated and well-rounded adults.

@LolaStrange

I know a family who home ed and the ages of the children (there was 5 of them) really varied and for alot of the time, two of the children were babies so I can't get my head around how their mum did it. How do you teach a 10 year old and a 7 year old whilst trying to settle a screaming baby?

Well, you don't. One-to-one (or one-to-two or one-to-three) is so much more efficient than mass instruction that you don't have to spend anywhere near as much time on home ed as kids would spend in class at school. So it is easier to fit in than you might imagine, and you just do it when the baby isn't screaming. When LAs are responsible for the education of children who can't attend school (for example through illness), the LA typically sends tutors out for a maximum of five hours a week, and they report that that is plenty to keep the kids on track.

And that's if families choose a formal school-style instruction. Some children like mine learn entirely by following their own interests rather than by being "taught". For example, my eldest went through a phase of being very keen on acquiring money(!) and learned maths by calculating potential profits of various possible business schemes, from bake sales to running a toy import business. My youngest learned to read by using a speech-to-text app to communicate with family and friends during lockdown. I was usually around to help them if they got stuck or had questions, but it wasn't a case of sitting to "do maths" for 30 minutes without interruption.

It really can look very different from school. IME most families adopt a mixture of child-led learning with small amounts of school-style adult-directed learning (which takes far less time than school because of the vastly better adult-to-child ratios).

So different to what I know. It's always interesting finding out more about these things

The question should be do you regret being Homeschooled

This. I know a HE family and used to be envious of the education the kids were receiving - so varied and stimulating, lots of socialising opportunities, I was in awe of how articulate their children are. Until I saw the kids interacting with their peers. The children seem to need far more social interaction than they get, they desperately crave it. They are used to being praised and encouraged by adults in everything they do and they can't cope if, for example, the other 8 year olds in the park are not interested in their sophisticated political opinions. Seeing these children struggling to make and keep friends is changing my view about HE.

@LolaStrange

So different to what I know. It's always interesting finding out more about these things

Yes, it is really interesting! One of my kids was home ed all the way through except for a term at school in Y5. I think that experience was very useful, brief as it was. They thought they knew what school was like based on what people had told them and on watching TV and films, but actually being there for a few months was different.

That's something I've heard from some families who have tried home ed for a while and returned to school - that even though they decided not to carry on with home ed, it was just interesting to have tried something different for a while and see what it was like.

@MythicalBiologicalFennel

The question should be do you regret being Homeschooled

This. I know a HE family and used to be envious of the education the kids were receiving - so varied and stimulating, lots of socialising opportunities, I was in awe of how articulate their children are. Until I saw the kids interacting with their peers. The children seem to need far more social interaction than they get, they desperately crave it. They are used to being praised and encouraged by adults in everything they do and they can't cope if, for example, the other 8 year olds in the park are not interested in their sophisticated political opinions. Seeing these children struggling to make and keep friends is changing my view about HE.

Opportunities to make friends will depend on the family's circumstances and the kids' social drive. In fact, that was one of the reasons I didn't send my eldest to school at four: I thought it would cut into their playtime too much! Years later, having tried school, they chose to come out again partly for this reason - so they could see who they wanted when they wanted and actually play with them for hours on end. Some children hate crowds and find school overwhelming, preferring to see just one or two friends at a time. They may only want to see other kids a few hours a week and for them, that's more healthy.

I think the overpraising business is bound to depend on the family, and on the school. For example, my friend's staggeringly bright child went to school for the first time aged eight. Three months in, her mum told me that her daughter wasn't finding the academics engaging but was lapping up the praise which the school laid on with a trowel simply because of her natural ability. At home, nobody had fussed her over her intelligence - they knew it was just part of who she was, and no more deserving of praise than her height or hair colour.

Likewise, when my own (fairly average) child started school at ten, the teacher seemed to feel that indiscriminate praising was a way of making them feel welcome, but instead they just felt misunderstood and frustrated. For instance, they were given an award for "making friends and fitting in" - but doing so had come effortlessly to my sociable kid and besides, as my child observed to me, "having friends is its own reward, so even if I had found it hard, I wouldn't want an award for it!" I don't tend to give much praise, because I think kids can tell when they're doing the right thing.

It's no more accurate for you to generalise about home education based on the one home educating family you've met than it would be for me to draw conclusions about school based on just one family who used school.

It's no more accurate for you to generalise about home education based on the one home educating family you've met than it would be for me to draw conclusions about school based on just one family who used school

Who is generalising? Like you, I was conveying my experience and my opinion only. In that respect my post was completely accurate. The point is that now I see that my initial ideas about HE were perhaps a touch naive and superficial.

I've got a nine year old so not really in a position to regret stuff yet 😁

An individual aspect I regret is pushing reading/phonics at 5, it really didn't work and in the end he learned to read fluently over about 2 weeks aged 7 and still probably wouldn't pass a phonics screening check but can read anything you give him

But you never know how they'd have turned out differently, you can't run a randomised controlled trial on your kid! My brother couldn't read until 9 at school

@MythicalBiologicalFennel

It's no more accurate for you to generalise about home education based on the one home educating family you've met than it would be for me to draw conclusions about school based on just one family who used school

Who is generalising? Like you, I was conveying my experience and my opinion only. In that respect my post was completely accurate. The point is that now I see that my initial ideas about HE were perhaps a touch naive and superficial.

Oh, sorry, I misunderstood your statement "Seeing these children struggling to make and keep friends is changing my view about HE" as meaning that your overall opinion of home education had changed as a result of this one family.

I guess you mean that you now see that it's possible for parents to make mistakes in how they home educate, and that hadn't occurred to you before. Is that right?

I'd go along with you on that. I've certainly seen people home educate in a way which didn't seem ideal, though in my view that didn't always mean their kids would have been better off at school.