Who has changed their mind in your social circle(be it family or friends) since you started to HE?

[singingmum]

It's funny.When I and my dp started He we found that there where a lot of diff views from family and friends.As we cont to He we discovered a lot of diff views from people we met.
Strange things seem to have happened since then.Firstly my Mil who supported us but didn't completely agree with us rapidly did a u turn after only a few months and actually joined in the whole education experience(she's good at geography so helped there).She is now of the opinion that if she had a child now she would HE
My Grandmother was extremely opposed and made it known,sort of politely,that she thought we were nuts.Over the last year or two she has told us that she is so glad that we took this decision as she can see the difference between our dc's behaviour and others who are at school.She has also met other HE families and she says that through her experience she has found HE children to be more at ease in social situations(her main concern when we started) and more widley knowledgable in subjects they are interested in.She now is our most voiciferous supporter.
Even people we meet in the street complement our dc's on their behaviour and knowledge.My dc's have even changed the opinion of people who when first talking to them say such things as
"Wouldn't you rather go to school with your friends?"
My son's fav answer is to say that most of his friends would love to be HE'ed if they could.They do this by talking to them as equals and never feel as though an adult is something to be looked up to as all knowing(something I personally felt at school and sometimes rears it's head even know I'm 31)

So whats your experience of the people around you?Has there been big opinion changes or have others stuck to their guns?

Oh Btw not looking for arguments just interested in othr HE'ers experience of reaction to HE

not Heing (yet !!) but just wondered, singingmum, what it is do you think, that has changed your relatives opinions?

My teacher friend was a bit at first, but she's really for it now. She tells me it's always encouraging for a teacher to see a parent engaged with their children learning, which is nice.

She also comes over to help on occassion, and she says it's therapeutic to work with three kids who don't stress her out (but then, she does make a point of deliberately choosing rough schools, so that's not to say my kids are wonderful, mind. Even though they obviously are )

Sadly, SIL is also a teacher and has always been opposed, though I did recently have a conversation with her that I turned round on her and we started talking about SATS and league tables, and she was quite happy ranting for a while about those instead of having a go at me

The most upsetting thing has been PIL, who were very supportive at first, but appear to have thought very different things to us all along, that are so bizarre I find it hard to get my head round them.

how has your week been suebaroo?

It's been ok, really. Lots of reading, a bit of a loose schedule to keep everything in some semblance of order, and home-made pizza twice for lunch. I'm very tearful still, but there's other things going on, making me question all sorts of things. Out of all of it, I'm still very convinced about HE - probably getting even more autonomous than we originally planned.

I think a lot of what we intended was based on a certain amount of family appeasement, and I think now that it's clear that even those concessions are too far out, there's a certain amount of freedom to say "You know what? begger it, we'll do it our way the whole way through".

So I've just been focusing on helping my eldest to fine-tune her reading so she's more confident to go off with a book on her own more, and continue playing and exploring the world with all of them.

I have wondered about how things have been for you this week, a few times. I keep typing sentences in here then deleting them because they all sound a bit trite really. But anyway, I am thinking of you and hope things settle for you and improve for you soon.