niggling doubts about HE in the dead of night...

[BeNimble]

do you get them?

i mean doubts in the middle of the night about HE in general, not doubts about HE in the middle of the night (although i'm sure it goes on)

Not now
But then we are at the end of the home ed journey, our children are 20, 18 and 15 and it is so easy to see how succesful home education is from this point!

The youngsters here are happy, self confident and well educated

But i think every parent who home educates their children has niggles in the middle of the night at some point or other-especially when the children are younger.

But then I had to remind myself that the niggles in the night were full blown panic when the children were at school and so unhappy.

My best advice would be to mix with other home educators-especially those who have come through or who are getting to the other end-that's what i did and found them all so inspiring.

We go to camps and gatherings whenever we can and meetings locally-and all of the teenage home educated young people, impress me and inspire me.

I always thought of them and their success whenever I got those niggly thoughts.

I also read things like "Free Range Education" by Terri Dowty
and my favourite
"The Teenage Liberation Handbook: How to Quit School and Get a Real Life and Education" by Grace Llewellyn

and there is
Those Unschooled Minds: Home-educated Children Grow Up (The Educational Heretics series) bu Julie Webb

and also i really like Mike F-W's The Home Education Journal
The Journal carries:
Editorials
Letters
News
Advice pages
Regular column
Campaign information
Research findings & Reports
Feature articles
Support Information
Reviews of books and resources
Information on the changing legal landscape
Articles by home educators around the world
Articles by home educators from specific perspectives

hth

thank you julienoshoes, it all helps.

my children aren't 'of age' yet, my mil doesn't want us to HE and occasionally sets me off thinking that i should be getting doubts.

so occasionally i've laid in bed thinking that maybe i'm suddenly going to feel different... that i'm going to jump into the 'get them off to school' mode. it's as though it's all too good to be true.

i do wish there were more HE folks nearer to us, especially as we know no boys really (i have a boy and a girl). we have a small but brilliant little HE gathering though, which i suppose might grow in time.

i'm even fed up that all the 3 and 4 year olds don't seem to be around anywhere, very few at 'stay and play' groups, parks or even in town or shopping... all penned in at preschool. madness.

whoops i've to dash.

I think part of being a parent involves having doubts in the middle of the night about whatever you're doing / not doing ... From the other education threads, I think there are plenty of parents waking in the night with worries about school, homework, etc.

I don't mean it's silly to worry, just that self-doubt seems to be part of the package. If you're worrying a lot more about HE than you do about other things, maybe you could think whether it's one specific bit you don't feel you're doing well? If so, I'm sure there's loads of people on here who'll be happy to talk round it with you.

I do wonder sometimes if HE was the best choice for us, but I know I'd feel exactly the same about any school DS was in - did we choose the right one? are we encouraging him enough? are they pushing him too hard? etc etc etc... So I know for me, it's just the normal background parental guilt....

BeNimble
are you on the Early Years HE support list?
I am certain you would get support and folks in the same position there.

Shame you don't live in Worcestershire!

Other people making you feel you ought to be more worried is a whole extra dimension . If you do suddenly feel that your DCs would get something out of school, I'm sure the schools will still be there...

The lack of children to play with is a tricky one, but you may find there are "activity" type groups which your children could join as they get a bit older, though that doesn't really solve the problem for now.

Those niggling doubts do make an appearance from time to time but far less often than they did when ds2 was at school and desperately unhappy.

Like julienoshoes, I dip into Free Range Education when I need a boost - or the John Holt books.

'Small but brilliant HE gathering' sounds great! We've also found that the Home Education Advisory Service has good information and a great newsletter - we've found local HE contacts through it.

Hi, I just tried to join the Early Years HE support list but it wouldn't let me see the "hidden message". Does anyone know another way I can join?

presumambly you clicked on the 'joimn this group' link?

it may be that you have to be approved before you can see the messages-certainly that is the way our local group works.

Sorry I didn't explain clearly!! I filled in the "form" to be approved but it had one of those box things which I assume should have had letters and numbers in - i was supposed to type what i saw - but instead if letters and numbers in the box there was just a help message... Never mind, I'll try again later, it may have been a temporary glitch.

I have just checked jollydo and I can 'see' the text you are supposed to copy now jollydo, so hopefully the glitch has gone.

Yes, I can see it now!