Explain yourself!

[hugshugshugs]

Ive been homeschooling my 5 year old for about 2 years now, but since she’s turned 5 (and looks it) everyone we meet is constantly talking about when she’s going to school.

Its funny the people I speak to seem to make me feel guilty or somehow a bit strange when I mention home Ed and I was wandering if anyone has found out a way of dealing with strangers and their judgements?

People seriously seem to be immediately trying to guess what’s “wrong” with me or my child, looking again at my face or hers to try figure it out when I tell them. I know this is going to continue any tips it’s really getting me down….

I'll tell you a story which may or may not be relevant.

A friend once said the same thing to me. She asked how to cope with all the hostility she was getting about her five year old being home educated. People looked at her funny, she said. When they asked why her son wasn't at school and she replied he was home ed, they changed the subject or the conversation stopped abruptly.

I was astonished, because my experience had been the opposite! Almost no one I spoke to was really negative. A few were positive, some showed little interest or made a polite neutral remark, some had tentative reservations or concerns which seemed to melt away when I explained a bit about how it actually worked.
What made this so remarkable was that my friend's child and mine were the same age and we lived in the same area. We rode the same buses, went in the same shops, visited the same libraries. Our children were both fairly average and behaved like typical kids. Why were people so unpleasant to her but fine with me?

We talked about it some more, about how these conversations developed. It turned out that my friend had an expectation that people would be critical. When she was out with her son, she would get a knot in her stomach at the prospect of someone giving her a hard time. She hoped the subject wouldn't arise. If it did, she quickly answered, "he's home educated" in a clipped voice with a hard look on her face, a don't-even-go-there look. And I think that is WHY other people "didn't even go there". Instead they silently wondered what was wrong, why she seemed angry, why she didn't want to talk about it, and maybe they gave her funny looks as a result.

Then there's me. I was, and still am, something of a home ed evangelist. I think it's the best thing since sliced bread, and that many people would love it if they had a chance to try it. Whenever someone asked, "No school today?" I'd respond, "no, she's home educated!" with the same expression I'd use to announce it's my child's birthday today. If anyone asked a question about HE, I would cheerfully chat about it. It was clear that I expected people to be happy for us, so usually they were, or politely pretended to be. Maybe that was because I seemed to know what I was doing, or maybe it was because they wanted me to stop rabbiting on about it. People will often take their cue from you.

So if you think a similar dynamic might be affecting your interactions with people, how do you turn it around? I don't think you have to transform yourself into a chatty pest like me. But if you're happy and quietly confident of what you're doing, people will often follow your lead in the conversation. If you don't feel that confidence yet, it may help to spend more time with other home educators, either in real life or on forums or by reading blogs or books. Their experiences and attitudes and knowledge will rub off on you and buoy you up. Then you won't worry so much what a clueless stranger thinks. Ironically, some of them will be more positive as a result of you being forthright and unafraid of their opinions.

Does that seem like it could be what's going on for you?

PS My friend said things changed for her after she tried to act more cheerful when discussing HE, even though she was faking it at first because she still expected to get criticism.

You know this is such an insightful story. I was thinking that it is my own insecurities or attitude which is making thing seems this way. I think it’s a great idea to socialise with home educators a bit more.

I think the other side of it is my daughter. I don’t want people to an idea in her head that she’s missing out on this great thing. We have talked about mainstream school and the advantages of home ed but I worry a strangers and family will make her feel that she’s left out.

Thank you for your post.

Oh great, I'm glad it helped! Yes, hanging out with other home ed families always makes me feel more relaxed about what I'm doing, and gave my kids a sense of normality too.

When my eldest was coming up to school age, I worried they might feel left out of that Big Exciting Thing everybody's talking about: school! Because not-school sounds so boring by contrast. I think many adults are well aware that starting school can be really hard for kids, so they compensate by "bigging it up", trying to be positive about what is actually going to be a mixed experience for the child. Never does anyone say, "Oh, being out all day will be tiring. I hope you won't find the room too loud. Sitting still can be hard. You might not find the uniform as fun to wear as your favourite dinosaur t-shirt. Teddy will have to stay at home." No, all the talk is about the new activities and new friends and how grown up they look in their new clothes. Only when my four year old spoke to their older schooled cousins did they hear "Wow! You are SO lucky you don't have to go to school!"

You probably do a lot of fun things with your child, but they don't get labelled as "home education" and she might not realise they are a feature of home ed. She wouldn't be doing these things (or not as much) if she were at school. When we did activities with the home ed group, that changed and the benefits of home ed were a bit more obvious to my kid.

I found it really interesting to see how growing up in a home ed community affected my second child. Seven years younger than her sibling, she was born into a life full of older home ed children and outings. Friends and relatives weren't questioning our home ed decision anymore, as we had been doing it a long time. To her this was just normal life, and school was something "other people" did. She was six years old before she started asking what school was like and it occurred to her that she might have gone to school - not that she wanted to! It was so much easier for her. She was much older before she even understood that home education is an unusual choice and most kids go to school. In her social circle it seemed like the other way round! I wish I could have given that sense of belonging to my older child too in their early years.

I second the above. I HE my own children and now my Grandchildren are HE and when people ask us about it we are so positive about the benefits and how it works for us. we rarely if ever criticise schools or the education system just wax lyrical about all the extra opportunities HE children have.

I think it is hard to people to come back with a negative response if you are enthusiastically positive - they may not agree with you but are far less likely to actually say anything.

Nowadays i say becoming HE is the closest thing to a muggle getting their Hogwarts letter. You suddenly discover this whole world of HE that exists that you did not have a clue about before hand and people who have not been HE simply do not realise this. The groups and events, online shops, holidays etc etc - there is so much out there that people simply do not know about.