Some basic questions, excuse my ignorance

[BumperliciousIsOneHotMother]

I'm going to post and run as I have lots to do today so apologies if I don't reply straight away, but I wanted to get some answers while I think about this. DH and I have toyed with the idea of home eding. I know there are lots of resources on the topic but I just wanted answers to some basic questions:

1. How do you afford to home ed?
2. Once you start can you go back? I.e. if you decide to home ed then realise it's not working out/can't afford it etc. can you put your child into the school system? If you were to do it just for a period of their education what is the best period?
3. What are the possible limiting factors (e.g. money, location, parents personality, child's personality)
4. Are there any detrimental effects for children when they grow up and get jobs that require a bit more structure/institutionalisation if they are not used to it?

DD is only 7 months so it's not a pressing matter, but like I say we are toying with the idea.

Sorry to post and run but I will check back in later

Some quick answers.....

1. It depends - it is tricky to juggle HE and 2 full time jobs (although I'm sure others will tell you how they manage it), but if you have flexible jobs, or one is part-time, or works from home, then you can find ways to arrange things. Some families who choose HE also choose to live their lives in a less expensive way to make it possible - reducing expenditure on cars, holidays, etc

1. Some parents start HE because they feel their child is too young to start school, and they keep the option open to go in later. I've heard more of families where the children chose to go for a while at secondary level, perhaps just to try it out, perhaps to get qualifications.

1. Money could be an issue, if you are used to 2 full time salaries you would have to think through how to deal with that. HE doesn't have to have much cost, although some people find transport to events etc can add up. Access to HE groups may vary around the country too - but that also changes over time, so you won't be able to tell yet!

1. I guess it could be difficult for a young person who was used to autonomy to settle into a job which required unthinking obedience, but then why would they want that kind of job anyway? (Why would anyone ?)

1. down sizing one way or another - from two jobs to one, or two flexi-time part time jobs; moving to a cheaper area and/or smaller house; renting rather than buying, not running a car, shopping in charity shops, not going on expensive holidays... just depends where in your lives there might be wiggle room

1. yes, you can go back at any point. I agree with AMIS - lots of people seem to be delaying starting school and then it's a question of when the child says they want to try it.

1. going to depend on you. There's certainly more going on in some places than others. Your experience of it as school-at-home would be completely different from an experience of it as autonomous-child-led-education, so you'd want to work out what sort of home educators you'd be (JulieNoShoes has a reading list )

1. If someone wants to be doing a job in an institutional setting enough, they'll adapt to deal with the institutional setting. I don't think we need to put people into institutions just in case they'll work in institutions later. There's a glorious story (is it Larry's story?) in Terri Dowty's Free Range Education book about an autonomously HE-d child who didn't seem to do anything very much until he hit 16, looked at his interests, decided he wanted to work in the heritage industry, and got himself set up with work experience, friends to stay with, and the work experience led to a summer job and blah blah, and the mother talks about how the only thing she had to help with to make him able to live according to this new tight work schedule with 730am starts was to go to Boots and buy him an alarm clock...

We are on benefits because of DH's disability, and quite honestly we haven't found any change in costs yet. We still run a car, we are still going on holiday, and for longer than we originally planned because we can now go off peak.
You may find in winter that your heating bills go up because you are at home more, but your school costs will reduce your outgoings (lunches, uniform, travel costs, raffle money etc.) Most people find that HE'ing does cost a bit more as you need to buy in lots of books etc. but this has to be balanced against the happiness of your child.

1. I work part time around the children's home education and by downsizing as emmaagain says.

2. Yes you can go back-the LA has a duty to provide a school place-if you have deregistered from a popular school, you may not get back in there.

3. Money is definitely tighter-and as emmaagain, again says home ed groups do vary-we had very little here when we first started, just a small meeting in someone's house one afternoon a week. Now different parents organise different things and we have a busy social active life!
   But for us the very apparent advantages of having happy children fully engaged with their education, more than outweighed any percieved disadvantages.

4. No.
   Our children are grown up/almost grown up.
   They have been/are fully autonomous home educators, we have imposed no structure, we have done no formal lessons.
   We don't make them get up at a certain time or anything.
   They get up when they choose to, they work when they want to, they play when they want to.
   Now seven years later we find they get up easily whenever they want to. This of course has included the years when they have done part time jobs and when DS went to FE college. There haven't been any problems at all as everything they have done they have chosen, committed to doing freely and been interested in.
   We haven't nagged over home work or assignments when ds was in college. He had chosen to go, so why wouldn't he do them on time etc?

Now the older two have permanent jobs and are committed to being on time, fitting in well and doing well?
Why wouldn't they?-it is all their choice.
The story about the alarm clock would fit with us too.

The reading list that emmaagain refers to includes;
Organic Structure an article on the EO site about learning styles,

and two pieces by Alan Thomas
An article that compares ?formal? and ?informal? home education styles

and the final chapter of Alan Thomas?s book ?Educating Children at Home? A different kind of education

(Dr. Thomas is Visiting Fellow at the University of London Institute of Education. The research for the book was undertaken whilst he was a Senior Lecturer in Psychology at the Northern Territory University, Darwin, Australia. He is a Fellow of the British Psychological Society.)

1. Both parents work from home, we worked as childminders for years, then as genealogists.

2)My son did try school when he was 11, decided it was boring and left after 6 weeks.

3)Limiting factors could be money, the whirl of activity can be expensive - for dd we have drama £3, group meeting £1, swimming £4, skating £3, Japanese lesson £3.75 - per week.

I think that location can be limiting, especially if you are on public transport, as group meetings are for us a huge part of our home ed, and it would be difficult if we lived somewhere rural and remote, without a car.

Parent/child personality - in my experience, the relationship between the child and parent improves with home ed, so long as the parent allows the child to lead, and doesn't try to become teacher, but rather looks on it as an adventure of learning together.

4)My son (22) was fully autonomous throughout his life, when he went to college he got himself up and fitted seamlessly into the group, only missing one week in 3 years due to illness. At University he didn't miss a single lecture, even when he took extra modules and double booked himself for some lectures - instead he arranged with the tutors to tape one lecture while he attended the other. Now he is doing his PhD he seems to fit very well into the lab and office, even though the other people are GPs and consultants, and mostly 10 - 15 years older than him. He is very driven, doing 17 hour days when necessary, but again has fitted in extra activities, signing up to do an Italian course and Olympic diving as well as his Biomedical PhD, not to mention his martial arts training and his band!

Dd (12) gets herself up in time for the activities she wants to go to. I think she will be the same as her brother, she is very keen to go to college etc, and as it will be her decision, why would she not sort it out?