So is this really ok? Surprised.

[Newsenmum]

I’ve always been really interested in home ed and honestly try to be open minded, so please donf be offended. I seriously considered it for my ND son and would have done it if we weren’t so lucky with his mainstream school having a place for him within their arp, as he has no ehcp yet.

I follow someone online who home educates her 4 kids. The oldest one (9) is ND and couldnt cope in mainstream so I totally get it. The others are 6 and 4 and never tried school. Also a baby.

I always assumed she must this amazing creative person who does so much, but she did a couple of reels, which she used to show her week. She said she worried she hadnt had a good week but writing it down made her feel much better about it. She has chronic illness btw!

it was basically:

Monday: get up and do phonics cards with middle two and then read them books, whilst older one reads to herself. Then play in garden all day building dens as sunny. Fine. Mum busy with baby and hose chores but pops out as they play.

Tuesday: bad health day for the mum so they read in the big bed all morning and then she lay on the sofa and they watched TV for the rest of the day!

Wednesday: mum feeling a bit better so they made cookies and the kids counted out/weighed items ie maths and Home ed. Then they played maths related computer games all afternoon whilst mum did chores.

Thursday: raining all day so played the maths based computer game and then tv all day! Mum busy doing loads of chores and got kids to help when she could.

Friday: loads of appointments in the morning and food shopping - kids helped ie maths. 🤔Then playground. Gross motor skills. Walked past a construction site and talked about that.
All helped cook dinner.

Is this supposed to be a good week? I feel like that’s what I do in the school holidays or weekends! There is so much that they learn at school that is not nearly being covered. My son does music, crafting, sports, geography, history, science, everything! Yes it is adapted for him as he has additional needs and is in a tiny class, but he gets so much! Also what about mixing with any other kids?

I understand that some kids especially SN kids cant cope with much more, but these kids seem academically able so it seems like theyre missing out on so much, especially with the reasons often being the mum’s health :( thoughts?

I agree everything takes much less time. i think it’s always a bit dangerous to compare doing normal things to education though, especially as a replacement to actually learning things.
I knew someone who HE and was always going on about doing baking for maths, the museum for history - like no one else was doing these things with their children ever.
Also her choice to HE was entirely to do with herself and not her children. She had struggled at school (I suspect she’s autistic) and had to drop out of uni and had a very bad view of school. Her children were happy and doing well when she pulled them out. One is okay but the other is an adult still living at home as stopped engaging with people as a teen.

I think that’s what don’t get. Fair enough if the parents are actually teaching their children, or enrolled them so the tutors or online lessons, but surely those just doing normal activities plus some reading with their children realise that lots of us are doing those things in addition to school? My dd is in yr 1 and we read with her every day, she does extracurricular activities, we bake with her, take her swimming, take her to museums and on day trips out, to the beach, work in spelling, writing, reading and maths into every day life and games. And she goes to school and learns there too, and school have lots of resources and lessons that we couldn’t replicate at home very well.

School - and all the associated stuff such as homework, travel to/from school, need for early bedtimes - simply takes up a lot of time. That's why you can't "have it all" by doing school for a thousand-odd hours per year plus going on lots of trips plus having ample time to develop hobbies plus having plenty of time to play with friends. You can do some subset of those things.

I do realise that some families whose kids are at school might go on just as many educational trips as my home educated kids have done. It would be very difficult to fit round school hours, but not impossible if you are very dedicated to that purpose. But something else would have to give. There are only so many hours in a day.

It's sort of like looking at the social media of a retired friend who's always talking about all their holidays and seeing grandchildren and time spent in the garden and thinking, "Yes, but I work 40 hours a week and do all those things too. Why bother retiring?" Possibly you do. Some people don't mind being crazy busy and always short of sleep. Most of us either couldn't, or wouldn't want to, fit all those things in on top of a full working week.