Do you work outside of home ?

[athomeagain]

Do you home educators work outside of the home?

This has be come part of our decision making making issue of whether to go ahead or not.

If so what do you do?

Also what do you do about childcare?

We are not sure if we have enough practical support and are a really private family.

How social are you all?We are a mainstream family (for want of a better word)But the thought of putting our child into school feels wrong.

WE know that all types home ed but we are not into growing things camping etc,who else is like us?

Hope some of this makes sense as i don't really know how to explian or where to start.

How did you make the decission.

I'm the full time WOHP, the main breadwinner, and I work pretty completely flexi-time.

I think HEing does come with decisions about who works outside the home and for how long (some families have both parents working part time, some have just one full time SAHP and one full time WOHP). Some families use extended family for child care for certain days or hours

and NO - home education does NOT have to be done in school hours and does NOT take 6 hours a day 5 days a week - the hours that a school day takes up just involve so much faff time that even the most formal of home educators only do an hour or two a day at primary level AFAIK

Childcare - extended family? babysitter? My ideal, if I needed childcare, would be a HEed teen looking for some pocket money Quite often, HE families have one (or even both) parents working from home.

HE families vary from out there being social every day of the week to very quiet private families for whom the social interaction is mostly just what arises naturally from going to the library and to the local museum etc etc. Don't let people tell you that children must spend the majority of their days in company with other children the same age. For some children that would be really valuable. For others it would be hell on earth. Follow the child!

And the HE scene is expanding enormously at the moment. I'd say it includes everything from hippies to bible-believing Christians with just about everything in between that you can imagine. Best way to find out what sort of people HE in your area is to get onto local email lists and try out some meet ups

I work f/t outside the home, but DH works from home so is there to supervise DS. I think it must be quite a juggling act if you don't have one parent at home most of the time, but I think it can be done if you can match up your hours - either shifts or flexitime.

If you're thinking about starting from 4/5 then you may be able to get a part-time place with a childminder to cover some of your work time, but that may be trickier with an older child.

What practical support and groups you need/want depends on you really - obviously you'll want your child to have opportunities to mix with other children, but that can happen at "after-school" activities like beavers etc rather than HE groups if you don't find them your cup of tea.

We are very mainstream - though we're the kind of HE which gets called "school at home" so we aren't educating in a non-mainstream way (except for the minor detail of it being HE ). I think there's more of a mix of people choosing HE now, as there is a widespread uneasiness about NC and testing amongst people who wouldn't perhaps have gone dwn the HE route in the past - it's no longer that "alternative" to have concerns about how the school system is working.

HTH

I gave up my career as a sister in a SCBU around the time we bagn to home educate.
I have done a variety of things part time around the children.
I have lectured in an FE college and I have gone into selling ladies clothes via a direct selling company, and right now, I am working about 25 hrs a week as a carer around dd2s home based education.

Childcare when we have needed it has been either via family or other home educators.
Now our dc are older they have often baby sat for other home ed families as OUAU suggested above. That has worked very well, as obviously they understand how home education works.

But I have also known families where grandparents are heavily involved and bring the children to home ed meetings etc and failies whoi have used child minders/au pairs.

It really is down to what suits you as a family.