Do you "big up" home ed?

[SummatAnNowt]

I just wondered because I see some people being very meek and ooh this is just our decision and school is just as good etc. etc. And when I started home ed I was careful not to persuade my child either way. But I haven't yet come across a parent who is sending their child into reception who doesn't say loads of positive stuff to them about school like ooh you're a big boy/girl now/you'll be able to play or learn this that and the other/you will be able to hang out with your friends all day etc. etc.

So I've started that with my own 5 year old and he is much more home ed positive than he was before.

I'd say when you're talking to your child about whatever choice you're making, it's a good idea to be very positive about the nice aspects of it, and get them to feel enthusiastic about the whole thing, whether that's school or home ed. But that's different to how you would talk to other parents who have made other choices - that's where I think it's better to stress that this is a choice you've made for your child in your circumstances, rather than coming across as "HE is better than school" which is going to get their backs up when they've put effort into finding a school that they think will suit their child.

I'm only thinking here about small children really, I think how you'd talk to an older one about the options would probably have to be more even-handed and involve them in making the decision, since they have more experience on which to be involved in the choice. When we started HE with DS, he was 13, so it was very much his decision as well as ours, and we didn't overstate the pros and cons of either HE or school.

Yes, I meant in a talking to your child or to other home edders way. It's just even among "us" there's a hesitance to be anything other than 50/50 about it all. Of course you're right that it's not applicable to older children, and I don't find it in those who've taken their children out for school failures either. I suppose I should've been more specific about people who at the outset have chosen HE over school, because that's not an anti-school choice, but a pro-home ed choice and I think there's a fear of coming across as anti-school because there's been no "giving it a go".

I think that whatever your choice it is a good idea to be positive about it.

I dont big up home ed so to speak but just lately a friend who was very much pro-school said she could see just how far ahead my ds was as opposed to her ds and his schoolmates-its not so much that hes super clever just that we are able to study differently without classroom interference- it also used to be that her ds was more social than mine (not through educational choice I didnt think it was just he wasnt as 'social') but now my ds has lots of friends and is quite an extrovert.

The thing that surprised me most was being in the library and a man was chatting to ds3 and his own son and commented upon how 'intelligent' ds3 was and what school did he attend? when I said he was H.E he got quite excited he was headmaster of a private school and had never met anyone who H.E before .

We chose school but I'm very positive about HE and my kids know it exists as an option, just not the one we happen to have chosen. It's horses for courses. So long as you don't generalise and say your way is always better for every single person (so the other way is always wrong for everyone), there's no reason not to be as positive as you like about whichever you choose.

It's useful for kids to learn the difference between agreeing with someone and being courteous and respecting their decision. Whether you go for school or home ed, it would be awful for a child to hear parents being scornful or rude about people who do the other thing. It's good for them to know you disagree with things and why, but also important that they understand how important it is to be polite, and to have a vocabulary for conversations with people who make different choices (even if it seems 'meek').