Wednesday 8 June 2011

Good things and bad things about home educating

Good Things
Your kid won’t have nits all the time
You won’t have to make yourself hoarse every morning shouting, ‘It’s gone eight o’clock’ at a sleeping teenager.
Your child will retain the ability to pronounce medial and terminal ‘t’s and not replace them as a matter of course with glottal stops.
You can enter your child for whatever combination of GCSEs you both want.
You don’t have to make yourself presentable for the school run every day.
Your daughter or son can continue playing with dolls or toy cars, without feeling that they must stop at a certain age lest their friends think them babyish.
Your child will not have to rub shoulders with children called Brandon, Jadon, Taylor, Tyler, Kylie and Paige.




Bad Things
Despite what you tell the LA, your kid will not have a very extensive social life. He will become out of touch with what other kids find important.
Unless you get your arse into gear, he will end up with no qualifications at all.
Your family and friends will think that you are weird.
The only people who will approve and be your friends are other home educating parents, many of whom genuinely are weird. (Unlike you).
Your kid may not have to hang out with children called Chantelle, but you will find now that she is likely to be knocking around with people called Andromeda and Sky.



You will spend hours on the computer, like some kid obsessed with facebook. You run the risk of sitting up until two every morning commenting angrily on forums and blogs.

25 comments:

  1. I think you mean 'hoarse'.

    As for nits, they managed to do the rounds of the local home ed group a while back. We all looked at it as proof that the children did socialise with each other.

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  2. 'I think you mean 'hoarse'.

    You speak truly!

    'As for nits, they managed to do the rounds of the local home ed group a while back.'

    My word, I had supposed this to be a London and Essex problem. Do you really mean to tell me that kids in Cambridge get them as well?

    Simon.

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  3. The Cambridge group has occasional visits from Essex families for some events...

    I don't think nits respect county boundaries, they just jump from head to head if there's close contact.

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  4. 'Despite what you tell the LA, your kid will not have a very extensive social life.'

    Absolutely not true for us. Perhaps it was for you and Simone? Don't generalise form your own experience.

    Though my kids are now at college, I think they have fewer friends they see on a regular basis now than they did whilst HE'ing.

    It all depends how seriously you take the issue of socialising. It takes effort on the part of the parent.

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  5. "Despite what you tell the LA, your kid will not have a very extensive social life. He will become out of touch with what other kids find important"

    That really made me laugh! I suspect this varies a great deal depending on where you live. Son (11) has this week:

    Monday - Forest School group for three hours - making fires, building shelters, eating lunch with a group of kids, some of whom he's known for five years or so.
    Tuesday - three hours playing in the park with friends he's had for years. Then back to one of their houses for more play and tea (another three hours or so.)
    Wednesday - weekly group with kids he's known for about five years - for 2 and a half hours.
    Thursday - same group as Wednesday followed by a short play with a friend or two before they go to drama together for another couple of hours.
    Friday - big fortnightly social gathering of home edders. Many of the same friends he's seen during the week plus more. Free play for three hours.
    Then the weekend, during which he will see local cousins and go out to local community events and so on.

    You really have to learn, Simon, not to assume that everyone lives your life!

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  6. 'You really have to learn, Simon, not to assume that everyone lives your life!'

    Which observation might perhaps not inaptly be also applied to your own life, Allie!

    Simon.

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  7. The difference is, Simon, that I don't attempt to tell people what their life is like/ will be like/ should be like! I was just saying what we do - as real life home educators in this country. We don't struggle for a social life. I know that's not the same for everyone but I know lots of people in this town who live the same way and I suspect the same is true in several cities. But then we accept the regular appearance of nits as a fact of life and have no problem meeting kids called Jaydon. Each to their own...

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  8. Simon wrote "Despite what you tell the LA, your kid will not have a very extensive social life. He will become out of touch with what other kids find important."

    No social life!!! - this made me laugh.
    We have french/music on a monday with other HE kids. Oldest goes to church group in evening. Tuesday oldest goes to college, whilst youngest two go to visit friends. In the evening middle has gym. Wednesday we go to soft play, in the evening oldest has evening class whilst youngest does beavers. Thursday we have French oral lessons with a tutor and lots of HE kids then in the evening youngestdoes gym, On friday we go to HE group then middle has scouts in the evening. Saturday youngest and middle do swimming, Sunday all three have church groups and youth clubs.
    More socialisation goes on that I would like at times- its exhausting,lol.
    I think Simon, you are getting a little carried away in your generalisations in your quest to find new topics to post each day. I do enjoy some of your posts but I think this one is a little silly and pointless.

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  9. Very funny......and true!
    Personally I am struggling a lot with the social aspect for my almost five year old son. Depite living in a city with a local home ed group there simply isn't much going on for him. We have a relatively small pool of home-educated children here so I am concerned about the future.

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  10. Lynn, I'd be inclined to say "don't worry". IMHO, society is too hung up on socialising for children from 5. There is a good reason why Cubs and Brownies don't start till around 8yo. (And I know about Rainbows and Beavers but they are fairly recent and not so common.) Many children are not ready for large groups and activities at 5. You may find that there are plenty of activities for 8-14yos (HE tends to drop off from 14 as people work out ways of achieving qualifications).

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  11. Thanks Shena, I know you are right. I'm not really worried at the moment, he's a happy litte boy - happy with mum and dad and family. I should stop worrying about the future and cross that bridge when we come to it! It's nice to be reminded though. I think the point I'm making is that geographical location and whether or not there is a large and active local HE community plays a significant part in friendship opportunities for our children (while realising of course that opportunities for socialising are not restricted to HE'd children).

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  12. Definitely the last time that I try to be funny on here! I had quite forgotten just how many humourless fanatics the home edcuating community contains.
    Simon.

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  13. Oh no, don't say that, Simon. This was one of your best from that point of view. It was clear to me this time that you were writing with tongue in cheek and I've struggled to spot this in previous articles.

    I think the socialisation thing just triggers an automatic defensive mechanism because it's one of the first things people usually ask about. It can be a problem for some people some of the time within HE, just as it can be a problem for some people some of the time (a lot of the time?) in school. The trouble is, non-HE people seem to conveniently forget that you can sometimes feel more lonely in a crowded classroom than when you are at home with your family with occasional contact (or even no contact) with friends. It's difficult to have a sense of humour about something when you feel constantly attacked for it!

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  14. I have noticed that when parents say its all go with social activaties it always seems to be activities parents have facilitated. As a parent im just as guilty. My eldest made a comment thats some friends wouldn' t class home ed groups, music lessons as a social activitys as these are forced upon them, my son and his friends idea of a social life is hanging down the beach talking rubbish with no parents in sight. A childs view of social and an adults seems very difffent.

    As for names, I have to admit to hearing some wonderdul and colourful names in the home ed circles.

    Amy

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  15. I did get that you were trying to be funny, Simon. (Hence the names thing, I hope...) But this sort of humour only works if it's based on pointing out things that are actually true to some extent. I felt that this was a weird mixture of tongue-in-cheek 'home educator who can laugh at home educators' and rather unfunny and untrue things about socialising and exams and so on.

    Never mind, eh?

    Amy, I think you're right that groups aren't necessarily about socialising. It depends on the group. We go to quite a few where the kids disappear to space away from adults to play and muck about and so on. I always wanted that for my kids as most of my happy play memories from childhood are of being well away from adults!

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  16. I find it quite funny actually. Taken in the spirit in which it's intended I think it's an interesting piece!! Not saying I agree with everything but it is funny........

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  17. "My eldest made a comment thats some friends wouldn' t class home ed groups, music lessons as a social activitys as these are forced upon them, my son and his friends idea of a social life is hanging down the beach talking rubbish with no parents in sight."

    As Allie says, it depends on the meeting and it's purpose. We tended to go to ones advertised as social meetings. Even the meetings with organised activities usually included lots of free time after the activity. Parents got a chance to socialise whilst the children disappeared together for a few hours.

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  18. Must say though, we failed to avoid nits too! I don't remember having them myself as a child, but I've had them a few times as an adult!

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  19. 'Definitely the last time that I try to be funny on here!'

    I bet it won't be! :-)

    'I had quite forgotten just how many humourless fanatics the home educating community contains.'

    The whole point of humour is to draw your audience's attention, in an enjoyable way, towards the truth! Humour shines a light on sometimes awkwards truths.

    We simply pointed out what you'd said about that particular point was untrue. Because it wasn't true, the humour didn't work. Do you see? That doesn't make us humourless fanatics.

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  20. Lynn,

    It can take time to develop a social life. Being in school doesn't automatically ensure a good one. Things progress though. I'll bet that by the time your son is 6 or 7, you'll have more social opportunities than you have time to do them.

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  21. One of my daughter's biggest disappointments about school was that she didn't get enough time with her friends any more. Just saying...

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  22. On the plus side, she did stop getting nits all the time.

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  23. We've considered keeping our nits as proof of socialisation. We thought of selotaping them into a note book with dates.

    Elizabeth

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  24. LOL @ Elizabeth....we had a 3 yrs period of nits every few weeks with our eldest - a friendly neighbour with even friendlier headlice!

    On the socialisation issue I think the point for us has been that our children have been able to socialise on their terms and appropriately for them - as one is a recluse and the other a party girl it's been an interesting journey so far.

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  25. Elizabeth, I love that idea. It would be a brilliant campaigning strategy for a community of home edders with a troublesome LA.

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