Home Schooling - Understand It Before You Criticise It

Sam with his sister. All ready
for his first day at school.

I would never have thought about home schooling if it were not for my son's 22Q 11.2. Most parents naturally assume their children will go to school and that is just the way it is. My daughter took to school like a fish to water. She will be starting Year 4 next week, has lots of lovely friends, an awesome teacher and she really loves school. My son is a completely different kettle of fish.

 

How we got to where we are now is a story in itself, but suffice to say, his first year at school was an up and down affair. By term three, he was continually sick and spent more time at home than he did at school. His anxiety levels went through the roof and it was clear that the situation was not the best one for him. He was stressed, I was stressed and it was breaking my heart. My happy, outgoing and bright little boy had all but disappeared. Something had to be done.

The idea of home schooling had been flitting around in my mind, but it wasn't until another mum at the school withdrew her children due to health reasons, that I began to take the idea seriously. I had a chat to her and began reading up on the internet about home schooling, or home education. I had been helping out in Sam's class since the beginning of the year, so I had a reasonable understanding of the work the children were doing and how the teacher's put together lessons and activities. I had also enrolled and started an Education Support (the new term for a Teacher Aide) course because I enjoyed working with the kids so much and wanted to move into the role as a career. Maybe, just maybe I could do it.

 

As it turned out, yes I could. I had given up working a year earlier because of Sam's situation. I wanted to spend more time with him and my daughter and we had already made the financial adjustment of living with just my husband's wage. Not easy, but we manage. There is also a wealth of resources out there for parent teacher's to access. Whether you opt for enrolling with a distance education school such as Brisbane School of Distance Education and follow their approved learning programs, or register as a home educator through the Home Education Unit, which is part of the Department of Education, Training and Employment in Queensland, your children have access to a wonderful world of learning.

Sam and his sister at a school holiday Lego event.

One of the biggest challenges home educator's face however, is not the actual 'doing' of home educating, but the incorrect perceptions that other people have about it. I read so many posts on home school support group pages from parents that are being criticised, and in some cases even ostracised, because of their decision to home educate their children. Sadly, most of this negativity comes from their own family and friends, the very people they need the most support and understanding from.

 

More and more parents around the world are choosing to home school and the reasons are varied. In my case it is because Sam needs a very different and tailored approach to his learning and we need more flexibility because of hospital visits and therapy sessions. Whatever the reason a parent may have, the decision to home school is not taken lightly and it requires a lot of dedication and work on the part of the parent teacher.

 

I'll leave you with a link to another blog about home schooling that I read this morning on the Home Education Association's Facebook page. It looks at one of the biggest issues people who do not understand home schooling seem to have... socialisation. Yet this issue is usually the least of a parent teacher's worries, because we know it is not an issue.

 

Yes, home education is different, but different is good. What a boring world it would be if we were all the same.

 

http://happinessishereblog.com/2015/01/socialization-look-like-homeschooled-kids/