I’ve heard a lot of questions and statements about Home Education over the years, but some of them come up again and again like bad pennies… A lot of these statements are actually complete rubbish and the ones that make the least sense seem to get repeated most. 

Let me show you what I mean. Let’s turn the BS detectors to ‘high’ and blast some of these bad boys into last century where they belong.

My eldest now gets herself up at 6am twice a week to go to a course she wants to do. Trust me (and better still, trust THEM), they can do it, and they will when it matters. And if you don’t believe me, go ask Father Christmas.

I read this, and I feel sad. I feel sorry for those kids whose parents (I believe) have grabbed really hard onto the wrong end of the stick and just won’t let go, and sad for the parents who are missing out on a better relationship with their kids.

‘My kids would just watch TV all day if I didn’t make them do stuff’

Highly flipping unlikely. At least after the first five or six days, anyway. I challenge all parents who have made this statement to put their money where their mouth is and let their kids watch TV all day, every day. I bet you a fiver they eventually get bored and go looking for something else to do. 

Plus, in what world does this kind of reverse bragging make any sense? Why does it seem to make some people proud to say that their kids aren’t inquisitive, or active, or even remotely engaged with the world? If you REALLY think it’s true that your kids would watch TV all day, given free choice, then you need to up your game. Build a den and sit in it while they’re watching TV. I’m pretty sure they’ll want in. Look out of the kitchen window and shriek “Oh my god – a YELLOW one!”. Open a massive jar of sweets. Did they look away from the TV? Of course they did. 

How will they learn to follow rules and do boring stuff if they don’t go to school / don’t  follow a timetable I make for them / don’t have a structure imposed on them by an adult?

Hold on a minute. Who imposes rules on you? What makes you get up and clean the house? Go to work? Stop yourself from poking that irritating colleague in the eye?

You clean the house because you don’t like it dirty and untidy. Because you worry that someone will think less of you if you don’t, or because you really don’t want a repeat of that maggot infestation you had last year. Now I’m not judging your reasons, but I am pointing out that they are exactly that – YOUR reasons. You don’t clean the house because someone tells you to. If that was true, everyone who lives alone would be living in a complete dump. No, you have to come to a point where the motivation to dust outweighs the motivation to read a novel, or binge an entire series of Stranger Things. And it does happen eventually, doesn’t it? Just like it will for your kids.

You don’t poke annoying people in the face because you know the shit would hit the fan if you did. This is not (I hope) because you’ve tried it before and learned from your mistake. This is because lots of smaller, non-GBH-level natural consequences have happened in your life, and you learned from those instead. Like, if you are totally selfish, people stop hanging around with you. And people are nicer to you when you are nicer to them. 

This stuff happens in your kids’ lives, too, whether you impose arbitrary rules on them or not. And by not imposing arbitrary rules, you reduce friction points between you and them and make life more pleasant all around. Try it and see.

Ha! But what about getting up early?

Believe it or not, there are adults who get up at 4 am to go to the sales at Next (I know, right?). They get up before the crack of dawn at the weekend, without anybody making them, BECAUSE THEY WANT SOMETHING. This works in other ways, too. 

Some people get up and go out at dawn to get a perfect landscape photo, and others set off in the wee-small hours to take a walk in a beautiful part of the countryside. And when my kids got a PlayStation 4 they set their alarm clocks for 6am BY THEMSELVES to get up and play because they were so excited. My eldest now gets herself up at 6am twice a week to go to a course she wants to do. Trust me (and better still, trust THEM), they can do it, and they will when it matters. If you don’t believe me, ask Father Christmas.

They won’t get a job without GCSEs

For a start, this statement assumes that Home Educated kids can’t get GCSEs. The truth is that they can get them if they want to, but the exams must be arranged by parents. Parents also have to pay for GCSEs taken outside of the usual school system. 

Secondly, this question assumes that all GCSEs lead to a job. They really don’t. There are millions of kids in this country coming out of school with GCSEs, and they aren’t all guaranteed a job. 

Ah, yes – so that proves that they need to get REALLY GOOD GCSE’s to get a job, doesn’t it?

Er, no. Not really. There are other routes into jobs that people can take if they don’t do GCSEs. Taking an access course and then going to uni as a mature student, for example. Or taking a degree with the Open University, or doing an apprenticeship.

Plus, many jobs don’t require the usual qualifications. Photographer, artist, dog walker, entrepreneur, welder, athlete, tree surgeon – it’s possible to be happy and successful doing any of these jobs, without GCSEs getting a look in. A lot of colleges and universities will accept non-standard qualifications such as experience, portfolios, in-house tests and assignments. 

They’ll never learn to finish anything if I let them quit swimming/ CUBs/ trumpet lessons!

All us parents have been there – little Jimmy is whining that he haaaaaates poetry recitation practice, and whhhhhhhhy does he have to? The chances are that your answer is some parenty-sounding phrase like ‘because it’ll make you a better person’, or ‘because we all have to do things we don’t like’. As you speak, you are quite likely to be experiencing a flashback of your duvet-warmed feet touching the cold floor at 5.30 that very morning to go to work. Yak.

But if we ARE sending our Jimmy to boring classes out of some perverted sense of revenge, then we have to admit – that’s pretty awful. On the other hand, if we really think it’ll make him a better person, are we right? In that case, maybe we should be attending too? 

I would argue that successful people are successful because they know when to quit. They definitely didn’t become a success on their first try. So it stands to reason that they had lots of false starts first. 

So if Jimmy hates poetry class, I’d say let him quit. He wasn’t born to be a poet. But, that passion for knitting he had – the one you think has disappeared? It’ll be back in full force when Granny tells him how cold her hamster’s been this last few weeks. Just you wait.

I urge you to watch closely and have faith in your young people. Over a period of months, maybe years, there will be things that your child keeps coming back to. Even if you thought they’d given up. It turns out that some passions hibernate until the right balance of ability, skills, strength and understanding are in place to take that person to the next level

Busted?

What do you think? Have I managed to change your mind about any of these knackered old cliches? Or am I completely wrong? Let me know!