am i being selfish wanting to home educate

Someone googled that phrase and landed on my blog. I don’t have time for a full write up right now, but no, I doubt very much you are being selfish.

Home education will require your time, your involvement, your interest, your energy. You’ve probably devoted that time to your child or children before mandatory education age, and in some ways, school looks like it’s finally time you get a break, some time for yourself, a bit of a relaxation of the responsibility for bringing your child up.

Actually, you still have full responsibility in law for the education your child receives, even when they are at school. It feels different though, knowing that someone else is tangling with learning to read, adding, subtracting and so on. I daresay that outside of school hours you are still doing what you were doing beforehand – perhaps you go to the library, read with your child, take them out interesting and exciting places, watch illuminating documentaries on the tv, play games and plan holidays around them.

Home education can look a lot like that. It doesn’t have to be school at home and scary. You can just go on doing what you were doing when your child learnt to walk and talk – you probably didn’t do much in the way of lessons to achieve those milestones did you?

Children learn. They are set up to learn if we don’t stop them. They will investigate and imitate, experiment and enthuse. Follow your child’s interests and use those to expand their horizons. Share books, games, activities, arts, crafts – whatever takes your fancy. Involve them in the baking, the cooking, shopping, housework – all of those things will develop life skills, independence, and though it’s sometimes hard to see probably maths and literacy too.

And if, later on, you start to worry about exams, don’t. There are lots of established home educators working that one out now, and if your child is young it’s a problem for another day. You can seek out the established home educators – I’m willing to bet there are local email lists, groups, forest schools, craft afternoons and outings happening somewhere near you, you just need to find them. Do as much or as little with those groups as you want – and if there isn’t a group doing quite what you’d like to do, then set one up!

So no, I don’t think you are selfish wanting to home educate. I hope this gives you food for thought if you ever see it, oh anonymous googler, and I wish you luck on your journey.