Why We are going to Home Educate?

We both hated school, David’s dad in the forces and a list of schools to work his way through. Me shy and looking back now, school phobic by fourteen yet unaware and compulsorily forced to go. Sheer hell for years. All the time being told that those years were the best of my life. TOSH!

Within months of having our first daughter, we felt physically ill at the thought of sending her there. So we started thinking about it and reading whatever we could find. Then one day I discovered we didn’t have to send her at all. Another year of reading and thinking and we knew she never would. When our second daughter arrived, we realized in a matter of months that we believed school would be the worst thing that could ever happen to her.

We have just been told verbally that our thoughts were correct and she’s autistic. In the last few days that has been added to or replaced by a speech disorder. Either way her world is a quiet one, which means she’s terrified of commotion and crowds and children and she communicates very quietly, mostly by gestures and expressions.

Now they are almost four and a little past two. We are very conventional on the outside but apparently not on the inside. Quite simply home education means not having to do what we are told to do, instead it means relaxing, playing and getting on with our lives peacefully, without too much stress and happily with people we like rather than our forced to be with. We don't have to be surrounded by people and we have the time to thoroughly enjoy the company of our friends who actually are mostly school families. They accept us and vice versa, we all respect each other’s differentness and don't try to convert each other. We are all after all doing what's best for whatever reason, for our families.

Many people are not so like this, (accepting and respecting) and that’s sad for all concerned. For the world we live in, we are all far from perfect and all have a million faults but if we think for ourselves and not necessarily in huge groups lead by the powers that be. Maybe we will see the positivity and the peace that could be out there. The world scares me today, not just war but peer pressure, cruelty, ignorance and the speed that these things spread. Children are the most loving, gentle, forgiving and peaceful people we have and by protecting them, watching, learning from them and letting their childhoods be free from all the (TOSH) they in turn teach us and we all stand to gain.

For my family that means home education. I read somewhere a quote that if you get old too fast, you don’t have time to grow up. The day I left school was the beginning of my life being mine. Several years later and many mistakes later, I got to where I am now which is thank God, where I got to before becoming a mum. Now I can let my girls do it there way and they've taught me far more than I've taught them. In deed they learn for themselves and they are doing just great.

I'm writing a book, a ramble about Home Education and ‘special needs.’ Our journey, the same as many others, yet hopefully a pleasure for someone to read. There's nothing I like more than sharing journies rather than being given the map and instructions.

B.B

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