Tracy

Tracy has been home educating her children for four months and submitted this article in August 2002.

I have recently de-registered my children from school (Easter 2002).  They had both started school soon after they turned four and now my son is 11 and my daughter is 13. My family and friends were supportive on the whole but there were some comments made about how would they socialise, and as the head teacher at my sons school pointed out, this was his gravest concern. Before I can talk about how we facilitate socialisation within our family it is important to talk about my childrens' experiences of socialisation  to date.

PRE-SCHOOL YEARS

Like most families, my life did not stop after I had children.  My lifestyle may have changed, but I didn't become a hermit. I had friends who had children and friends who did not; some people were the same age as me, some were younger and some were older. My friend's children were also a mixture of ages, some older than mine and some younger; some were girls and some were boys. We met up with these people at the shops, parks, toddler groups, at each others houses etc. We integrated with them and all learnt about getting along with each other. We spent time alone at home and learnt to share our things and our time; we learnt about give and take and being respectful to each other. We didn't need to go to school to learn this - this was and is real life.

THE SCHOOL YEARS

KS1 (4-7years)

Once the children had started school this did not mean the end of my responsibility to my children, what they had learnt at home would ensure that they could then go into to a class of 30 other children and cope.  They continued to learn about sharing and turn taking at home, and in school and they met new people. Their friendship circles widened slightly but on the whole they socialised with the friends they had made outside of school. It was however the first time my son had come into contact with bullies within the school playground and within the classroom.  This was not a problem to begin with as he was a confident young man who could articulate well with his peers and his teachers.

KS2 (7-11years)

MY SON

This is the time it all changed for my son, he changed schools and became a target for bullies and his life became unbearable. Always a very sociable child, he always had lots of friends until it became uncool to play with him. He was ostracized by his peers, beaten, hounded and ridiculed for playing with younger children; it became much worse when the children took this bullying out of school to where we lived. He had to go on preventative medicine for migraine and saw a counsellor. I was bribing him out of bed each morning or we were screaming at each other each day just to get him up and out to school until I found out about HE. This is my son's experience of socialisation within school! He was incredibly lonely!

Now all that has changed. His confidence is coming back as he is not being forced to go to school; he attended a KIDSCAPE assertiveness course and we moved house.

MY DAUGHTER

My daughter has a totally different personality to my son, she is very quiet and loves solitude. People often mistake her quietness for lack of confidence.  I even had a teacher say her aim was to make "E as loud and confident as her brother" I didn't agree with her, loud does not mean confident. I have always described my daughter as being quietly confident.  She always accessed what she wanted at school in the way of clubs or putting herself forward to sing a solo part in the school play. She had a circle of friends whom she socialised with at school but didn't see during the school holidays.  This was normal and NEVER commented upon when she attended school but now she is home educated she is expected to be out all the time socialising, smiling, playing like her brother. Why should she? We should respect her as we would like to be respected, she will have the same opportunities as her brother and, like her time at school, she will choose what is of interest to her. My daughter taught me this because yes, at first I was like others in planning what she could do and where she could go to socialise, but I have faith in her.  She knows she can phone her friends and they can stay over; she knows the opportunities for trying new things and meeting new people will be there and she knows that she can access these things when she wants to.

WHAT DO WE DO THEN?

The first thing we did was join EO and then made contact with a local group who go ice skating. They were very friendly and have a wide age range of children.  My son has made lots of friends whilst skating around and he always has a big smile on his face. My daughter tried the skating but chooses not to skate; she joins in our conversations and is more confident when talking, especially to adults.

I made contact with other HEers on the web group and through this we have met up with other home educating families. We are in contact with a single parent group who we may go camping with in the near future. There are lots of new and exciting opportunities that we can explore together and we mustn't forget that even though the children don't go to school they still see and socialise with family members, friends of mine and their own.

Socialisation did not start at school and it doesn't end there either.