Welcome to Home Education Matters, the weekly podcast supporting you on your home education journey.

Hello and welcome to another episode of Home Education Matters.

And today I'm joined by Hannah Canavan from Thriving with Hannah.

And we are going to be talking about people that make excuses for reasons why they can't home educate.

So today's episode is making excuses for why you can't home educate.

And I thought that there is nobody on the planet who is willing to embrace that controversial subject with me other than Hannah.

So, Hannah, thank you so much for joining me on the podcast today.

Before we launch in to our topic, do you want to tell our listeners a little bit about your home education journey?

Yeah, sure.

Thank you.

Thank you for the introduction.

I think this is going to be a bit of a spicy one, but hopefully people also get a lot out of it, so this is quite exciting.

I've home educated for nearly 15 years now.

My eldest is 15.

Before having children, I worked in behaviour management at a people referral unit.

And that was where I first saw really alternative approaches to education and also to a relationship with children, almost parenting approach in this unit.

And that was where I really thought, you know, mainstream education doesn't work for so many children, but there are other approaches that do.

We then looked into, you know, various school options for my eldest daughter, but I still had this gut instinct that I wanted to home educate or that, you know, it might sound arrogant, but that I could do a better job than school could with her.

I didn't know it at the time, but I have got several children who are neurodivergent and this decision, I think, would have happened sooner or later.

And so I feel very lucky that we just decided to do it at the beginning.

And it's been 15 years of, you know, a lot of amazing times, some struggles as well, definitely.

But I haven't regretted it for a second.

So you've home educated all the way through.

You're what I call an ideological home educator.

Yeah, I would say that's accurate.

Yeah.

So they've never been to.

They didn't go to nursery either, because we thought, you know, one concern was, are they going to be able to make friends?

Is there a community?

And, you know, am I going to be able to make friends as well?

Am I going to just be really isolated?

And so we decided that before school age, you know, preschool age, that we would give it a go and act as if we were home educating already.

And so that period, I think Esme was two or three when we started trying to find Friends from that time, you know, we really slotted into the home ed community, found our group and went from there.

Oh, you've been very lucky then you found your community nice and early.

Very lucky.

Extremely lucky.

And, you know, I think back to people who've home educated 20 or 30 years ago and I think it must have been a huge challenge to find community back then and now we're so lucky.

There are, you know, obviously so many online spaces and communities that you can plug into WhatsApp groups and it's just made it so much easier to find friends and a community.

Yeah, I remember when I very first started, I didn't even know I was starting.

I just didn't send them to school and so didn't even realize it was a thing.

But we were in Oxfordshire and it wasn't even on Facebook then.

It was all done through like a weird kind of messaging app or like, I can't even remember what it was, but it was like back in the day, didn't even really do Facebook, so.

So let's talk about the excuses that people make to not home educate, which sounds harsh and I don't think either of us mean it in a harsh way, but it's more about clearing the obstacles.

Right, so what do you think?

What do you think is the biggest single excuse you hear for.

For reasons why people can't home educate?

I think that obviously the title is very spicy and we talked a little bit about this, but I think that there are some people that who make excuses for something that they maybe want to do but just can't bring themselves to take the next step or they aren't willing to make the sacrifices involved, which is a totally valid choice.

But I do think that needs to be recognised.

There are also reasons that make it very, very difficult and very tricky for people to home educate, such as being a single parent, disabilities.

But what I will say is that no matter what your circumstance, there are families home educating in those circumstances.

So, you know, even more than we would imagine.

So a few years ago I met an amazing family at an unschooling camp and they had been through a period of homelessness and the mum had also had a cancer diagnosis and so they had ridden this awful, turbulent wave and they had carried on home educating.

And so I thought, wow, you know, home education does have to be the central decision for your family, I think, and you do need to decide that and then make everything else work around it.

And I'm not saying that everyone can at all, but I think if you, if you start with the idea that maybe you can, you know, you're a single parent, but maybe you can make this work.

Then you're more likely to find the resources, the help, the support, the community to enable you to do so.

And you're definitely going to get further on than if you think, well, I'm a single parent, so I couldn't possibly home educate.

And I completely understand why people think that they can't in different circumstances, but that's mainly because there's so much misinformation about home education.

So maybe people think I couldn't possibly home educate because I work full time, or I couldn't possibly home educate because I am on a low income or I'm disabled.

And the truth is that none of those things on their own necessarily stop you doing it.

It makes it very, very tricky and very difficult.

But there are people from all walks of life and all circumstances who are home educating.

And so my encouragement would be to just keep an open mind and push on some doors and try and find other people who are in a similar circumstance doing it and see how they've made it work.

So it's about shifting your mindset from the can't do to the maybe I can do.

Yeah, I think that's always a good way to approach things.

To be honest, when I became a single parent, this was six years ago now, one of my first thoughts was, there is no way my kids are going into the school system.

How on earth am I going to make this work?

And I'm not saying that that in and of itself at all meant that I could do it, but it definitely helped me start looking at options that would enable me so, you know, what work do I need to pick up?

How do I need to organize my life to do this?

Am I going to be able to send them to classes or groups, or is it going to be all on me?

And it just shifted that, that attention from, oh, my God, this is going to be awful and impossible to, maybe there's a way I can do this.

And so I think that you can't just think your way through things and magic it up.

But I think that if you start with, yeah, sure, why not?

Let's try and make this happen, it's definitely going to get you further than thinking it can't happen for me.

And you were saying there as well about maybe hooking up with people that are in a similar circumstance.

So other single parents who are home educating to give you that awareness that actually what you're saying to yourself is, More of an excuse than a valid reason not to do it.

Yeah, I think that there's a lot of fear about home educating anyway, even if you don't have any extenuated circumstances.

But I think when you, you know, I can only speak from my own experience becoming a single parent, that feels utterly terrifying because everything is on you.

The responsibility, the childcare, the house, you know, the financial implications of home education and the work situation is a completely different ball game to someone who is a two partner family or, or two incomes.

It is a completely different ball game.

And talking to other single parents and seeing how they did it definitely helped me.

And there are communities out there, you know, single parent home ed groups.

And so you're sort of crowdsourcing this information as to all the different circumstances that people are in and all the different ways that they've managed to make it work.

And it might be, you know, if you've got, depending on your custody agreement, it might be that you've got some time where the kids aren't with you that you can do in person work.

It might be that we need to switch to evenings and weekends.

I do a lot of evening and weekend and early morning work.

And your life might look very different to how you imagined it or to how you ideally would like it to be.

But it doesn't always preclude home education.

It doesn't always mean that you can't, can't do it.

I think with home educating as a single parent, alongside what you touched on there about finances.

So home educating, when you don't have dual income, for example, or perhaps it don't even have much of an income at all, I think a lot of it is about sacrifice it as you mentioned, and also priorities, isn't it?

Like what you choose to prioritize and what you choose to sacrifice as a single parent, what do you think you have sacrificed the most and what do you, and obviously you prioritize.

Like you said, there's no way your children are going into school.

So what do you think was the, the biggest sacrifice for you then in terms of okay, they don't get to go to school, but I lose X.

So I think, I think I should preempt this by saying I am in a very privileged position now.

Like I, you know, in terms of sacrifice, things have worked out really well for my family and I'm incredibly grateful for that.

And there's been a lot of luck, a lot of privilege that's gone into that, but it wasn't always like that and I sac My first thought when you said that is I sacrificed my health, I sacrificed my physical health and I sacrificed my own mental health in order to make sure that they didn't go into school.

And that is not a choice that I would necessarily recommend someone does, you know, but it's what I chose to do because I had to grind, I had to make it work, and I.

And I had to keep them out of the school system.

And so it was going through a divorce during.

Over the pandemic time as well, trying to figure out how I was going to, you know, make this work enough to keep my family afloat and obviously the responsibility of the home education side of things as well, which people kind of forget.

It's like you're, you know, you're actually making all this work, but then you have to decide how you're home educating.

So, yeah, I ended up in hospital with extreme stomach pain, not being able to walk.

At some points, people, you know, doctors were looking at endometriosis.

I remember calling my mom thinking I was having a heart attack.

So this is why I said, I don't necessarily recommend this for people.

It's just what I chose to do.

And it was brutal.

It was absolutely brutal.

So I did sacrifice that a lot.

I think now I sacrifice my social life.

I don't have much of a social life.

I'm sort of lucky that I don't particularly care that much, but I am very aware that other people do things that I don't do.

I don't have.

I don't watch daytime tv.

I don't watch normal tv.

You know, people having a conversation about Bake Off, I've got no idea what they're talking about.

And as I've said before, you know, I'm very lucky.

There are other things that we get to do.

We get to travel and we get to, you know, we've moved out to the countryside now, which is amazing.

There's other things.

But, yeah, health was a big one or a huge one.

That's a really big sacrifice to make.

I'm sure people listening might think that's not a sacrifice they're prepared to make, which I guess for you would indicate that maybe the payoff isn't enough of a motivation for them.

And I would say that's totally valid, you know, and I think it also depends on.

I think it depends on your child.

And so this is where, you know, we talk about privilege, and I think it's always more nuanced than we make it out.

You know, if you've Got a neurotypical child who is not actively suffering in mainstream school.

Great.

Do not sacrifice your health, don't sacrifice your physical health, don't sacrifice your mental health or an income.

Maybe that is the happiest overall that your family is going to be with your child in school.

And that's great.

My children, at least one of my children would not survive in school.

So that's not a choice I can really make in good conscience.

And so if it's going to be their health or mine, it's always going to be mine that gets sacrificed.

I think for a lot of parents it does come down to that.

And the reason that I think it's important we have these conversations about, you know, is it a reason or is it an excuse is because there are people who are in the situation where they cannot send their child to school because it's going to be the last time they go in.

You know, I get messages like this that my child has said they want to, you know, to end their life.

And that is a very real situation for a lot of people.

And so we need to look at, right, how on earth are we going to make this work in these really difficult circumstances.

This is not about being able to swan around, you know, having, having a dolly because we feel like homeschooling is cute and we're out in the forest, I don't know, doing all the hippie dippy stuff.

It's not about that.

It's about we need to look at how we get around the obstacles and the systems to make it possible to survive while home educating.

And it's particularly in my mind for those children who are not surviving in.

The system, what about those people that would turn around and say, well, I'd love to home educate.

It sounds a lovely idea, but I can't afford it right now, so I'm going to wait and see how things are in a year or two years, something like that.

I mean, does that feel like it's, it rings true as a valid reason or, or do you think that verges towards being an excuse?

I think it massively depends.

I think there are some families, you know, if you're, if you're a middle class family, let's say you're two income family, got a nice car, having holidays.

And I know that that's not the situation for a lot of people, but it is for also for a lot of people, the situation, then I would say, well, that's down to your priority.

Now if you gave up the holiday in the car and the second income and maybe some luxuries, then home education is possible.

And I would also look at how they're phrasing it, you know, if it's a lovely idea.

These are not the people who are desperately needing to remove their children for survival reasons.

These are, these are people who are doing it for lifestyle reasons.

And so I think we need to accept and be comfortable with the fact that we do make decisions based on our priorities and that's absolutely fine.

And then for other people, you know, and then for other people it's going to be they are surviving as it is and they just don't know how they're going to go to work.

Maybe they have a child who can't be left alone because of disabilities or other reasons and they have an in person job.

They have no idea about working online and they couldn't leave them and it just seems impossible.

And so for them, I would say, you know, that's not an excuse.

That is a very real life situation.

I would really like to see, and this is why I talk about the school system and the downsides as well as home education.

I'd love to see more support and more funding for these families to access alternative education.

Unfortunately, it's almost like, well, we've given you school so you use it or lose it.

You know, this is, we've got an education option for you and the system doesn't recognize that for a lot of children it's almost a fake option.

It's like saying we've given the same meal to everyone and you don't want to eat it.

Well, if you're allergic, you know, definitely allergic to what's on the plate.

That's a fake, a fake offer, isn't it?

So, yeah, I think, I think it definitely depends.

For those people in that scenario that you paint there where they have an in person job, they desperately don't want to put their child into school, but they really don't know what else they could do.

What is your advice to them?

Oh my gosh.

I think that there is a lot of mind games that you have to play as a parent just to get through parenting.

I think that you can only do what you can do and being the solid, loving, kind, stable presence for your child is the best thing that you can do as a parent.

If you have a child who you're sending into school because you have to practically and the child is not enjoying it and is really struggling, I think that rather than smoothing it over or trying to look at the best bits or anything, I Think just validating their feelings and you know, saying, I know this is really hard for you and I'm sorry and I wish there was something I could do about it.

And I'm trying.

I think that goes a lot more, you know, a lot further and does a lot more than pretending it's okay when the child's so deeply not okay is more of this we're in it together kind of mentality that I think is a lot better for the child because they feel understood and empathize with rather than, you know, I gaslighted essentially, you know, the child's going in and the parents like, oh, it's not too bad.

And the child is thinking it is bad.

So I think that that would be my advice and practically, I think, I mean, it massively depends on the situation.

I would definitely start looking at flexible working in person options.

Obviously, you know, you've got cleaning, dog walking, child minding.

I know that there are different access barriers to these, but I would start looking at that.

Online work.

If you can get a regular steady online admin or transcription job, there are fairly entry level jobs that you can get online.

You know, we live in a world where there's never been more opportunity for online work.

But I also understand that, you know, social media isn't, definitely isn't for everyone.

And so I guess I'm more cautious now about recommending any particular job for people because there are lots of different situations.

I feel like as, as you were talking, I was thinking maybe they've got family or friends who could help out.

And it got me thinking about another excuse that I hear, which is.

Or another reason why people don't home educate, which is that either their spouse is dead against it or their family is dead against it.

What about that?

How does that sit with you?

I've got a lot to say about that.

It doesn't sit well with me at all.

As you can probably imagine.

I'm fortunate that the girl's dad and I agreed on home education from day one.

But I will also say that I have been the home educator and I still am the home educator.

I'm the one that puts all this into motion and facilitates the whole thing.

So, you know, there's a payoff there.

But I am grateful that I haven't had to fight him on it.

If your partner is.

This is probably more of a relationship thing than a home education issue, but if your partner is putting their foot down and saying, no, you cannot home educate, I would just advise that person, that partner to have a Think about what would happen if they did the same thing.

Is it fair in this relationship?

Are you able to say, well, I'm putting my foot down and I'm home educating, and if you can't do that, and if you're worried about the reaction of the partner, then I would be very.

I'd be having a good think about that.

Because generally the parent, and this is not a gender thing at all, generally the parent that wants to home educate has actively researched home education and have really good reasons, you know, data to back up what they're saying.

And they also generally are the parent that is more involved, the primary parent, and they know the child best.

That's an unpopular thing to say, but I just believe that there is a primary parent and there is going to be one that knows the child best.

So if the partner who wants to send them to school has not done equal research and put equal effort into researching their preference, why not?

And why is it okay to say I'm putting my foot down?

No.

When they haven't put equal effort in?

So what I would always advise, you know, at the beginning, you both go away, you both research your preferences and it can't be.

Well, because everyone else does.

Has to be a valid reason and you have a discussion about it.

And it is incredibly difficult.

I would say it becomes more difficult in wider families.

Maybe the in laws get involved and there's those voices.

And I know it's very easy to give this advice and it's a lot harder to implement it, but I would absolutely put boundaries in with wider family.

So your, you know, your partner, the, the father or mother of your children.

Absolutely.

They, they need to be involved in this decision.

Other people don't.

And it is a difficult one.

It's very hard to put into place.

Yeah.

But I would say that putting boundaries into place is a really good practice for home educators because you're going to get a lot of questioning, a lot of scrutiny and a lot of criticism.

And if you can learn how to handle that quite confidently as soon as possible, it's going to set you up in good stead for the rest of your.

Of your home education journey.

Yeah, I know.

I did a podcast a few weeks ago with a listener who was thinking about home educating and had a lot of questions.

And one of the things I advised her right from the outset was to get everyone else out of your home education journey.

Because if you can do that right from the start, you're onto a winner because people have opinions and, you know, what is that phrase, they're like assholes, you know, absolutely, you can have them, but you don't need to sit there and cuddle up to them.

So I don't think that's a phrase.

I think I've never heard that bit, but I agree with that.

So what about the idea that somebody may say they're not clever enough to home educate?

They'd love to do it, but they're not clever enough.

This is my other one that I always love talking about.

And it actually breaks my heart when people say this.

I just find it so stunning that people can go through the school system for 12 years and come out the end saying they're not clever enough to raise their own children without the same system that left them feeling like they were stupid and they want to put their kids in.

And it's almost this sort of Stockholm syndrome of it will be better for my child.

And, you know, I failed school rather than them thinking at any point that it's actually the system that failed them.

And some of the most incredible people, I was thinking, and I think about this a lot, about half of the people I know who are very successful in their careers and are also quite happy, about half of them did really well at school and they went into traditional professions, architects, doctors, lawyers, all the rest of it.

And then at the other half didn't do well at school.

And they are very entrepreneurial.

This is just my experience and, you know, completely anecdotal, but I just find it interesting that there are those two pathways and they each came out well in completely different ways.

And the, the entrepreneurial lot would definitely have said they didn't do well in school or they struggled in school in some way.

Maybe they got okay grades, but maybe they were dyslexic or they were, you know, neurodivergent and found it very difficult.

So I would say that if someone is saying I'm not smart enough to raise my children, it often also comes from a place of thinking that they have to be the teacher and they're going to have to deliver, you know, 10 subjects to their child and take them all the way through GCSEs.

And I would just say that if that was the case, I wouldn't be home educating.

And I don't think most home educators would be.

It's very much about finding the resources that help your child develop.

You don't have to teach like a teacher does at all.

And increasingly now, you know, a few years ago, I think it was more tricky because you'd have to Access tutoring or things that are quite expensive.

Now there are things like the 2 pound tuition hub.

There are free websites, there's Khan Academy, Oak Academy, lots and lots of free resources where you can do traditional subjects if you want to for very low cost or for free.

And so you can access those resources as a facilitator and as someone who's more like a project manager rather than acting like a school teacher, which, you know, if it doesn't work in school, it's probably not going to work at home.

These people who may, may be listening, who may think, well, it's all very well using the analogy of being a project manager, but a project manager implies that you've got adults who are there and who are going to listen to you and take, take on board what you say.

And I know that one of the excuses I hear a lot is that, well, my child just won't listen to me.

They won't do, they won't do anything I want.

Like they don't do their homework now so they won't turn their iPad off.

So why would I think they're going to actually let me, let me kind of home educate them.

So there are, there are so many facets to this question.

I love this question.

I was so, when I worked in behavior management, it was with teenage young offenders and they were tricky as heck.

You know, they were trying to light chairs on fire when I was trying to teach them GCC English and they were, you know, we had to count the knives in and out at lunch and all this kind of stuff.

And what I will say is the minute that they got out of mainstream education and got into the unit where I worked, they relaxed and you know, they were still doing those things, but it was less than they, they used to be.

They felt loved where I worked and they felt cared for and they felt safe.

And I think that when children, you know, you mentioned about children not doing their homework and things.

I think it is very hard to get a buy in from children to do things like that when they don't believe in what they're doing or when they are told to do it.

And they feel like they have no autonomy.

And often people who deregister, you know, you probably have heard this a million times, they say, oh, I've got my child back.

And I think that children who are happy and, and feel safe and are relaxing are so much easier to live with and to have relationship with than children who are stressed because, you know, and we could go into the science behind it, but they are just going to be easier and it doesn't mean they're going to do everything that you want them to do.

Of course it doesn't.

But it is going to be easier to generally build a trusting relationship and have more open communication if they're out of that survival mode.

So there's that.

I would also say that people might have a preconception that they have to do the National Curriculum and that's what they're worried about.

They're worried about getting all these workbooks and things.

And while, you know you might want to do GCSEs and things, and that's absolutely fine, you don't have to.

And if you do, you don't have to do it on anyone else's time scale.

So you've got a lot of time.

My nearly 15 year old, we didn't do the National Curriculum.

We haven't sat and followed it.

She sort of, by accident, almost learned a lot of it just through what we've done as home educators, which hasn't been specifically tied to the curriculum.

And she's, you know, applying for a 14 to 16 college next year.

And from what I can tell, she's got a good chance, as anyone, at getting in.

I don't think that learning the National Curriculum all the way through primary years and all the way through secondary is the only base for doing GCSEs.

I think that if you have a rich, fulfilled life and you are doing different things and having different learning opportunities, you can pick up the academic side.

You know, when you're older than you would in school and there are bumps in the road.

It's definitely been a shift in pace for us.

You know, we sit.

We're sitting with some work breaks now.

But what I will say is that when she was younger, it was so hard to sit down and do work.

It was almost impossible.

And now she's the one getting them out and sitting with me at the kitchen table and wanting to do it and reminding me.

And so all of that has just been her being ready in her own time and is a lot about trust.

And that's a tricky thing to do in home education.

I remember them learning to read quite naturally.

And I was talking to other home educators who've had older children and more children saying, do they really learn to read?

You know, if I don't sit with them and I do all the things they should do, and they were like, yes, they, you know, they do.

And they did, they all did, and they love reading, but it is a.

It Feels like a big gamble.

And so I do understand why people have a tricky time sort of letting go of the school system, even at home, because it feels like such a risk.

I suppose what I'd say is the school system is also a big gamble.

And when we've got one in five children coming out without basic GCSEs, that's quite a hefty number of kids who, you know, school has one job, all it promises is, we'll get your kid out with some gcse.

Essentially.

Everything else is a bonus.

And if it's failing on that one job, then that is a gamble as well.

Failing on that one job.

And also so regularly failing on safeguarding the children in their care as well.

Absolutely.

What about this idea linking to that that you hear, which is probably one of the most common ones I hear, but also the one that makes me the saddest, which is the idea that they' end up hating each other or they couldn't stand to hang out with each other that much, or oh, I'd love to home educate but I wouldn't want to like be with my children that much.

Or, oh, we'd all get under each other's feet, all of that kind of stuff.

What about that one?

I think that would, I'd go back to my point about children are a lot easier if they're happy.

And I, you know, when I see the battles that people have to have with their children over school, I'm not surprised that they don't want to hang out with each other.

I think it brings a completely different dynamic to the, to the family relationships.

There are so many more demands of time constraints and it just puts a lot of pressure on families, on children and parents.

And so a lot of the communication becomes, have you done this?

We need to do this as opposed to just being in relationship with each other.

So I would say that is almost, I would almost guarantee it that you're going to enjoy your child more if they're, if they're relaxed and home educated.

I think that parents are absolutely entitled to feel frazzled.

I've seen, I've been in, in person conversations where I've seen a mum be.

You don't really need time away from your kids.

You.

You just need to find a way to feel relaxed.

And I thought that was really unfair.

And I think that, you know, I know that as a single parent, it's very tricky sometimes because I just want to say, leave me alone.

Honestly, that I just feel like, leave me alone.

Because they're always there.

But I would say that you learn from other home educating families and also just from, from practice that there are other ways of getting space.

I think for people with young, incredibly difficult.

And I've got a friend who's got a, an 8 year old and a 3 year old and I said to her, like, you are in the trenches at the moment.

It's absolutely fine to feel frazzled, totally normal and natural because there are so many physical demands that are immediate on you.

As kids get older, I found it a lot easier.

I can say to them, you know, I'm going to go and read a book for a bit, I need half an hour to do this call.

It does just get easier.

But yeah, I think the main thing also would be to think about what is it that you're worried about?

Is there a particular behaviour that you're worried about and is that behaviour likely to decrease if your child is less stressed when they come out of school?

It's just something to think about because I often think people imagine their child to be behaving the same, but with them 24, 7 and they almost never behave the same when they come out of school.

Yeah, it's such a different thing.

I know when we saw obviously everybody homeschooling during COVID I would go onto the local Facebook groups, not the home ed ones, and people would be saying about how hard it was and all of that.

And I thought that's because you're not actually doing it.

Like you're not doing home education.

You're doing something that is this like weird, prescriptive, controlled version of it.

It looked awful.

I think in a way Covid did a lot for home education because a lot of people realized that their child was happier at home during a pandemic than at school, which said a lot about their happiness levels.

But in a way also it put off so many people because they thought, well, this is homeschooling and it's hell.

And it was awful in a lot of ways.

We couldn't go out of our houses, we couldn't have our meetups and our socializing and that's such a huge part of home education.

And also parents were being given work from schools to do at home, but it wasn't necessarily well prepared because the teachers didn't have any time or resources.

So it was like the worst kind of schoolwork.

The parents are still trying to do their jobs in a pandemic where they can't go out with their friends.

It was like if you wanted to design the worst kind of home education.

I think we'd have.

We'd have done that.

I know that a lot of people came to home education during that time because they sat there when their child was having their zoom.

Their zoom schooling and thought, my God, this is.

This is easy.

I could do better than this at home.

And I know that quite a. Yeah, quite a few parents actually almost had an insight into the school system and thought, wow, okay, this is a bit more basic than I thought.

I. I have my favorite anecdote, which is that my daughter, who's been home educated all the way through, she wanted to try out school.

She's 17.

She wanted to try out school this autumn, and she went to our local school.

Very good school.

She went to a local school and she, she was, she came, I picked her up.

She lasted three and a half weeks, by the way.

So I picked her up from school and.

And she'd done computer science.

And I said, what did you do for computer science?

And she said, oh, we learned how to send an email and copy somebody into an email.

And I said to her, I said, well, thank God you haven't missed out on 15 years of schooling, Carenza, because, I mean, it's.

It's pretty basic.

Like a lot of the stuff they learn, we think that they're missing out on all of this learning opportunity.

But actually, I've done.

I did a podcast with a science teacher and I said, oh, you know, I always feel a bit bad that they're missing out on practical.

She said, you know, you're really overestimating how many practicals they actually do in school because there's no qualified teachers to do them.

Yeah, I agree completely.

I think that, you know, on one sense, I absolutely don't want to diminish any of the work that teachers do because I think that so many of them put their absolute heart and soul into the job and they really want children to get the most out of the teaching and have a wonderful experience.

So there is that side of things which makes it so tricky to talk about.

But on the other side, you have teachers increasingly on social media now and admitting the other side of it, which is they're googling the subjects before the lessons.

You know, these wonderful resources that people see when they go and walk around the school.

The music room and the sports facilities are barely used.

Yeah.

And the curriculum, you know, you're dividing it by 30 children.

It is.

You're not getting that one on one or even particularly quality teaching a lot of the time.

And, you know, there are so Many children who don't understand the subject, but, oh, sorry, Bell's rung, time to move on.

And because teachers are under resourced, they can't, they can't catch them up and they can't do that one on one attention that kids ultimately need.

So, yeah, it's very hard to have this conversation because on one hand, you know, teachers do a very difficult job in very difficult circumstances.

And on the other hand, we need to be radically honest about what they're actually being asked to do, which is not what the kids need.

And I think that's a really hard truth to swallow, that ultimately there are all these people that are being told to do something that is ultimately not as beneficial as, as is marketed.

Yeah.

If not actively harmful.

I did a podcast with Naomi Fisher about how building anxiety in children is built into the school system.

Because that's how you, that's how you control the children with the, you know, the marks on the board, the, the kind of reward and punishment stuff.

Talking of the school system, which is a bit weird in a home education podcast, but actually I don't do a lot of it and I would really like at some point you and I to do a podcast about how the school system is broken, because I've got quite a lot to say about that and I suspect you have to.

However, one thing I hear a lot is, and this is the most common from fathers I hear, okay, is the reason they don't want to home educate or the excuse they use for not doing it is that actually the bullying or the challenges of the school system are actually a good thing for children to experience.

It builds up their resilience, it prepares them for everyday life.

You know, how will they get a 9 to 5 job if they don't get up and go to school and get belittled and shouted at and bullied.

Yeah.

So 0% of those people have ever read an article on resilience.

Because if you, if you type into Google, how do you build resilience?

One of the first articles you're going to get is from Harvard University where they find that the number one thing that children need to build resilience is a loving, present, consistent parent attachment figure.

So I would say that I find it very hard to take those arguments seriously.

I think that sometimes, sometimes it is, unfortunately, with the best of intentions.

You know, people think life is hard and of course it's hard.

There are lots of hard aspects to life and they, they think, you know, their kid needs to go through an, essentially a horrible experience to Prepare them for a horrible life that is really, is incredibly sad.

I also think that some of it is completely lazy parenting.

It's very easy to just accept a situation that is rubbish and requires you to do nothing if you think you can get away with saying it's part of good parenting or part of what children need.

And I think this whole thing about what children need has been used to justify a heck of a lot is absolutely not what they need at all.

You know, I don't think who needs to put on a uniform for 12 years to learn how to wear a uniform or get up at, you know, at 6:30 or whatever with an alarm clock to learn how to get up with an alarm clock?

You can learn that in two seconds.

And what children are really learning is conformity and obedience.

And increasingly we live in such a crazy world in terms of income and jobs now, where we have never had more opportunity to build your own income streams from various ways.

We've got AI coming for all it's good and bad.

That's going to be the next.

There was the Industrial Revolution, there's the office movement to back in offices and the next one's AI.

And that's going to change the work environment hugely in the landscape.

So I think this idea that children need to be essentially prepared for office life is honestly insane.

It's like saying we need to prepare them to fight dinosaurs.

We don't even know what jobs they'll be doing.

Those jobs haven't been invented yet.

And it's extremely unlikely that all of these children are going to end up in nine to five uniform jobs.

So it just doesn't make sense.

It's like we might as well say we need to wake them up at 8pm, have them stay up all night and go to bed at 4am in case they become a shift worker.

You know, where does it end with this preparation for adult life?

Why can't childhood just be a valid time period in and of itself, which it should be.

It's interesting, isn't it, this idea that we need to slightly brutalize our children to prepare them for a world that in reality, if we experience the kind of conditions they experience in school, having to put your hand up to go to the toilet.

My daughter was told she couldn't go to the toilet more than three times in a day.

And when she said, what about if you're on your period?

The woman said, well, I'm a woman and I know that three times is adequate.

And I just thought, God, I really hate all of that.

However, this, this idea about, you know, sort of preparing your child to be resilient by traumatizing them, which as a therapist I can safely say, yeah, that doesn't work.

It gets me loads of clients, but it doesn't work, unfortunately.

But I actually did a spin off podcast series as part of this one with a dog behaviorist because I found it so interesting that our approach to dogs and the way we interact with dogs has advanced so much in the last 10 years alone, where it's now not about punishment, it's much more about building good behavior skills and rewarding good behavior and trying to encourage choice.

And I thought as I was talking to her, I was thinking, isn't it bit interesting that we don't seem to have made this shift with, with children, particularly in the school system.

It's mad.

Yet we do it with our dogs.

Absolutely, absolutely.

We went traveling back in 2018.

People who follow me for years will remember we went around Asia backpacking.

It was absolutely mental.

And, and we stayed with a family who had a, I think it was a Rottweiler.

So traditionally a dog that would be seen to be, you know, maybe a little bit of a risk.

He was an absolute teddy bear.

It was lovely.

And they, and I remember asking something about pack behavior or I mentioned something where Alpha.

I was just interested in how they were interacting with the dog and they said, oh, we don't, we don't do that.

That's outdated.

Now this couple, they run a charity for street dogs in Sri Lanka.

They're amazing and they knew a lot about it.

And even back then the tide had turned with, with dog behavior, with animal behavior.

You know, we're not using punishments where we're not trying to control with fear.

And also really interestingly, when I, we've got a rescue dog and when I was researching her, what we'd need to bring her over, it was about the types of play that were really good for her species.

So she's a play based learning.

Exactly.

So why on earth are we putting all this effort into.

Well, actually, you know, we should be putting in stocks, but why aren't we putting it into our children?

I think that the, the kind of irony is that so many teachers, especially early years teachers, they know this and they know that children should just be playing free play, not adult directed play, but real, genuine free play, kind of unlimited time.

And, and they're not allowed to do it.

They're actually not allowed to do the job they want to do.

It is completely bizarre.

And I just, I find it really difficult when adults are maintaining this, this system.

There are lots of teachers who don't agree with it and they are leaving the profession.

And it means that we've got the, the best teachers are leaving because they know what children should be doing and what's best for them.

You've then got these people like that lady who said to your daughter, well, I'm a woman and three times a day, why are you lying on behalf of the system?

Why are you propping it up for them?

And that's the.

One of my concerns is that there are people who will maintain this system who are willing to sacrifice kids wellbeing essentially for their own job.

And I find that really disturbing.

Yeah, I mean, I'm a trained teacher and my ex husband is still a teacher.

And so I know a lot of teachers and I would say like 99% of them fall into that category where they're either just shackled by a crappy school system or they, or they genuinely want to make changes or whatever.

But there is 1%, isn't there, of teachers who just don't seem to like children.

And it makes me constantly question why they're actually in the job they're in.

Okay, so anyway, I really could rant about school, but I won't.

We'll do another podcast.

Exactly.

To finish up, what would be your top piece of advice as a long term home educator?

What would be your top piece of advice for somebody who is home educating?

Maybe they've just started, maybe they're well on their way.

What would be your, your single nugget for them?

It would be to give yourself a lot of grace.

You can only do your best.

At the same time, keep an open mind because there are probably answers to the issues, the problems, the questions that you've got, and those solutions have already been found by someone in the home ed community.

So it's very likely that you will be able to find an answer.

Yeah, that's good advice.

Okay, so for any of our listeners who aren't already following you on Instagram or TikTok, could you let know where they can find you?

Sure.

Thank you.

So my handles on Instagram and TikTok are thriving with Hannah.

I do have a YouTube, which is Hannah Home Educates, because I never switched it over.

And yeah, you can find me on there sharing all kinds of, of little nuggets about parenting and home education.

Fabulous.

Well, Hannah, thank you so much for coming on the podcast and talking us through some of those reasons why people don't home educate and let us.

Let us kind of pencil in this podcast where we dismantle the school system, because I think that might be a lot of fun.

I think so.

It'll be very juicy.

Hannah, lovely to have you on the show today.

Thank you so much.

Thank you so much for joining us for today's Home Education Matters podcast.

See you at the next one.

Have a lovely day.