Reasons to Consider Home Education #8

I became a mother before my working life had barely started, therefore I haven't
experienced that spectrum of my life. Just because you have no ambition to
pursue anything else, does not mean its wrong for mothers who do wish to pursue
something. Im a very good mother, always there for my child and will still be
there for her when she goes to school. I feel for me, its very important to
maintain an identity which is seperate from my children, but which doesn't harm
them and if possible, which can help them to become better people. Me going to
university sets an example to my children, and especially to my daughter that
woman can do and be what they want and should not be bound by the confines of
motherhood and homemaker.

I support your actions and goals 100%, both in carving your own path and setting an example. If your children were suicidally unhappy at school, you'd be able to find a way to achieve your own goals AND to HE your children. I'm not hoping for that, obviously, and indeed school may well be the best solution for ll of you. But there is choice, there is always choice, given optimism and imagination.

Its no good the parents teaching the child that bullying is wrong, that's as
good as saying 'Dont touch the stove, it will burn you.' The only way a child
will find out these things is if he experiences them for himself.

I don't believe that direct personal suffering is the only way to learn. Think about the implications of that possibility for a moment... there are children who kill themselves in this country every year as as result of school bullying. It still exists, and it can be life threatening. No one at any age should get used to bullying. In school you have to deal with it day in day out with the same bullies for years. You'd leave a workplace where that was the case. Zero tolerance is the way forward, like I said before. I think a HE child would encounter bullying, but they would never have to live with it - there would always be an escape. "I don't like the way you are acting towards me. Goodbye". Child learns a lesson in power and self respect. Bully learns a lesson too.

To answer your question about having ever met a HE'd adult. I have. He's
currently serving time in prison for possesion of herion. Guess he was never put
in a situation as child where he was put under pressure to do something and had
to learn to say no

urgh. What an awful story. Thing is, of course, that most of the drug-use jailbirds most people come across went to school... so it can't really be used as an argument against one or the other, can it?