I want to say, "none of your business" but...

Answering those pesky questions about why we're homeschooling our kids

by Beverley Paine

We home educated between 1985 and 2004 when very few people were doing it, or had heard of it, or thought it was possible. Some assumed we meant 'school-of-the-air' or 'correspondence school'. (Yes, in the really early days 'distance education' as a term hadn't become commonplace and online learning didn't exist!)

We were weird. And I said so. "It's okay, we're weird. Homeschooling isn't for everyone: school's okay but it's doesn't suit our family."

People seemed to need to know we weren't criticising their choice to send their kids to school. They'd get defensive, so I'd head that off as quickly as I could. Standing around arguing with strangers was tedious. Plus the kids hated it.

After a few years in I learned that if I said straight up, "Oh, we've got special permission to homeschool our kids, we're registered with the Education Department," that would satisfy them. We had a licence to home educate so we were okay! We live in a very authoritarian society.

Robin would often tell people the kids were having a 'flexi-day'. Flexi-days were introduced to the workplace here in Australia in the 1980s, and lots of workers had one day off a fortnight. His comment usually gave rise to a wry and understanding smile.

I remember thinking that men seem to get away with saying whatever and that people would accept any answer from him without pressing or questioning him further. Whereas I was usually quizzed, and had to justify our decision, and convince people that we weren't actually neglecting our children or damaging their future opportunities in life. I used to get quite irate at that: it wasn't fair!

Now I remind home educators that it's okay to change the subject. We don't have to talk about our personal family life to anyone. The choice to communicate or justify our position is ours. If we really feel the need to say something, just say, "it was a family decision" and then change the subject and talk about something else.

I'm slowly learning that it's okay not to talk at all, simple nod, mumble 'hmmm', raise the eyebrows, look away then back and change the subject. And that it's okay for me to respond at a time that suits me. I can say, "If you're really interested, let's chat about this next time we catch up."

When we're stressed or tired or unwell, that's NOT the time to be getting into protracted conversations about our decision to homeschool. And all too often, that when the grandparents, uncles and aunts and well-meaning friends want to find out more.

This isn't what I'd say to curious strangers in the shop or street who have suddenly noticed our kids are with us. I'm more likely to say, "There's lots of information online now, if you're really interested in home education." Let them Google it!

More often than not, extended family member and close friends simply need reassurance. There's two parts to this: us affirming that their choices are fine by us, we're not asking them to suddenly start homeschooling their kids too, and that we're not criticising them for not homeschooling us.

And the second part of that reassurance involves offering some constructive and practical ideas to help them learn first-hand about the nature of home education, and why it's okay and why it work. We might send them a copy of a family newsletter we create each month or year as part of our homeschool recording regime. Or we could invite them to spend some time one-on-one with the kids, doing interesting things with them, playing board or card games, sharing or teaching them their skills. Less intrusive ideas might be inviting them to come along on home ed excursions, special trips, holidays and camps.

Bottom line, you don't have to justify your decision to home educate to anyone except your children and yourselves as parents. If you don't want to answer any questions or objects, politely says, "Thank you for your interest/concern, as a family we're happy with our educational choice." And move on.

Since writing this article I have produced an inexpensive booklet covering many 'objections' to home education homeschoolers have to counter every week. It is available from Always Learning Books.