With the social services knocking on the door in a week or so, it’s time to put some ideas in order. Don’t worry, readers, this is not as terrible as it might sound in the US. They are not picking on us, but following a procedure required by law. The law might be picking on us, but that’s another matter. So, their remit is to find out why we are homeschooling, and that we are actually doing so, i.e. we are not forcing our child to work in the fields all day, and cook and clean as well when she gets back!
They won’t have thought of wondering why we put our child in school in the first place, but it’s a point homeschoolers sometimes raise. Since we had a reason, I thought I’d start there. We had heard of homeschooling before our child was born, and I, at least, liked the idea. But we felt that some aspects of our situation prevented us going ahead with it. We, the parents, live in France and are English and American respectively. At least I am English in theory. In practice, I also lived in France during my childhood so I was bilingual early on. My husband, not so much. He speaks French pretty well now. When we were awaiting our child we obviously had a decision to make over what language we would speak to the child. My husband was very keen that we both speak English. He was afraid, and statistics back him up, that if I spoke French and the environment was French, our child’s English would be weak.
The inevitable consequence of English in the home was that our child needed to spend plenty of time with French speakers from an early age, in order to pick up that language as well. Now, since virtually all French children are in daycare or preschool from the earliest age, and since virtually all their parents are unavailable for socialising in the day time hours, we felt we pretty much had no option. Antonia went to part-time daycare between the ages of 1 and 2, then to a Montessori pre-school (so not quite to public school) full-time upto the age of 5. Part-time was not an option. Our only goals for these years were that she should learn French and have a nice time. Alas, she did neither.
We started with a Montessori preschool as well. And while we were not unhappy with that school, it simply wasn’t what I was hoping for. That’s when we decided to homeschool. We took her out when she was barely 5. Our son has never been to a school. Good for him, eh? 🙂
Hey, I replied to your comment in my blog, but thought I’d copy it here as well. Feel free to delete it, if you feel you don’t want it in your comments. 🙂
Penny, yes, I have had such an experience before. But fortunately I have very proud children with a lot of confidence. When asked why they don’t believe in God, and if they don’t want to go to heaven, my children simply reply, that for that there would have to be a heaven first. 🙂
My daughter especially is a declared atheist. She does not hesitate to say exactly what she thinks, all in a respectful way, of course. My experience is that once my children answer a couple of questions, they’re usually left alone. I might get a look or two… but I just smile my friendliest smile, which is usually enough to ward off anymore questions or such.
Hey, thanks for stopping by. 🙂
Hi, thanks for the reply to my comment. I think I will just keep on standing back then, and letting the chips fall where they may. My daughter is never rude as such, it’s just that she’s 6 and has no idea that anyone else may be shocked by her point of view.
Well, my daughter is 7. And in a way I’m glad that she is so confident and doesn’t mind that people are “shocked”. They’re adults. Let them deal with it. Someday we’ll want our daughters to be adults just like that… not afraid or worried of saying what they think (in a nice manner of course).