Mother and Son Podcast By Rachel O’Brien Home educating was something I originally thought I could never do. With so much stigma attached to it, it seemed like a task meant for the wonder women (and men) of the world, something well out of my scope of ability as a mother. Add to that a neurodiverse teenager and it seemed like an impossibility that
Home Education and Mum’s Chronic Illness Kylie Anderson Let me introduce myself. I am a home educating mother of five. We have been home educating for 13 years and my children are now 17, 15, 9, 7 and 4. I first had symptoms of myalgic encephalomyelitis/ chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS) in my late teens while doing VCE. I’d have periods of fatigue so severe
A week in the life of our home educating family… By Bridget Muhrer We’ve just completed our very first year of home educating, and my six-year-old son K is excited to be starting Grade 1 (many home educating families don’t talk about school grades with their kids, but it feels right for us). When we first planned to start, K had no siblings, and
By Martina McNeill We are newly registered home educators. Again! Our youngest son has had a stint at school for almost six years, but 2022 finds us home educating. Again. If you’ve ever spoken to a home educator who has been at it for more than five minutes, you might have heard them say, ‘It’s a lifestyle, not just an education’. Well, that describes
A week in the life of our home educating family Kirsty James Three of my children are now at university, so home ed looks very different for my remaining teen, Rosa (15). There’s no more traipsing around after her siblings, the whole week is planned around her activities. Our style is eclectic, and ranges from academic classes to days of nothing much. We discuss
The End of Home-Ed: Where Are the Parents Now? By Rosemarie Tipping Home educators sometimes wonder what life will hold after the home-ed journey is over. Some feel lost, even down, particularly when the ending is unexpected. Others feel excited, having made plans for new adventures. We hope Rosemarie’s words offer some inspiration and also comfort to those who may be feeling blue about
Rebecca Gelsi My daughter and I have only just begun our home ed journey. She’s autistic and school has been challenging for years. She’s in Year 10 but I’m resisting that panicky (and unfounded) feeling that she’s somehow going to miss out. We’re unschooling and waiting for learning interests to emerge – in the meantime I’m encouraging her to enjoy and extend a couple
By Heidi Ryan It has often been argued that traditional or mainstream schooling is beneficial to autistic children due to the consistency and routine offered for those who do well with predictable routines. In fact, even specialist schools focus on the positives of conformity, meeting neuro- normative targets and ‘doing what everyone else is doing’. Success in school is viewed as meeting predictable milestones,
By Katy Pearce As home educators we can experience a lot of opposition. I found it wasn’t just family members but outspoken friends as well. As soon as we decided to home educate, that’s when we started receiving the comments. I think what hurt the most was the negative comments we received from our families and from people who I thought of as close
Figures tabled in parliament this week show a huge growth in home education. (Up by a massive 66% from last year) We’ve graphed the rise over time using figures from VRQA Annual Reports going back to 2008. These figures come as no surprise to HEN, as they reflect the rise in enquiries that we have seen this year. Our support team has been busy
By Annie Regan As an unschooling family, our learning method hasn’t really changed over the years. They learn from the environment around them, making connections to things they already know, following their interests and using things they discover to branch out into new topics and activities to pursue, and not distinguishing life from learning. They have always learnt from playing games, reading books, watching
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By Nabeela Wahid ‘I can do this, Mama! I just need to try harder.’ ‘I can’t believe I did this!’ ‘I love this challenge!’ These are not positive affirmations from a TikTok video, rehearsed and performed for an audience to amass followers and likes. These are the utterances of a child no older than ten. Behind these words lies a gargantuan shift of mindset,
By Sarah My seven-year-old began making beaded bracelets for kids with their parent’s phone number on them. We learn maths, art, writing, geography, marketing and much more through this along with budgeting and finance. He was really enjoying making beads so we put our heads together to come up with a way he could turn it into a business. We created a spreadsheet where
The Great Outdoors By Jacqui Rickard As part of our home ed lifestyle, I love to spend time at interesting outdoor places – the beach, the bush, going for a walk, finding a waterfall, exploring rock pools, playing in creeks – anything like that. It’s as good for the kids as it is for me. I don’t think about what our next meal is
