James and Rebecca's home education hacks
James and Rebecca have been home educating their children for around a year now. Both admit that the process can be stressful, whether being unable to explain a concept or idea in the way that they'd like, or dealing with comments from other parents.
Far from finding this discouraging, James and Rebecca have found ways to use those experiences to give their children positive examples of stress management and mental health.
Video: Managing stress
Watch this video as James and Rebecca explain their hacks for managing stress while home educating.
James: It's… I sometimes feel that getting that question asked, or "How are they doing the GCSEs?" or "Are they doing the curriculum?" really does kind of give us a bit of a knock sometimes. It does make me think, "Oh, am I doing the right thing?" But in the grand scheme of things, I think sometimes you've just got to take a step back and just remember why you're doing home education. And I think then that kind of normally sets me straight again.
Rebecca: I think for us, the most common stressor at the beginning was the worry of not following the curriculum. Every so often you say, "We're not following the curriculum, and we need to do this and that," and then we kind of move towards the curriculum and then move back into child-led learning.
James: Yeah, I really thought I was going to take on a teaching role at home. Um, it's a lot of responsibility. And I quickly found out that the kids obviously don't see me as a teacher, so it's very difficult to balance my kind of inner want and need to follow a school curriculum in a school-led manner into home education, which is just so different.
Rebecca: At those points throughout the day when it is getting a bit tense, it's usually about one of us probably planning it, and then one of us kind of taking the lead. Even if we're both there, we just kind of tap out a bit sometimes, don't we? So sometimes I can see James is getting… it's just getting too much… and getting frustrated that it's not going the way he wanted it to go. So maybe we'll switch a bit, or vice versa.
James: No doubt. It's going to be stressful. There are going to be times where you want to pull your hair out. If you're able to demonstrate to your child that you can acknowledge when you're feeling that way and take yourself out of that situation, you're teaching your child such a good lesson in stress management and mental health. Like, it's not wrong. It does not feel wrong to feel stressed or annoyed or feel like it's hopeless at times. Acknowledging it and moving on will help you and them.
Rebecca: When it does get really stressful, putting on a specific song and then everybody just dancing like crazy - yeah, that definitely de-stresses everyone. Ridiculously. If everyone's losing their temper and everyone is speaking really unkindly to each other, we have to remind everybody. We just kind of… we do the ridiculous shouting at each other, and they'll be like, "This is what you sound like."
When I pretended to do what they would do to each other the other day, they were both creased. It was so funny. Like, "No, that isn’t how you speak to each other. We shouldn’t speak to each other like that."
It's often framed as, "What if they fall behind?" as well. And I think it's taken time to think - behind what? Like, what are they going to fall behind? They're going to be the best version of themselves, and they’re never going to be behind that.
Where can I read more about stress and home education?
For more top tips on managing stress and home education, take a look at our guides on looking after your mental wellbeing, coping with emotional challenges and parent Nicola's story about mental health and behaviour.
For general advice about wellbeing and parenting, check out these articles from BBC Bitesize Parents' Toolkit: How to tackle anxiety - breathing exercises, five ways to manage your wellbeing as a parent and six self-care tips for parents.
Where can I find more support for home education and parenting?
The BBC Bitesize home education collection is designed to support you and your child’s learning at home with free resources for early years and foundation stage (EYFS), primary and secondary-age students.
Bitesize Parenting is the go-to place for the whole parenting community to find stories, expert advice and fun activities.
If your child has special educational needs and / or disabilities, be sure to check out the Parenting SEND collection. Bitesize also has a collection of Sensory Stories, an immersive video series that transports you on unique sensory adventures, for children with additional or complex needs.
For more information about home education, these BBC News articles cover the rise in families deciding to educate their children at home and, from 2021, the impact of Covid on home education.
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