A grandparent's perspective on homeschooling

By way of background, we offer the following:-

To be honest, we were not over-enamoured at some stages with Emma’s choices as regards raising initially Elijah and then Eben.  Maybe that is the same with all grandparents, who in our case raised Emma and her brother in a more traditional manner as was expected in the mid 70’s.  Her leanings to a more ‘alternative’ view to life was also rather counter to our beliefs (in the widest sense) and prejudices, as two full time working parents, albeit Jill did not resume work until Ross was 4 and settling in to school. Like most of our peers at that time, we were struggling to make ends meet in a period of 14+% interest rates.

Looking back Elijah was ill prepared for school and on reflection (hindsight is a wonderful thing), as much to do with us as grandparents, as Emma.  We were recently retired when Elijah was born, and as with many parents Emma and Ewan had to work, so we were delighted to provide the childcare, along with his paternal grandmother.  We became very close to Elijah but, being in our mid-60’s at that stage, did not have Mum’s groups etc. to take Elijah to, so that he could become used to children of his own age.  Jill tried various activities with him, but it soon became apparent he was a shy, gentle, but also an increasingly anxious little boy. 

We were undoubtedly over-protective but that said and as Emma has already stated we were all very slow to realise that these traits in Elijah meant the normal route in to ‘big school’ was not going to work. The experience of picking him up from a respected playgroup - where we saw him in the window looking for us absolutely crying his little heart out - at age 3 (we believe from 9. 00 in the morning, without them calling any of us, was cruelty in the extreme and still breaks our hearts when we recall it).  We then resumed our previous routine until, at almost 4 he was tried at another playgroup, closer to home and much smaller.  The leaders were very understanding and Elijah endured it but never really settled.  Therefore starting school was always going to be a challenge, and we cannot fault any of the teachers he had who were brilliant in trying to settle him in to school.  So, in many respects as Emma said, ‘home-schooling’ picked itself for him.

So:-

When our daughter first told us that she was taking our eldest grandson out of mainstream education and home-schooling him, we met the news with disbelief and quite a long list of adjectives describing our incredulity!

Our background, and indeed our daughter’s, was Education.  Both of us had started our careers as Primary School teachers and enjoyed passing on and stimulating learning in our classes.  

We encouraged both our children to embrace school and Emma, in particular was a diligent student, driven to succeed.   Whilst she would freely admit that she was not really ready to leave home and Guernsey for University Education (and found the initial terms hard), she flourished, academically at least.  Returning to Guernsey, she then continued studies, albeit in the Finance Sector.

So, with this background, you might imagine how this revelation was shocking to us.  We were particularly anxious from the social aspect, being removed from his peer group.  However this was mis-founded as Elijah was not an overly ‘social’ child.  He did not like noise or large groups and worked far better in a one to one situation.  

However, during Covid we had supported Emma with the school home-centred study.  So, to an extent we had already supported the home studying path at least a little.

Initially, we were loathe, determined even, not to assist what we saw as a crazy decision.   We agonised, as we had been very involved with Elijah’s upbringing thus far and came to the realisation that we were essentially ‘cutting off our nose to spite our face’ by our stance and (somewhat reluctantly) agreed to look after Elijah for the day on a Wednesday and then Friday morning.

We fumbled around a bit with the best way to proceed.  In many ways this was made easier for us as Elijah needed to ‘de-school’ and thus we focused on practical experiences, such as mowing, collecting pine cones, woodwork, rock pooling and so on. 

One dilemma for us was that of becoming Elijah’s teachers, rather than his grandparents and we found it a difficult path to tread.  

We determined to do our best for him and split the ‘teaching’ so that his grandfather, Ron, took on the Mathematics and practical aspects of his learning, such as woodworking, whilst his grandmother, Jill, concentrated on project work incorporating English, Geography, History and Biology, supported by Ron when necessary.   She also cooked with him and did some craft work on occasion.

So we settled into a loose routine of sorts whereby we embraced the opportunity to give Elijah experiences as they arose.   For example we had the option to take a sea (and all things fishing) loving child on one of the local fishing trawlers to see the equipment and have a short ride to see the sonar working.

Many have said it must have been easy for us both trained primary school teachers.  Well no, Ron had not taught a class of children full time for over 30 years, and Jill for over 40 years .  In that time education has changed so dramatically and we are in awe of teachers today, the pressures on them are immense, far more that when we left teaching.

As previously identified we focused on more practical activities, and do you know what, we are converts.  Elijah learns for himself when he wants/needs to, admittedly a lot online, but is that not the future anyway?  He reads well and, like his grandfather, he’s really not interested in fiction but anything factual he positively inhales. He reads and understands the most complex instruction manuals, directing ‘Baba’ (Ron) on how to set up the drone  received at Christmas.  Are we worried about his future academically?  No we’re not because he is now a very much more confident and relaxed young boy, keen to learn what matters to him.  Will he be ready to take exams, who knows?  We don’t but we are  pretty confident he will find his way in the world and will be a far more self-confident young man than had he had to persevere in a school environment which despite the best efforts of good teachers he found all too overwhelming.

After many trials and tribulations with our daughter over this, we are in in tune with her and have vastly different views on education provision than before. 

Clearly it is not easy to home school for several reasons, and not available to the majority, nor indeed suitable for the majority.  Emma was very fortunate that we had just retired when Elijah was born so could provide a fair amount of unpaid child-minding.  She and her partner also had no mortgage and they both had jobs where they could be flexible with their hours.  Nonetheless there have been significant challenges, not least financially. Expensive holidays are a thing of the past, and they have a ropey old car. 

We are also only, really, at the start of the journey - what does the future hold?  We have no idea, but at this moment in time we do not worry because the children are thriving where they were not before and are far more at ease and confident.  For us that is a price worth paying.