Apologies to all those who read my daughters’ first attempts at blogging! Here’s some more from How Children Learn at Home
Thomas and Pattison look at a study by Desforges and Abouchaar on how parenting influences academic achievement. They found that
Home background is crucial to educational achievement in school… “good parenting” is uniquely influential on children’s achievement even when all other factors, such as socio-economic status, are taken out of the equation.
“Good parenting” in this case meaning
- provision of a secure and stable environment
- intellectual stimulation
- parent-child discussion
- good models of constructive social and educational values
- high aspirations relating to personal fulfillment and good citizenship
By the nature of the task which they have undertaken, home-educating families are almost guaranteed to fulfil the greater part of Desforges and Abouchaar’s “good parenting” ideals. In fact the interviews showed parents providing these factors in abundance. In this sense, what home educating parents do with their children is not so much a radical departure but simply an extension of what is considered to be good parenting anyway… Remarkably it seems that parenting, rather than teaching, is sufficient to enable children to learn. (pp70-71)
Which is nice! 
That’s interesting. I have often wondered what was so different about being a parent to being a parent who home educated – other than the time we spend with our own children.
I came to the belief some time ago that poor outcomes in the very few home educated children who have poor outcomes, were not related to how well the children were taught in the teacher to pupil relationship, but rather how the child was parented.
I wondered about it because when I worked in schools, college and even Uni, the children and young adults who did the least well all had some kind of chaotic family life.
Being a good (or at least good enough) parent makes all the difference to how children learn, and whether they feel safe enough to learn.
I’m reading Holt’s How Children Fail at the mo. Not as impressed as I thought I would be,but I have How Children Learn to read next which is apparently better.