Monday 6 May 2013

Home educating parents presenting as problem families


I’m afraid that we are fast approaching a time when I will have to abandon this blog for a month or two. This is caused by the pressures of work. Before doing so, I want to spend a couple of posts looking at a question that a number of people have asked here recently. This is why local authorities apparently target home educators wholesale and do not fine tune their attentions so that they are focused more upon the families who actually need help; perhaps those where children are at risk. This is an easy enough question to answer, although the explanation will not be a very agreeable one for many home educating parents. Today I shall look at bullying in this connection and in a day or two we will examine abusive families.

I  remarked a few days ago that some home educating parents, whether wittingly or otherwise, seem to mimic the lifestyles and conduct of habitual abusers. I pointed out that this was apt to draw unfavourable attention to them. Many of the characteristics of these families are also uncannily similar to those that one sees regularly in the families of bullies. This is very curious, because of course research indicates that a perhaps a third of home educating parents withdraw their children from school because they are being bullied. Bullying is a very complex phenomenon though and it is sometimes difficult to distinguish the bully from his victims. Yesterday, for instance, my attention was drawn to a boy who had supposedly killed himself because he was being bullied. It seemed an open and shut case, until we learn that he had himself been investigated by the police and social services over allegations that he assaulted a girl and also that he had been accused of violence  towards other pupils. Things are seldom as they first appear when you look at bullying.

When I worked with families with difficulties, those with whom I worked and I would sometimes discuss the common factors to be observed in the parents of children with emotional and behavioural problems. I was working with under fives, but we later heard about many of these children and learned how they did at school; usually, very badly. The parents often conformed to a pattern and it was, oddly enough, similar in many ways to the stereotypical abusing parent. They would not keep appointments with health or education professionals, their children often missed their vaccinations, they were ‘difficult to engage’, most did not want anybody coming into their home, they were aggressive and blamed everybody else but themselves for their children’s problems. Later on, they might typically move their child from one school to another; often on the grounds that the kid had been bullied. Now this pattern is well enough known to teachers, social workers and so on. It is, as you might say, a familiar syndrome. Unfortunately, it is also an eerily accurate description of many home educating parents!

One of the interesting things about these parents is that they would often claim that their  child was being picked on or bullied at school. Having watched their child as a toddler and three year-old, we often guessed that the boot was on the other foot! So it sometimes proved, because talking to the teachers at the school would occasionally reveal that far from being bullied, little Johnny was in reality an absolute terror to all the other children an d also his teachers.

It is unfortunate that a number of home educating parents should share a profile in this way with the parents of difficult children. I think that what sometimes happens is that rather than professionals being prejudiced against home education as such, they observe many home educating parents and see that they are indistinguishable from the problem parents that they have encountered in the past. I certainly see those similarities myself when reading what some home educators have to say.  So what is happening is that social services, teachers and health professionals are, as home educators say that they should,  targeting families in specific ways; rather than concentrating on entire groups such as home educators and wasting their resources on them. One of the ways that this is done is to look at the behaviour of parents and see if it matches particular profiles. When it does, then those families receive a little extra attention. It is a matter of regret that quite a few home educating parents present in an almost identical way to the parents of bullies and abused children! I shall expand on this theme in another post in a few days, because there are actually things that parents can do which would help them not fit into this pattern.  

14 comments:

  1. The sun is shining, and I have better things to do than comment on another post that reflects your own prejudices and experiences rather than the facts. I hope that when you come back from your hiatus you will have found a new hobby horse to ride.



    Anne

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  2. 'your own prejudices and experiences rather than the facts.'

    By which I take it that you are not familiar with the fact that dysfunctional families often share common characteristics and believe that this is something that I have dreamed up? You really don't know why skipping appointments for vaccinations can set alarm bells ringing and know nothing about the fact that aggressive children often have aggressive parents? I am sorry that you don't know about these things and am quite happy for you to imagine that it is all just some bee in my own personal bonnet!

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    1. So someone who disagrees with your conclusions must inevitably know nothing about the issue. Interesting train of thought...

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    2. 'So someone who disagrees with your conclusions must inevitably know nothing about the issue. Interesting train of thought...'

      That's not really how I read Anne's comment. I understood her to be saying that I was relating my own prejudices and views, rather than describing facts. My conclusions are another thing entirely and may indeed not be shared by everybody!

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    3. The fact to which I was referring is that there is no evidence that home educated children are any more at risk than any other group of children.

      According to the NSPCC in June 2012, there are no collated statistics for actual child abuse in the UK.

      http://www.nspcc.org.uk/Inform/research/statistics/prevalence_and_incidence_of_child_abuse_and_neglect_wda48740.html

      Enjoy your hiatus.
      Anne

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    4. 'The fact to which I was referring is that there is no evidence that home educated children are any more at risk than any other group of children. '

      That is very possibly so; but quite irrelevant. I am making the point here that confusions can arise between the behaviour of various parents.

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  3. Simon said,
    "I remarked a few days ago that some home educating parents, whether wittingly or otherwise, seem to mimic the lifestyles and conduct of habitual abusers."

    The trouble is, many innocent families fit the supposed profile of an abusive family, in fact, many more innocent families fit these 'profiles' than guilty families. The few home educators who fit the profile are effectively a drop in the ocean and as a result not really worth separate consideration. The following paragraph about predictive screening tools is taken from the paper, 'Predicting child abuse and neglect: ethical, theoretical and methodological challenges', published in the Journal of Clinical Nursing' 2008, and I've read other papers that reach similar conclusions.

    "Screening checklists are in danger of producing a large pool of ‘false positives’ i.e. children who are believed to be at risk, but who in fact are never abused or neglected, and ‘false negatives’, where children are not seen as at any risk yet are later maltreated (Cadzow et al. 1999). Using such a checklist, Browne and Saqi (1988) identified 949 families (from a total of 14,238) who were ‘high risk’. Of these, only one in 17 went on to abuse their children. Thus, 16 out of 17 families were falsely labelled as potential abusers. As with all screening tests, there is a trade-off in minimising false positives at the expense of increasing false negatives and vice versa and researchers need to decide what are the acceptable levels of ‘false positives’ they can allow (Dingwall 1989). Screening tools for child abuse and neglect have been shown to have false positive rates of between 13–26% and false negative rates ranging from 14·3–63% (Lyons et al. 1996). In fact, it is statistically unfeasible to predict accurately child abuse (Kaufman & Zigler 1992). The systematic review on screening instruments to predict child maltreatment by Peters and Barlow (2003) concluded that the possibility of predicting which parents will maltreat their children is fallacy. Unfortunately proponents of predictive risk assessment strategies acknowledge the limitations yet continue to promote them."

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  4. 'The trouble is, many innocent families fit the supposed profile of an abusive family, in fact, many more innocent families fit these 'profiles' than guilty families. The few home educators who fit the profile are effectively a drop in the ocean and as a result not really worth separate consideration.'

    All of which is true, as far as it goes. If every time time a family were encountered who fitted the profile, social services kicked the down the door and took their children off to an orphanage; then this would be a serious problem. This is not what happens. Nobody is going to have a file opened on them because they do not have their children vaccinated. If though, in addition to that, it is found that the child has been taken to two different hospitals with injuries and that the parents are giving a false address; then this might make people ask more questions about what is going on.

    Of course many of those fitting these criteria will be quite innocent, but I do not see that as a good reason not to make enquiries. What I am driving at is simple. There are certain traits and behaviours which are commonly observed in dysfunctional families. Some of these characteristics may also be seen in families who are perfectly happy and healthy. The more of these various signs that are present, the more likely that something is wrong. This is not a science and often detection of abuse relies as much on hunches and guesswork as anything else. Unfortunately, many of the things that we associate with home educating parents are the kind of things that trigger interest from professionals; avoiding vaccinations, refusing to allow people into the home, unwillingness to engage and so on.

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    1. Home educators represent a tiny proportion of those who fit the profile and you've provided no evidence to suggest that they form anything other than a small proportion of home educators. So what point are you attempting to make?

      The behaviours you are describing (giving a false address at A&E, for instance) will trigger further investigation for home educators in much the same way as it does for similar school using families. Why should local authorities target home educators wholesale as a high risk group (if that's what they do)? We don't have a children's database so I'm not sure how the local authority would find out that the family who prefers reports to home visits also avoid vaccinations, for instance. Or are you suggesting that simply preferring to send in a report is sufficient to trigger an enquiry that will turn up this type of additional information?

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  5. ' We don't have a children's database so I'm not sure how the local authority would find out that the family who prefers reports to home visits also avoid vaccinations, for instance. Or are you suggesting that simply preferring to send in a report is sufficient to trigger an enquiry that will turn up this type of additional information?'

    I was musing really about the types of behaviour which raise eyebrows, rather than specifically thinking about home educators. I have certainly known declining vaccinations to arouse interest; for obvious reasons.

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  6. 'You seem to be justifying or explaining the targeting of all home educators for special attention by local authorities on the basis that some of them look like other families they target. Or have I misinterpreted your article.'

    I am saying that a relatively minor thing such as skipping vaccinations can attract attention. If a parent asked about this becomes vociferous, and this is interpreted as aggression; this is another feature that is noted. Subsequent failure to take up a school place can be seen as part of the same pattern, particularly when somebody knocking on the door to ask about this is refused entry to the home. All these things can have perfectly simple and innocent explanations, but the more signs that are seen; the more likely it is that other professionals will get drawn in. I am describing how things actually are; not setting out my own ideas on how they should be. These are some of the ways that home educators can find themselves being viewed with suspicion.

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    1. This may justify additional attention to individual families but I still fail to see the link to your original question about the targeting of home educators wholesale.

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  7. Worn out old Webb says " This is why local authorities apparently target home educators wholesale and do not fine tune their attentions so that they are focused more upon the families who actually need help;

    or is because the home educating parents/child wont do as they box ticking LA demands.

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    1. I really don't understand why people like Webb think monitoring home educators is a good idea. SS are supposedly trained in child protection & fail are known to fail children regularly. The same children who were monitored more than once a year. We are back to the statistics where these children are more likely to be still at school. They are failed by those who are supposedly trained to help them.

      I hardly went to school as a child. That didn't mean it was because I was being abused at home it was because I was hit by a teacher so I took a disliking to all teachers because they were all capable of hitting me & getting away with it just like that teacher. The hitting of kids by teachers still happen & teachers still get away with it. These same teachers who are trained in child protection. For the record I also know of a childminder who's going through court at the moment for hitting kids in her care. Going on the last blog that is a carer outside of the family so not abuse by a carer is someone in the family

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