
Stop calling home educated kids invisible: why these children aren’t missing
The term ‘invisible children’ wrongly paints home-ed kids as lost or at risk. In truth, they’re thriving outside school - seen, loved, and learning in their own way.
There’s a damaging phrase that has been popping up in media stories for years: “invisible children.” It’s often used to describe children who aren’t in school, as if being out of sight means out of mind. As if children educated somewhere other than in school, have vanished.
When government reports or headlines talk about ‘missing children’, they often blur the line between absence from school and absence from safety. The phrase is often used to imply danger or neglect. But most of these children aren’t lost, they’re at home, known, loved, and learning in ways that schools couldn’t offer them.
These children aren’t invisible. They’re just not on a school register. They’re in the woods, at libraries, in workshops and museums. They’re baking bread, building robots, drawing comics, caring for animals, exploring the world in their own time. They’re learning in ways that don’t show up on a spreadsheet.
Many of these children are thriving because they’re not in school. Because they were seen, understood, and supported by families who chose a different path. These aren’t lost children. They’re not at risk just because they’re not in a classroom. They are home, being educated by people who love them and know them best.
It’s time we stopped framing these children as missing, and started listening to their stories instead. Read some of the wonderful #100DaysOfHomeEd posts on Facebook and Instagram - even better, why not write your own.
If anything, the real ‘missing’ children are those separated from their families all day, stuck in crowded classrooms with little space to be truly known. Many in school spend each day unseen, misunderstood, and alone - lost in a system that doesn’t care about who they really are.