Familiarity breeds contempt

And what does the Kid, that most social being, dislike most about school?

The other children. Apparently they are boring. I cannot remember her ever having described a person as boring before. Unpleasant or annoying, maybe. But not boring.

I quizzed her on this. ALL sixty-odd children in the entire school are boring? Had she given them a chance, tried to discover what's interesting about each of them? What about all those playdates in the early weeks - she seemed to like those children well enough then, so how is it that they had metamorphosed into boring people?

They WERE interesting, she said. But now she has spent so much time with them, they have exhausted their usefulness, told her all their interesting facts. In short, they are used up.

I reminded her that of the many friends she has known for years, with whom she has spent great long days. She didn't get bored with them. How is it that she never used to get bored with her friends, and now she does?

She thought about this, and suddenly she had the answer. "I didn't used to see them every day," she said. "I saw them once or twice a week. In between times, they went off and did stuff without me, and next time I saw them they could tell me about it. And they didn't learn exactly the same things as me. Three of us might get together and talk about Henry the Eighth, and each of us knew something DIFFERENT about him. That makes a good conversation."

People fear that home educated children will feel left out when they socialise with schoolchildren, that they will lack common ground. But if my daughter's experience is anything to go by, it seems that too much common ground is a bad thing. Nothing remains to be said. I suppose prisoners who share a cell for ten years get bored and annoyed with each other too.

Perhaps this is why gossip is so rife in workplaces and schools. People are together so much that they have nothing interesting to say to one another any more.

I had a sudden and alarming thought. "What about me and your sister?" I asked. "You've spent a lot of time with us. Are we boring?" There was a long and telling pause.

"Well..." she said. "Well. Not always. You did thirty years of stuff before I was born, and you're still telling me all of that. Someday you might run out. But by then maybe I will have moved out. I can put up with you once in a while even if you get old and boring."

And her sister? We had been talking over the top of Small Fry's head, as she continued to chant as she had been doing for some minutes: "Looka me! I wearing a PINK hat! Looka my pink hat!" The Kid hugged her and told her it was a lovely hat. Small Fry beamed and looked adoringly at her. Then the Kid answered me. "Yeah, she's boring sometimes. But anyone so cute can get away with being boring."