Ulrika Jonsson has defended Joe Wicks for deciding to pull his daughter Indie out of school for ‘at least a year’.
Fitness coach Joe, 37, announced last month that his daughter Indie, five, would not be returning to school in September after completing a year in reception.
This week, he told how he has decided to homeschool her because he wants to spend more time with his three kids, who he shares with former glamour model wife Rosie.
Now, Ulrika, 56, has defended his decision and told how it was ‘heartwarming’ to hear him talking about providing ‘stability’ and love for his children.
In her column in The Sun, she confessed that she initially ‘baulked’ at the idea because she worries about children socialising when they are homeschooled.
Honest: Ulrika Jonsson has defended Joe Wicks for deciding to pull his daughter Indie out of school for ‘at least a year’
Big decision: Fitness coach Joe, 37, announced last month that his daughter Indie, five, would not be returning to school in September after completing a year in reception
However, she went on to support the fitness guru as she pointed out how in many European countries, children don’t start school until they are seven.
‘He’s only keeping his daughter at home for a year because he just wants a bit more time with her,’ she explained.
‘It’s heartwarming to hear him talk about providing stability and love for his kids and he needs them to know he will always be there for them.’
It comes after Joe – who is also a father to Marley, three, and Leni, 11 months – defended his decision to pull his daughter Indie out of school.
‘I just love being with my kids,’ he told The Times. ‘It’s not a permanent thing, but we want to have another year together.’
‘It’s not like I’m saying, I’m going to home school my kids and go and live on a farm in the middle of nowhere. It’s really just about our lifestyle 1693644367,’ he added, noting the older age kids in some European countries start school.
In the UK, most children start full-time school in the September after their fourth birthday.
Reflecting on his own upbringing which saw him left him in the care of his heroin addict father when he was 12 years old after his mother sought help for her severe OCD, Joe explained: ‘I don’t want to be someone who isn’t present in my children’s life.’
Family time: Joe told how he simply wants to spend more time with his three kids – Indie, Marley, three, and Leni, 11 months – who he shares with his wife Rosie
Support: Now, Ulrika, 56, has defended his decision and told how it was ‘heartwarming’ to hear him talking about providing ‘stability’ and love for his children
‘What I try and give my children is stability and love, and I want them to know I’m always there for them.’
Joe has previously joked he is an ‘old school parent’ who doesn’t allow his children to sit in front of iPads and use phones.
Back in July, Joe admitted that Indie ‘might go to school next year. We have no idea long term but want to do at least a year of home educating’.
The nation’s PE coach added that the family are looking forward to spending more time in the US over the next year, as he is determined to ‘take my message and my mission elsewhere’.
They will call his apartment in Santa Monica home for awhile but he has insisted it is not a permanent move away from their £4million mansion in Surrey.
Joe has owned an apartment in sunny Santa Monica since 2016 and already spends weeks at a time in the second home with his wife Rosie and their three children – Indie, five, Marley, three, and Leni, eleven months.
But over the next year, the star is determined to capitalise on the US fanbase he built up during his hugely successful online workouts which propelled him to global fame during the pandemic.
Joe has long been enamoured by LA living, having bought his 100-year-old beach property in Santa Monica after he visited in 2010 and promised a friend that he would one day live in the coastal city.
Joe recently lifted the lid on his own troubled upbringing in his 2022 documentary Joe Wicks: Facing My Childhood.
Joe’s mother Raquela left him in the care of his heroin addict father Gary when he was 12 years old in order to get help for her OCD.
Joe has lauded his mother for being ‘brave’ enough to get the help she needed in the form of five months of therapy, while his older brother Nikki, 38, tried to shelter him from the daily horrors of living with their addict father.
The fitness guru explained how his mother feared he and his brothers would be taken into care if she told people about her issues.
Joe recalled that he was always ‘aware’ of his father’s addiction, explaining the consequences it had on him as a child: ‘Heroin addiction is a really destructive thing.
Moving: Joe has told how his family are looking forward to spending more time in the US over the next year, as he is determined to ‘take my message and my mission elsewhere’
‘I was just anxious all the time and scared and nervous. I acted up in school. I was disruptive, I was the naughty kid because no one stopped me and said, ‘What’s going on?”
Speaking to the Big Issue last year, Joe spoke out on his school days, admitting that he had to find a way to harness his extra energy in lessons, and even suspected he may have undiagnosed ADHD.
‘I loved being in school, I loved sport and fitness. But I was very disruptive and distracted in every other lesson, especially the ones that required a focus I didn’t have,’ he said.
‘That led to me being ‘the naughty kid’. But with PE I found a way to deal with my energy, to really harness it. So that was a big release for my stress.’
‘I was never diagnosed with ADHD but maybe I did have it. I just wanted people to ask me, what’s going on? What’s wrong? Why are you playing up? Not just say, you’re that annoying kid, go to detention – that isolation didn’t help me’.’
