I home educate my DS - AMA

[StudentNurse3]

My DS has been home educated from the start. He is 15 now.

Do you see your DS going into a 9-5 routine job when he’s older and how do you think he’d cope with that after the flexibility of home schooling?

He has already taken Maths and English Language. He is studying English Lit, Sociology, History, Computer Science and Science this year. He is also studying a kind of 'general studies' vocational qualification and he does an Arts award lesson.

That sounds very difficult. Lots of families with SEN DC do really struggle with school. Have you found anywhere for him yet?

Thanks-really interesting!

1. Do you have any other children?

1. How have you managed to work since he was 7 and home school? Were you working part time and teaching part time? I'm trying to u set stand the logistics because you said you also enjoyed learning along with him. I understood that to mean you were brushing up on things and then teaching him? That's additional time to the actual teaching.

1. How much of the housework, cooking, laundry and remembering & buying birthday presents for family and friends falls to you? HE is a lot of work and to have it on top of a job, plus everything else is something I can't even imagine (especially as you say you're actually teaching, not bringing in tutors for everything).

Basically I'm asking how you fit everything in!

Yes, he is autistic. I don't see many of them these days! But a large proportion have additional needs. Out of his close friendship group, I think almost all have some kind of additional need, whether that be autism, ADHD, dyslexia

Good luck with this thread OP!

I Home Ed too, at the opposite end of the journey to you though (nearly 6yo and 3.5yo). I always knew that I would home educate, school was not a good experience for me at all, my DH also had issues in school and we've both completed all of our qualifications for our careers post-school and didn't see any benefit for having done 10 GCSEs when nobody gave a damn when we went to do our respective qualifications in our early 20s (Level 3s for me, Degree for him and starting a degree via the OU for me too).

My 6yo is AuDHD and we realise now that school would have not suited her even if we had chosen that route, but I made my decision about home ed as a teen and DH found himself agreeing at some point during our relationship.

When he was younger child-led. But from secondary age we started looking at how the education system works and what qualifications you need for work etc and sort of worked back to then thinking about what things it would be beneficial to study. So yes, I suppose he has been encouraged in that way.

hi thanks for this OP- looking at this issue at the moment. Is he getting good results and therefore you know you are doing a good job ? I am asking as I am worried that I would feel I am failing my child unless I had the validation of the results.(am not sure how good a teacher I would be)

Yes, I work full time and have done for over 4 years. Prior to that I worked part-time and before he was 7 I just worked bank. My DC's dad has contributed financially.

I'd say that a significant number of home educators don't teach in the traditional way, we facilitate our children learning to their interests, which means us learning alongside them more often than not.

Also, the benefits of working 1:1 means less time actually teaching for those who do teach and very few home educators follow a school-like schedule, so chunks throughout the day seem to be more common and much easier to fit around a job. In my house we do more of the researching and science and time consuming bits with 5yo in the evenings and at the weekend when DH is here too as 3yo sometimes makes it difficult to sit and research olms for an hour or whatever else has taken 5yos attention. During the week we spend a lot of time out and about, at HE meets/groups/classes, with the kids grandparents, visiting the places that are too busy for us in holidays, down at the beach and at home with lots of playing, doing puzzles, playing board games and screen time as well. When I start working again the kids will come with me and I've trained in the line of work that I have partially for that reason (and I just love it).

That's a really good question! I don't know, I think possibly not. But on the other hand I think he'd be able to manage it if that was what he chose to do. Although, he's not had the full on timetable of school, he's still had classes that he is responsible to attend over the last few years. He'll have that at 6th form and University too.

How do you manage to educate if you work full time? Or does he just get on with learning by himself now? How did you manage to work when he was younger if he wasn't in school or wrap around care? Do you have any children in school?

I have wanted to homeschool, but working makes it seem impossible.

What will he and you do for A Levels? Will he go into college?

And how have you managed fostering friendships now that he's a teen? (When obviously you have less control over that, rightly, than when they're junior school age)

@StudentNurse3 Yes, he is autistic. I don't see many of them these days! But a large proportion have additional needs. Out of his close friendship group, I think almost all have some kind of additional need, whether that be autism, ADHD, dyslexia
This is our experience too. Do you think if schools were more suited to these difficulties that you and he would have enjoyed him going?

Yes, I have a DD who is 11 and is at school.

I have worked 12 hour shifts. So from when he was 7 I worked 2 shifts when his dad could have him.

When I said I enjoyed learning along with him, I meant literally learning alongside him. So if I was reading a book to him about a subject or attending a lecture etc and something came up I didn't know then I learnt something new too!

But that's not to say I don't spend time planning his education and brushing up on things too.

I'm not with my DC's dad anymore. So it is just me and the DC at home. Housework is mainly me, but my DC keep their rooms reasonably clean, DD loads and DS unloads the dishwasher. DS makes his own breakfast and lunch and cooks dinner for us all once a week. Their dad gives them dinner twice a week and lunch once a week. The rest is me. DS does all his own laundry. I do mine and DD's. Present remembering and buying all me apart from DS remembers and buys for his friends.

Now DS is older I often feel surplus to requirement! I'm only doing 3 subjects with him at home so it's not too bad.

I think just by being very organised!

But, not going to lie, I have mini 'breakdowns' sometimes! 😄

Yes, I do think school can make it seem there is literally one route to qualifications and that's really not true. Home-ed teens take lots of different routes. If my DS had wanted to take a less traditional route I would have been fine with that.

Good luck with your home-education. I absolutely loved it at that age. All the sensory play and forest school and such like. I hope you are enjoying it?

It is very common within home-ed to have wobbles exactly because you don't necessarily have that validation.

But there's been times along the way where I did get some validation. Some examples - when he was 7 and I was going back to work. I decided to enrol him at one of the tuition centres (not a specific home ed one the kind of one school kids go to after school or at the weekend.) Before he started they did an assessment and he was a little ahead in English and a little behind in Maths for his age. Baring in mind he'd pretty much done no formal work at that age I was very reassured. Then when he was 12 he started a home-ed English Literature class and they did a reading assessment and his reading age was quite a bit older than his chronological age. He did his Maths and English Language GCSEs this Summer and got very good marks - phew! 😄

Yes, I agree with all this. Home-ed is very flexible and can work around quite a few different set ups.

That's it exactly, there isn't just one route to get a job or a career, and the pressure at 13yo to choose what subjects for gcse so that you can do the a levels you want to do the degree you want is immense!

I am mostly enjoying it, struggling a bit as we've just moved away from our lovely friends and our 'village' so to speak, but we're closer to family which the kids are loving! We were busy the first half of September so we've literally just started new groups last week! But the people we've met so far have all been lovely :) we're all over forest school, I am an fsl3 so will be running some in the near future I hope! Work I love that I can drag them to with me 😁We have beach school where we are too and it's amazing, so looking forward to it!

We are big on sensory play still too, both DC love anything involving water and soap so we get immersed in that often!

I work shifts. He is pretty independent now. He goes to college 3 days a week and spends time studying alone.

When he was younger I worked when his dad could have him.

Yes, I have an 11yo DD in school.

It is usually mums that facilitate home ed, but most do work in some capacity (ime), although often part time, especially when the DC are younger.

He wants to go to 6th form/college for A levels.

I don't really do much about friendships now except to make his friends welcome at our house and to give DS a bit of a nudge to socialise sometimes! They tend to organise their own activities, these days.