Do you wish you had been home schooled for the first few years of high school?

[Higgeldypickeldy]

I'm just reflecting on what an absolutely shit time I had during my first two years at high school. Third and four year were slightly better and fifth and sixth year (I'm in scotland) were brilliant fun. I wonder how my experience would have been different if I had been home schooled. The trauma from those first two years (when now looking back I was still so very young)has stayed with me all my life. I'm probably in the minority but if my child seemed to be having a similar shit time I think I would pull them out if they agreed.

Who would have home schooled me? Both my parents were out working.

Also, it was the 90s. Home schooling wasn't a thing.

7 fine, 8-10 awful, 11 ok

Absolutely not.

The early years of secondary school were challenging for me socially, but I learned valuable skills during those years which helped later on. It would have been disastrous if my parents had taken me out to home school me.

I don't think we benefit our kids by shielding them from all of life's challenges. Much better imo to give them the tools to cope with those challenges and to help them develop the confidence/resilience to succeed in spite of them.

I'd have absolutely hated to have been homeschooled by my DM as an only child

It would been my worst nightmare

I made some lovely friends at school in those first few years even though it was a massive comprehensive in SE London with some not so great pupils and I was bullied now and again but I'd have preferred that over being stuck at home with my DM day in day out

I went to -
infants - reception to year 4
Middle school - year 5 to year 8
High school - year 9 to year 11

Infants was fine. Middle school there was some minor bullying but I also had good friends.
I hated high school I was bullied, other children were awful. It was three years of hell.

What 'tools' ?
I've worked as an AHP and done numerous of counselling courses over the years (some on the NHS some privately) and I can 100% say, that if this shit actually worked we'd have far fewer mental health issues.
CBT, mindfulness, solution focused therapy, psychodynamic and psychotherapy can work in certain circumstances, and knowing which therapy to use for which condition is down to the skill and knowledge of the clinician, but even then it's not really about 'cure' so much as about 'managing' the maladaptive behaviour.
The best 'cure' is prevention, again the skill here is knowing or understanding each individuals break point and ensuring that is never reached. Unfortunately when folk come to see me, it's because their break point has been reached. I absolutely loath this current phase of 'resilience' it just adds even more guilt to my client group, because it's effectively blaming them for not being 'resilient' enough, it's like it's a personality flaw, and it is doing so, so much harm, particularly to our teenagers.
But by-gum if you can fix this and show me how we 'build resilience', I'm all ears, but I'll give you the heads up, we can teach mindfulness as an aid, but it has its limitations and requires regular 'top up sessions', so what other tools can you give me?

I'm not having a go at you mrsBennet it's just I see the devastation of our current mental health crisis, this whole building 'resilience', shows a huge lack of understanding of what 'resilience' is. It's being banded about as if it's the next best thing for mental health, but it's far more complex than that. It's as if some government official, went on a course, had a slightly misplaced 'Eureka' moment, and decided every school and every government institution would focus on resilience building and that would end all of humanities problems...if only it was that simple!

I agree that resilience isn't the solution to everything, and indeed, I've argued in a work context that it's a copout for employers to emphasise individual resilience instead of addressing the wider issues that are causing people to feel stressed in the first place.

However, I do think individual resilience is a factor and that parents need to help children to develop this. I really don't believe that swooping in and fixing things for children at the first sign of difficulty is helpful, nor is teaching them to run away from problems - I think this approach sends the message that you believe your child can't cope. At the same time, I'm not arguing that kids should just suck it up and cope by meditating or being mindful or whatever - that won't resolve the problems either.

My personal view is that we should be encouraging and empowering kids to tackle the problems that they're facing, not merely to run away from them. In the long term, practical action will help to build their confidence and resilience far more than any therapy. If they're struggling socially, maybe work is needed to develop their social skills. If they're being bullied or victimised, maybe they need to speak to a teacher. I'm not saying that there is a magic wand for everything, but I have seen fantastic results from parents who teach their kids how to problem solve effectively.