Is life always this crappy

[sincerestwonders]

Any one else feel like this but I dunno why my life has been just so hard lately for me and my 17 1/2 year old daughter. Last year I felt completely different, this year I feel burnt out and just bored and unmotivated. I have a guy who keeps coming in and out my life he works abroad so he isnt a stable presence but I feel stuck and dunno if any of you have similar life experience or advice as that would be so useful.
My daughter has not been to school since age 8. I chose not to keep her in school because of some of the things we encountered in her school such as staff pinning kids down in isolation rooms as a punishment and like harming "bad" kids by restraining them in the classroom, which I did not want my young daughter to see or felt was appropriate.
She has been home educated since then. At the minute she has 2 gcses, a 9 in Spanish and 8 in computing/ICT. Her maths and english skills are quite subpar to be honest. She is a good speller, yet struggles with reading long books and guessing the "intention" of authors which is what a lot of GCSE is about. Her maths is reasonable and probably key stage 3 level, not the best but GCSE math standards are so high these days. In the last year she has done a cookery course, several language courses, business administration basics and we were asked to do an art course which she bloody hates and has no artistic talent really but we are 3/5 of the way through that and she just cant think of ideas and hates it and obviously wishes she was doing something else. The obvious thing to do next is driving, but the theory test I dont quite know how to study for it seen as I havent driven since I was in my 20s cos we live in an urban area where we can bus walk everywhere. The other thing I struggle with is deciding on the gold DOFE program. She has done it for 18 months, did all sections and loved the volunteering element. Its done all bits except the Expedition, and honestly how is a weeks walking, eating garbage and carrying a 20kg bag up a mountain useful to the development of a young person? This isnt the 1940s. We originally did this with a dofe open award center. She attended 2 training days. On the first one she was assigned to a team of 5 other girls, all of whom were friends from that posh arse Hills Road college in Cambridge. They ignored and excluded my already friendless daughter and walked ahead. My daughter is 5ft 4 70kg and is not unfit, she does swimming and dance, but no way can she walk 20 miles a day like they suggested with a back breaking Army bergen. The idiots said the expedition was to take place in summer. Considering the heatwaves we have had its a recipe for sun stroke, burns and nausea. On the second day she asked whether she could have a parent see her at a particular point of the day or night as she is high anxiety and gets sick when away overnight from parents she can stay at nanas house without us but it seems being away at night without parents presence is traumatic for her. She went to mendip activity center last year and being away led to panic attacks and a drinking episode. They said no,okay, but I dont think they care about her needs. The food is another troubling element. They suggested eating those gross ration pack boil in a bag meals. My daughter wont eat them preferring fresh foods, and wouldnt eat any with meat in them due to concern of quality. She would have to handle bottle gas, flames, putting up a tent, no contact even a mobile phone with parents, possible injury, carrying own excrement, managing herself miles from anywhere at 17 YEARS OLD what is this SAS basic training? We had her walk 10ks every week, every time her feet would begin to blister and bleed she has size 3 feet for context with the bag on so I decided to leave that centre and look at these expensive private expeditions on canoes but she wont do that either. This has led to a lot of arguments with me and her dad who the dad says stop pushing and she has done enough already. The final issue is she obviously doesnt want to go to uni next year but she just cant think of what job/career to do and seems to have lost interest in anything. Sorry to rant but any help or suggestions would be appreciated.

This is how I feel about this thread too.

I've considered home educating DS, but thankfully he has been given a specialist place with an established trust of specialist schools.

For years though I have been looking at how I would make it work, I even purchased a syllabus from a special educational teacher so that I had a foundation to adapt from, I looked up homeschooling groups, I wrote development target plans based on his existing Assess Plan Do reports which include his social, emotional and mental health needs, I purchased subscriptions that cost an arm and a leg because no trial was available just to see if it was something that would click for my child, I made connections for peer to peer support as a home ed parent ahead of time just in case, even games for downtime were tailored to provide some educational feedback even if it was quite covert. I made sure that part of what we would go through wasn't just learning a syllabus but providing the foundation for critical thinking so that when answers weren't obvious he had the skills to know where to independently look to find those answers and ask questions to form a better understanding. I did all of this for a significantly speech delayed child who struggles socially and has extreme sensory issues.

If this thread is real, it gives home educators a really bad wrap and I wish it didn't. You don't have to know everything to be a home educator but you need to be committed to learning what you don't know, adapt, and always be three steps ahead of the syllabus so there are never any stalemates or gaps that allow demotivation to fester.

Every child has a right to an education that is suitable for their age, aptitude or SEND needs, and it's up to the parents or care givers to identify if there are any areas of need which require assessment and seek the appropriate support, apply for EHCPs if needed and SEN is identified and provide access to that education if they are being home educated.

OP this might sound strange but do you have any Morris dancing for adults around you? I know a few, vulnerable, struggling etc young women who've found it helped them with confidence and self esteem. Or is she interested in any sports? You'd need to leave her to it, though.

Morris dancing?! Do you know any 17 year olds?

That won't count. Guidelines say
"You must stay in shared accommodation with your group for the entire residential. This shouldn’t include staying with friends or relatives.".
It doesn't include having mummy to stay with you.
What did your 15yo do whilst you were on her residential?

This can’t be real. It’s actually sinister.

This must be satire.

'oh don't worry love. You've no English or maths GCSE, your mum's stopped you having any friends or independence and your teeth are crooked AF but cheer up, there's a stick dancing group down the road'.

I dunno. Morris dancers are generally seen as socially weird if not pariahs. They're generally quite welcoming to other social outcasts. (I speak as a Morris dancer).

Its sad that you feel you're a social outcast. My friend is a morris dancer and id say she's pretty normal.

But back to the OP her daughter isn't a social outcast, her mum's done that.

Morris dancing of all the activities that can be done by a 17-year-old girl?!? Surely street dancing would appeal more?

Looking at past behaviour the mum would go along too and would also likely have lots of complaints about how they were doing it (wrong sticks etc). If her reaction to the D of E is anything to go by.

What strikes me from the way OP had been overprotective of her DD is that yes, she was helping her, but did it actually fit the mum's criteria, not her own daughter's? It's a little like the example I gave upthread earlier of my DH's friend, whose daughter is now similar in terms of prospects etc.

I often wonder whether these parents use their children as a way of keeping them close forever, for a kind of mutual relationship of a dysfunction. Perhaps the parents can't bear to see their own lives turn out so terribly so they in turn make sure their children's are equally unfair.

She could look like she’s Monica Bellucci’s spawn and there would still be mean girls trying to find something to make fun of. It’s just how it is.

Keeping her away from the world won’t solve any of it and won’t give her the resilience she needs.

Yes, i guess i was onto something... parental sabotage is a thing apparently 😳

OneoftheWeddingPeople dancing* *with sticks is a high risk activity!

LivingForTheWinter · all I meant was people are generally v rude about Morris dancers - you know, try anything once apart from Morris dancers and incest etc. you're the butt of a lot of jokes as a Morris dancer. Our side does seem to be full of teachers so make of that what you will. It's also very neuro-inclusive.

If this thread is real - what helped my friend's daughter get back on track when she went off the rails and quit school with no qualifications, was a youth church. Although it sounds a bit like one of those American crazy church cults, it has loads of teens and it's very inclusive of newcomers, ao a good place to make friends

My DD did it just fine and she only started learning English at 12, so……………..

Sadly yes your children’s lives are very likely to always be ‘crappy’ although there are a lot of other adjectives that could apply. English GCSE would help here.
I have nothing to add really as you seem to have rejected any constructive advice given here.
I am truly sorry for the situation you and your children find yourselves in, I wonder if you’d do things differently if you could turn the clock back.
I hope things improve for you all.