If you are an adult and was homeschooled..

[SchoolNoMore]

… i would be keen to hear your experiences and pros/cons such an approach has had on your life.

We have made the decision to deregister our 12 year old son from school due to skyrocketing anxiety and friendship issues. It got to the point where he was breaking down in the mornings and just refusing point blank to acknowledge us talking to him or get dressed, he is a smart kid, sensitive and we decided to home school. Naturally, i am scared and worried about what that means for his future and future prospects.
If you have been through this yourself, i’d be greatful to hear your experiences and how this impacted your life, career, mental health, social life/skills. Is a good outcome possible in such situation?

Just don’t see how if you work full time?

[quote SchoolNoMore]@Whinge ds is motivated and interested in computer science but at tender age of 12 i doubt he would have enough motivation and discipline to do it by himself. Not many 12 year olds have the maturity to see things through long term unless supervised.[/quote]
If he's not motivated enough for self study outside of a specific interest then you'll definitely need to consider external help. Such as online school / tutors etc. Unfortunately it will mean spending money, and almost certainly more than you would have spent if he remained in school, but the alternative of allowing him to fall behind and not achieve his potential is surely worth the price?

Have you discussed his dislike of school with the school? (or even him?)

It might be quite easily soluble without disrupting his education.

Homeschooling a bright kid at secondary level is a huge academic commitment; are you and DH up to it? And it still leaves you with finding a way to solve DS's social problems.

OP, I would say that you are doing the right thing for your child. Social anxiety in school years can lead to devastating consequences. He’ll thank you for this. He can always go on to college later, where he’ll probably find his peers are a lot less difficult to get along with.

I wish my parents had done the same. I had an awful time at secondary school. Every time my 5 year old comes home with a friendship issue it’s so triggering for me. I’ve had nothing but anxiety since she started school a year ago and I had no idea it would affect me this way.

Good luck.

I work full time and am divorced so cannot quit or reduce work

Do you are not homeschooling him, you’re just removing him from school and leaving him to it.

If you cannot afford online school / to employ tutors and you cannot take the time to ensure he goes to homeschool clubs or to actually teach him then this sounds like a recipe for disaster and I wouldn’t even consider it.

Surely if lockdowns have taught us anything is homeschooling and working full time are incompatible!

Homeschooling is a full time job so you either need to hire a tutor or quit your job. If neither is possible then homeschooling isn’t an option.

I home educated my dd, she’s now 18 and in her final year of A Levels at sixth form, so yes, I’d say it worked out well for her. I also took her out of school at age 12 due to anxiety and bullying and home ed was a much better fit for her.
We started GCSEs when she was 13, a lot of home educators do this to spread the cost and the pressure. So we did one when she was 13, two when she was fourteen, another two when 15 and final three when she was 16. We started with the simpler (non essay) GCSEs when she was young. She had A-C in all of them (or 9-6 as it is now). We used a tutor for maths and English, these were at our local home ed group and were very reasonably priced. Small groups where parents split the cost of tutor. We also did work at home alongside using the course text books, past papers and bbc bite size. For the other subjects we did them totally ourselves at home. You don’t have to be a qualified teacher to teach GCSEs, they’re not rocket science. You literally just need the course books and past papers. BBC bitesize always great and there are support groups on Facebook for all subjects, often free resources, advice and tips are posted there.
I would also join your local home ed Facebook group for details of meet ups, exam stuff etc. Even if your son is anxious as my dd was, the meets are very casual, often outdoors where there’ll be no expectation on him to join in anything if he’s uncomfortable, that’s how we found it anyway.
My daughter’s anxiety massively improved. She had a lovely little group of home ed friends (still friends now). She’s at sixth form college, as I said, doing well, made lots of friends there. We’ve found that the dynamics of college are soooo different to school - smaller classes, better pastoral care etc.
Anything else I can help with, please shout.

@Calvinlookingforhobbes we are in west sussex.

I am sorry your child has experienced this but are you sure this is a good idea if you are working FT? I wouldn’t do it, I have to say.

Also this may be simplistic but I am not convinced removing a child from school is the best way to deal with social problems. Yes there are ways to allow home schooled children to socialise but it seems to me that this is teaching him that difficult social situations are things you can run away from and insulate yourself from.

I don’t want to minimise as it’s clearly been very difficult but it sounds like a decision made through panic rather than one that’s been properly thought through.

I am not a big fan of home schooling in general though and possibly biased.

One is homeschooled largely to act as her mother’s carer. Her mother is a teacher and I’m sure she is very good but she also has some serious medical conditions which her dd is there to pick up on.

The other is too special for mainstream school (her mother’s words not mine). She sits in the window of the lounge of their small flat, studying, all day, and has been doing for many years. It struck me how isolating it was, one morning when it was snowing. There she was, sitting at the desk in the window, and I thought of my dd at the bus stop in her wellies, with her mates, all giggling and excited to get to school to play in the snow.

Maybe it’s just me.

@murasaki

If you didn't realise that it should be 'were' homeschooled, I'd suggest you don't inflict it on your child.

This ^

DM worked PT for some of the time. I was part of a few groups who would meet up for activities swimming, sport, art and some academic science, museum trips etc. Pre GCSE prep (14) I don’t remember much academic stuff, although there’s a chance
DM would disagree! I did do maths workbooks. There was a lot of driving between groups and waiting for us.

For IGCSEs/GCSEs it got more formal. I did some via correspondence course (I imagine this would now be online but was my post then). Parents would discuss bits with me but I led them. A few friends formed a mini group and some ones DM taught us her specialist subject, DF did the sciences with us at the weekend, another parent did a subject they liked etc. I had a tutor for a language. Maths was done from text books and using the syllabus with parent support when stuck.

Parent dedication definitely a huge part. Being able to go to groups made a big difference to me as I really enjoyed them (and don’t think I missed out at all socially as a result). Depending where you live these might be quite a journey?

Just wanted to say - sometimes LAs give funding for a place at online school if a child has been severely affected by their original educational setting. Just throwing it out there, it doesn't happen often but it does happen.

I was a school refuser and then home-edded throughout secondary school. I have a successful career, an undergraduate degree, and two HNCs (first year uni degrees), and this year I got straight into another undergraduate degree right into third year. I'm set to do a Masters at one of UK's most prestigious drama schools and I'm known locally for my work. I'm also really, really, really happy with my life outside of work. Had I not been home-edded I would be completely miserable or dead. Best thing for me and I'm so glad we did it.

And the keyboard warriors are out in force today I see

OP, I’ve just removed my 13YO from school and will be home educating once she’s had a week to decompress. I have a lot of friends, mostly ex teachers/Uni Academics who also home educate.

Firstly, home education looks nothing like formal schooling. There’s no need to have them studying for 6/7 hours a day.

DD will be studying German, Women’s History and Computer Science (and will be doing the GCSE at the end of this year).

Look for local home ed groups on Facebook. They are far more knowledgeable than Mumsnet and much nicer. On here you’ll just get people ripping your decision apart or being dicks in general.

@PeonyTime i work full time but from home ever since covid started so he wouldn’t be home alone. I would struggle with facilitating social interaction though because of work.

@Whinge i was looking into InterHigh and actually really like the sound of them and i could cover the cost albeit it would require sacrifices. Which i will make as this is about my son’s future.

Hi @SchoolNoMore have you looked at self managed learning? (Google it) it's a kind of college type thing in w.sussex also there is atelier 21 which worth a look.

I've been desperately googling our options as dh wants to homeschool our DS but theres no way I'm doing it

Also homeschool west Sussex FB group, might be worth joining and asking on there?

There's also art k which does art lessons (not top of most people's schooling worries but just saying it's there) hth xx

My boss was homeschooled and he’s a director. Don’t know much detail but he’s clearly intelligent and has a great relationship with his parents.

@JayAlfredPrufrock

One is homeschooled largely to act as her mother’s carer. Her mother is a teacher and I’m sure she is very good but she also has some serious medical conditions which her dd is there to pick up on.

The other is too special for mainstream school (her mother’s words not mine). She sits in the window of the lounge of their small flat, studying, all day, and has been doing for many years. It struck me how isolating it was, one morning when it was snowing. There she was, sitting at the desk in the window, and I thought of my dd at the bus stop in her wellies, with her mates, all giggling and excited to get to school to play in the snow.

Maybe it’s just me.

I know two children in school and I always feel desperately sorry for them.

Thank you all so much, i’m going to do dinner and will be returning later to read some more.
@Mombie2021, i don’t mind hearing harsh opinions as they are worth hearing as well in my view. Will look into all the groups later tonight as well, thank you @Pretendingtosmile for pointing out some grous in my area that i wasn’t aware existed.

What about other schools? Maybe a smaller secondary school? Maybe prioritise tackling the anxiety issues rather than brushing them off?

One of DS’s friends was taken out of primary to be homeschooled but I’m not convinced it’s a great idea in his case. His mum is Eastern European but hasn’t taught any of her children her mother tongue so when their grandfather visits, they struggle to communicate with him as he doesn’t speak English. Yet, she’s now decided to homeschool all of them!

Her oldest teen son is a bit wayward and known to deal drugs locally so I think in her case it’s more a case of no school rather than home school. When I discovered she’d left my son and her middle son alone in the house aged 6 whilst she drove to town for food shopping (6 miles away as we live very rurally), that’s when I decided to cut the friendship. I made it clear I wasn’t happy with leaving the boys alone but she couldn’t see anything wrong saying being rural made it safer and it will make them more independent.

I respect her as she’s kind and a talented artist but obviously, we have very different parenting styles.

@toocold54 Homeschooling is a full time job so you either need to hire a tutor or quit your job. If neither is possible then homeschooling isn’t an option. maybe that was your experience of homeschooling, home educating however, is not.

@toocold54

Homeschooling is a full time job so you either need to hire a tutor or quit your job. If neither is possible then homeschooling isn’t an option.

This.

I have a friend who resigned her FT post teaching at university level to home-educate her children. It was a full time job using a wide range of resources online. All four kids are now stable independent adults with full time careers. One has a degree in ecology and a related job in a wildlife reserve, one is a qualified plumber, one has his own business as a "I can fix it" Man Friday. something to do with websites, home technology etc.

I have another friend, professional biologist whose sons had dyslexia; they were not getting enough support in primary school (this was long ago) so she took them out and home -educated them.
Organising homeschool became her full time job. She had lots of academic artistic musical adults on side to tutor. Those boys were the most delightful, social, confident, skilled and beautifully -mannered home-ed kids I ever encountered. At 13, they flew through Common Entrance to private school (small classes) because Mum wanted them to have wider social experience with their own peer group..

You can't work full time and home school
properly. You need another option

At his age could weekly clubs after school - eg around 6pm - be an option to facilitate social interaction? Eg hockey or trampolining club? Scouts?