Should I try homeschooling or unschooling?

[WavyRavey]

Does anyone homeschool?

Since going back from the last half term my sons behaviour has really changed, he had such a good year and now everything is going backwards

I don't know if it's hormones kicking in at 7 nearly 8, he's got so much rage and its so hard to calm it down, when he is at home he is mostly fine, school is making it worse. This holiday was fine some little tantrums but going back to school he's totally changed. He throws things, has hit out at other kids and is currently only in from 9 til lunchtime

He has all the coping things but forgets them or they don't work, doesn't like headphones, doesn't like the loop earphones, has brain breaks often cos he can't sit still, even at home he is outside most of the time biking up and down, climbing, scootering! We are up the park every single day of the week for hours so he can get some energy out

He has not been diagnosed though everyone knows he is on the spectrum, as he was in an assessment room with 2 adults he was totally fine!

I am unable to drive so I worry if we try homeschooling he will be bored, as much as he'd like to be gaming or up the park all day he has to learn too, ideally it'd be small trips and things but I can't travel super far. I'm so worried he's going to end up behind everyone else, he was full time but is back down to leaving at midday again.

Does anyone have any advice? I feel like an absolute failure, after everyone being so proud of how far he's come 😭 would it be unreasonable to homeschool? I asked him how he felt and he said "maybe but not forever"

Homeschooling will destroy you.
Ask for an assessment with the EP.

With respect, that’s very far from the truth in our situation. I had to do an awful lot to ‘deschool’ my mindset at first and get my teaching experience out of my system. It became a hindrance. At first I tried to ‘teach’ them some things but quickly realised that it doesn’t work. Not with my children anyway. Also I’m only trained up to end of primary and my oldest two are now secondary age.

Unschooling is a different mindset. It makes me a facilitator of learning rather than a teacher. I throw things (not literally 😆) in their path and they run with it or don’t. In some ways they would be considered ‘ahead’ and others’behind’. But we don’t think of it that way anymore.

I would request an early annual review of his ehcp and see what you can achieve. If you feel a specialist setting would be better for him this could be awarded at this time.

I home educate my girls, the HEFA group on Facebook is great and there are lots of other groups on there.

But before you post if you use the term homeschooling as oppose to home educating (as you aren’t looking to recreate school at home!) you’ll get more comments about you using the wrong terminology than actual help and advice!

Did the ASD/ADHD assessment not involve questionnaires for you and school and did they not show something was going on?

With all due respect, your education will still have taught you what kids can handle at which ages and you will also have learned how to spot pitfalls and something about child behavior. You may have shed some of the methods, but not the general knowledge of children's education and child development.

I maintain that you have knowledge and experience that the average parent does not have.

Home education works and unschooling works - especially if you understand what it is (it isn't child led).
The things I would be thinking about is how do you give him opportunities to make friends and nurture those friendships?
How do you find support for yourself?

At 8, there are plenty of ways to educate a busy, active child. That would be the least of my worries, but do join your local home ed group to benefit from other people's experience and figure out if there are families and meet ups within your travelling distance.

I wouldn't write off putting him on meds for ADHD as it will make his life easier. I have taught children who are on meds and genuinely it meant they had a restful life, did well in class, could play team sport etc. The days they forgot to take it the change was unreal but they weren't doped up or anything ..it was just calmer. My ds was diagnosed with ADHD as an adult and went on meds and seeing how much happier he was himself really showed me that meds could possibly be a good thing. He could concentrate on his work and said the best thing was his mind wasn't racing nonstop which was really distressing. He also can concentrate for ages on his own interests. Your ds needs a diagnosis first of course but he does have a lot of symptoms of ADHD.

With respect, I am an average parent, no teaching experience. I’ve home educated/unschooled my two now adult autistic sons. Both now work full time, have some amazing skills that they wouldn’t have had if they’d been in school. We didn’t do any typical school subjects, but focused on life skills and employable skills. Many of their peers from school are hugely floundering as young adults, despite (or because?) being in school until A levels.

The sad thing is that UK schools are now so geared up against SN that children are failing in their thousands, it’s so distressing to see, when sometimes coming out of school and taking a different approach can make such a huge difference to the child and their family.

OP I’m a fairly long standing HE parent out of necessity (being honest I didn’t want to, I’d rather have had children who thrived in school).

I would recommend taking your time to make any decision like this. It can be amazing, but it can also be really draining and hard.

Unfortunately when it comes to finding schools to meet our dc’s needs it can be a lengthy process, but I would try to do some groundwork and explore what’s available.

I would also look into fb home education groups - I’m very rural but there are still loads of groups locally, home ed has really increased in the last few years. Social lives tend to be the least of the worries, particularly with primary aged children.

Home educating a child is not like school education. You don’t have to follow a curriculum. You can more easily meet your child’s needs which makes learning - in the many many forms that can take - much easier for the child.

It definitely sounds as if your lad would benefit from at least a break from school of a year or so. That would give him a chance to be in an environment where he succeeds, to build his confidence and happiness. Then you'll have a clearer picture of his true needs, and of the actual challenges home education presents for your particular family. Those challenges will differ from the challenges of other home ed families, and will certainly differ from the challenges imagined by strangers on the internet who have neither met your son nor home educated!!!

Your son sounds deeply unhappy. Most of the issues are clearly related to school, so it's apparent that leaving school gives the best chance of fixing them. There's only one way to know, and that is to try. What's the worst that could happen? Even if home education doesn't go well, you won't ruin his life in a year, and you will learn more about what is troubling him and what he needs.

I can see why you would have that opinion. I really can. I think you very much overestimate how much teachers actually know about child development though.

In all honesty, I don’t think home schooling is your answer. Firstly, you have an excellent school that is working with you and your son. This will be invaluable in getting more professional help in future if you need it. Secondly, nothing you write suggests you are well suited to hone educating him: you can’t drive him to educational opportunities and you don’t indicate any suitable background experience. Thirdly, isolating him could actually increase the difficulties if integrating later and, as he gets older, subject specific educational expertise becomes more important.

What games does he play OP? I’m a teacher and certain games can have a huge impact on behaviour. I’m not saying this is the answer (far from it), but it may be worth thinking about it (if relevant, of course. He may be playing kids’ sudoku for all I know!).

Nope, he has had problems since way before he ever started gaming, he plays things like Minecraft

We've done lots of things, parenting courses even, he's had the ehcp since he was about 5 and a half, everyone including the school knows he's definitely on the spectrum, people know just by being around him as its quite obvious, but the way the assessment was set up it was never going to work, 2 adults talking to him in a quiet room with interesting activities (he had a great time) and they said he was fine, they said they don't come out to schools to assess them either and now it's a 2 year waiting list for more help.
He had a specialist teacher in school for a while and she was amazing, got him into the classroom again and he was doing so well, this has really come out of nowhere and we don't understand. I was starting to think is this puberty coming too early or something, as he's started to sweat under his arms too which hasn't happened before. He gets very upset as he doesn't mean to blow up and lash out, he's been able to control himself very well since the age of about 6, but now this has started.

We've tried taking all games etc away but it doesn't make any difference, if anything gaming seems to help calm him down and as me and my husband are both gamers we understand that.

Sounds like the worse thing you could do.

I think you want to remove him because you hate seeing him distressed, not because you want to teach him and he wants to learn at home. Truth is, if he hates school, I'm not sure that him doing half days and getting to go home or have brain breaks whenever he wants is helping. Maybe he needs some consequences and discipline? Do you discipline his bad behaviour at school? Ie; if he hits someone or is naughty at school- no PlayStation or tablet that night.

Maybe he's had too much carrot and needs a bit of the stick. Are the school accommodating him or are they just getting rid of him and you think they're helping because they're all smiley about it.

What do you think? Only asking because I've not seen discipline mentioned yet.

We're actually a bit hardass when it comes to discipline to be honest, my husband is ex military so they'll do physical stuff like push ups or running to get anger out and time to think about consequences, he has time outside, we take things away etc.
For punishment at school he's taken out the class and has been suspended before, but because he's at home during suspension he's totally fine again.
Believe me I'm not a softly softly parent as I don't believe it helps the child, I've tried the gentle parenting stuff and it really doesn't work, for us at least.

Yeah a bit of discipline will cure the autism and distress he’s in in an environment that is unsuitable for him.

Imagine if a friend, colleague or an elderly person was this distressed and someone suggested ‘discipline’ as a means to control the behaviour. Control and coercion

Maybe his behaviour is communicating something. Imagine that.

If a plant wasn’t growing, you wouldn’t think it was the plants fault. It would be the environment it was planted it.

Yes yes yes, i was expecting response like this, but does that honestly mean nobody with Autism should be disciplined or receive consequences for their actions. Should they just be allowed to do what they want?

I'm not suggesting he is screamed at just to upset him, but its fair enough to take away a PlayStation if that child has hit another child or something quite severe. But I find too often suggestions like that are met with - "well that playstation helps him regulate, so we couldn't possibly take that away" so there's just never any punishment!

Turns out they have a hormone change and surge in testosterone around the age of 8.

This just simply isn't true, its nonsense regularly peddled online. I asked our endocrinologist. The only "testosterone surge" boys routinely have is associated with true puberty (not adrenarche) later on.

Adrenarche (which can begin around 8) is associated with body odour and underarm hair (in both boys and girls) but no meaningful testosterone surge.

I don't doubt you've done lots and EHCPs are increasingly hard to get so that facr he has one is in itself telling. I'm just confused by this assessment process. Did they ignore the questionnaire results completely or was that not part of the process? Was this under the NHS?

They took our opinions into account apparently but they just don't think he is autistic, honestly we and the school were quite shocked as it's so obvious he is, they didn't take into account the legging it out the classroom, meltdowns etc

My granddaughter (autistic PDA) is currently refusing school and yes it is a worry as it must be for you and your son. I know my daughter is considering home educating but it is a big decision. I would take your time deciding and maybe explore other schools although it sounds like the one he is in is trying to be supportive. I agree it sounds like schools today are just not the right environment for this with SEN.