Still dithering!

[montymoocow]

I posted a message a few months ago and had some great advice. Despite this I'm afraid I'm still haven't made the jump.

Problem is this:- I have two ds (yrs 7 and 8 of high sch) and a toddler. Both would love to come out of school and one is in fact off school today as he couldn't face it.

My youngest gets given extra homework when others in his class misbehave which I absolutely don't agree with (making learning a punishment), and most lessons for both of them are full of bad behaviour, swearing and shouting). My eldest told me that a boy in his class called their teacher a b*tch and he was absolutely shocked. He also had stuff stolen from his bag a couple of days ago. It's really all got too much.

The pressure I have is from others telling me that I won't be able to cope with three at home all day. It is hard though coping with school. The effort it takes to get them to kuckle down to their homework is a tremendous strain, and they are tearful most mornings getting up for school. My eldest though has made a couple of good friends although he is in a special needs unit at school (mild autism).

My other deep concern is exams, although I wonder if my eldest will be able to sit them at school anyway as he finds learning there nearly impossible.

Sorry to go round in circles and repeat my questions, but I really need some good advice please.

Very many thanks!!

At the moment, you are coping with children who are miserable and tearful every morning, and miserable and uncooperative while doing homework, and probably miserable during the evening at the thought of having to get up and go to school again next day. You probably spend a lot of the time while they are at school worrying about how bad it is for them and how much they are hating it, and fretting about just how bad the afternoon and evening are going to be.

If you take them out of school, the major causes of stress in all your lives will be removed. You will have children who don't dread getting up in the morning, so "coping" with them during the day will not be the constant round of worry and confrontation that you currently have to deal with.

The "others" who are saying you won't cope are probably assuming that your children are somehow naturally miserable and uncooperative people, who would be like that no matter what. I think that's extremely unlikely. Most people, when they are not stressed by circumstances outside their control, are nice and pleasant and happy.

I think you should go for it and take them out to HE them, for a while at least. Give it a year - if it doesn't suit them or you, they can still go back into the school system in plenty of time for GCSEs.

If you do keep them out, there are ways of doing exams outside of school, if you/they want to.

Thanks a mum in Scotland - you are quite right. They are not by nature miserable and are funny, lively and love their baby brother to pieces. I did home ed them for a couple of years a while back and made the decision pretty easily, but they were a lot younger then. It all seems a lot more scary now. I don't think though that I can cope with another 5 ish years of coaxing them into school every morning saying 3 more days 'til the weekend, 2 more days 'til the weekend etc. etc. Life is far too short.

Thanks for the advice!

So basically, you're trying to decide between:

Most of your daily interactions with your children involving coercion and upset and stress

and

Some of your daily interactions with your children being as above, but many, many more being fun, interactive, enjoyable, and allowing the building of strong, mutually pleasant relationships between you adn them and between eachother as siblings?

Try not to worry about exams - exams are just a way of proving someone's tried to teach you certain things, and you've managed to memorise enough information to pass the exam. You don't need GCSEs to do A-Levels and plenty of universities are taking students without A-Levels who can prove in other ways they can study - diplomas etc.

Life is way too short to spend it miserable - and your childhood is even shorter!

Life is far too short to be wishing it away, existing for the weekend. HE doesn't have to be any harder with older ones - in some ways I think it's easier, as they already know the basics and can read and write and find things out for themselves. They'll be able to sit and work on things themselves without constant attention, and can wait if they need you to look at something while their little brother happens to need your attention first, where smaller children might find it harder to wait. Plus, they've already had an introduction to lots of subjects at school and will have ideas about what interests them.

Thanks FlamingoBingo, I think it is the exams thing which is worrying me despite it being 3 and 4 years off for each. Part of me knows they will be missing nothing of any consequence but a part of me sees all the kids going past the house to school and it's having the guts to literally go in the other direction and not be a sheep. My hubby also worries I'll be taking on too much and will they both get on with any work, although I know there may be a need to de-school for a good while.

Thanks for your good advice though.

Thanks FlamingoBingo, I think it is the exams thing which is worrying me despite it being 3 and 4 years off for each. Part of me knows they will be missing nothing of any consequence but a part of me sees all the kids going past the house to school and it's having the guts to literally go in the other direction and not be a sheep. My hubby also worries I'll be taking on too much and will they both get on with any work, although I know there may be a need to de-school for a good while.

Thanks for your good advice.

There's an email group for HE parents about exams, not sure of the link but I think its a Yahoo group and has been mentioned on other threads if you want to dig.

DS did IGCSEs, and its really not that difficult for them to learn from textbooks and sit the exams in a local school, though there will be a fee to pay.

I do think now would be a good time, as the schools will still be there if you find it too much, or they don't get on with studying.

Do it, make them happy!

I know the issue of exams can be dealt with and actually they don't have to sit them at all if they don't want to. I think with my eldest it may be far too much stress for him to handle, but who knows what he may decide in the future and what he may be capable of. I think also it's trying to do the right thing for all my kids and for myself really. Trying to make sure everyone's needs are properly met and do the right thing by everyone, if that's at all possible! All I do know is that they're not happy in school and that makes me very unhappy too. I know I have the answer really.

Sounds like the usual mum juggling act! Trying to make sure everyone is happy and getting what they need. It's tricky because you do feel so responsible for it all, and worry what ill happen if it all goes wrong. But, I think you'd be able to tell it was going wrong, long before any damage was done, so it doesn't mean you're burning your boats.

If your eldest gets stressed by exams, you could always look at him sitting just one in a subject he finds straightforward, to see how that goes, long before you even think of him sitting others. Thats just one area where you can be very flexible and adjust to suit him.

Do also look at OU qualifications as an alternative to exams. There is a Mum here who has done that with her sons (?).

Yes, I think if he did sit exams it would need to be on a one at a time basis. I think sitting so many exams in one go is too much for most kids to be honest.

I just asked him a minute ago, on a scale of 1 to 10 how much do you like or dislike school - 1 being you hate it and 10 being you love it - he came back with a straight 1. I'm not sure if it's all that bad but he certainly really dislikes it. He has to come out of many lessons because the noise is too much and go into the special needs unit to work. Therefore, it appears the kids with bad behaviour are getting the teaching and he works on his own. If he works on his own, he may as well do that at home. I know of kids of 14 at the same school who still can't read and write properly and the school don't appear too worried but the parents are literally freaking out. Luckily his English is good because we've worked really hard on it and he loves reading. He said he likes being at home because he can read as much as he wants to.

They were studying a book at school - well .... they watched a video!!! He, off his own back got the book and read it very quickly and loved it (although we had to buy it off E-bay as the one he borrowed from school had swear words written all over it which he hated). By the time the rest of the class actually read the book, he'd read the sequal too and so carried on with something else. He seems miles ahead but they haven't moved him up a class. He says the work's too easy, although maths is a big difficulty for him.

Therefore, he has a lot of positives but with him and his sibling at home, can I motivate them or will they rattle around annoying each other? Perhaps time would tell.

Thanks mummytime re the OU idea. I'll look into that. I myself at the moment am doing an open college course and am really enjoying it. I think that way of learning would, in the future, suit both of them.

Thanks all for your support!

"can I motivate them or will they rattle around annoying each other? "

I think that's a false dichotomy.

They would certainly rattle around annoying each other for a while. And you would let them rattle around and annoy each other, in fact, you would read something like Siblings Without Rivalry, and learn how to step back and allow them to find their own balance in an independent relationship.

And oh boy, what a gift to your children that would be - that they would learn to interact with each other without needing your refereeing all the time.

And as for motivation - that's not your responsibility!!!!! You can provide resources. You can suggest activities. But people are not buckets. You cannot pour knowledge into them, no matter how enthusiastic you are. Let them take the lead. after they've deschooled, let them indicate what they are interested in, then you help them pursue it. School teachers have to put on a cabaret because most of the class don't give a damn about the subject matter. But you don't have to work like that outside school.

Just jump, montymoocow! Pick them up today and say "nah, that's it. I'm done. Let's get you out of school" (remember that if you're in scotland the process is different from England - if you are in scotland, get in touch with Schoolhouse asap to make sure you get it right)

ommward - many thanks. I am in England and so it's pretty straight forward to deregister them. My son who's off today seems so much happier (obviously). I think you're right of course about me not being responsible for motivating them all of the time and refereeing their disagreements. Sometimes us mums think we have to be everything to everyone all of the time which of course we can't.

Interestingly, my son needs a text book to help him go over work at home which he can't understand in school and his school SENCO agreed that would be a good idea. The maths dept. though won't let us have a copy despite him having a Statement and them receiving 25 hrs worth of money for him every week. I realise they have a shortage of books, but truly - they know what kind of family we are and they'll get their book back in immaculate condition. We just want what's best for him and for that we have to employ a maths tutor once a week.

Oh well - the school isn't likely to change.

I think my hubby and I will be having a long chat again this evening as this can't go on indefinitely.

Many thanks again!

Another vote for jumping. What's the worst that could happen: you hate home education and send them back to school (maybe a different school?) and then you and your sons would know you'd tried everything possible and school was the only answer. Is that such a disaster if that happens?

What do you have to lose by giving it a try? And now is the perfect time, while exams are still a few years off and you have time to figure out how/whether to do them while HEing or else to give your boys a few years of relaxation and proper learning before perhaps sending them back to school for exams.

(Not that I think for a minute that you would seriously regret home educating! You'll love it. You know you can do it; you did it before.)

My three all came together-and they were aged 13, 11 and 8.
I didn't have a clue what we would do about exams.........I didn't have a clue what we do full stop actually, I just knew whatever we did was better than sending three desperately unhappy children to school every day.

We decided that our long term aim was that by the time they finished their compulsary school age they would be happy self confident individuals.

We quickly realised that Dd2s severe SEN meant that going the GCSE route would be pointless, so we looked at alternatives.

Ds went to college and did GCSEs post 16, as he chose to. Then he did a couple of A levels. Then he went to work and saved for a couple of years, towards a uni course, so he comes out with less debt.
He then took himself and did an access course and is at University now and doing very well indeed.

Dd1 didn't do any GCSEs, she used a huge varity of life experiences to get herself a job with a well known national organisation.
Couple of years later she has taken herself back to college (around holding down a job as she now lives away from home) and is doing very well. She thinks she will go onto Uni with it as well.

Dd2 did an OU starter course, she had completed it by aged 16 (really good considering she didn't learn to read until she was 13 ish!), and was said to be at university entrance level then. She used that and her very varied life experiences to get herself into FE college where she is now predicted to get straight distinctions!
This is not the level reached by the peers she left behind in the remedial classes at school!

so at the end of their compulsory school age, we have happy self confident young people, who are very self reliant, and who have gone out and got themselves what they need to move on with their chosen paths.

My advice would be to jump too! I am certain you will find you have wings!

Thank you all for your very positive advice. I'm sure my two would do well at home and if they chose not to take exams I'm sure it would not stop them doing what interests them. From where I'm standing the water looks really inviting but just a tad deep and scary, but as you say Saracen - if it did all go belly up (which I'm sure it wouldn't) then we could go back to school. However, I think if we took them out at this stage we'd never get them back. When my youngest got home from school this afternoon it took him about one hour before he'd talk to me, and once he started speaking he spent the whole evening playing with his baby brother - returned to the happy boy he is at home. I'm about to ask him if he's got his books ready for tomorrow but know it'll ruin his evening.

I think you are all really inspirational and thank you so much for your wise words. I'll let you know what happens, but I think I've made up my mind, but must now have serious talks with hubby.