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Home ed

Find advice from other parents on our Homeschool forum. You may also find our round up of the best online learning resources useful.

Considering HE, really worried

12 replies

trulyscrumptious43 · 01/12/2011 21:19

DS is 14 but can seem more like a 12yo. He has difficulty with focus and concentration in class. He has mood swings and goes from highly excitable to too tired to move.
He dislikes school intensely and is not doing well at all (last report, he hadn't achieved any of his predicted grades). He is not academic but when he enjoys something he gets obsessive about it (lego>electronics>bushcraft>current computer game in succession).
I am worried that he is about to fail massively at all his GCSE subjects. He cries and complains almost daily about going to school and I am constantly in touch with his tutors. He is receiving help with writing, concentration (though I don't think this is working) and generally being kept an eye on. However the school is massive and I think he is swamped.
I am a single mum, self employed and my work sometimes takes me away over night, other times I work at home or locally. My schedule is not at all predictable and I am on a low income.
I am doing some work in exchange for a Maths tutor to give DS a lesson for an hour a week.
Is HE an option for me? The maths is covered, I am pretty good at english...but DS doesn't like me trying to teach him.
I'm despairing and so sad.

OP posts:
FionaJNicholson · 02/12/2011 08:13

Hi

If he were home educated you could play to his strengths (obsessiveness is not necessarily bad!) as well as working with him to devise coping strategies and compensatory techniques for weaker areas. He doesn't have to be "taught."

If you PM me I can give you the address of the single parent home education support list.

catnipkitty · 03/12/2011 10:20

Hi
i would just like to say that I really feel for you, how awful for you to see your son so unhappy.I really hope that you find a way to make HE work for you ((((hugs))))

TooJung · 03/12/2011 23:08

I don't know what to say about the gcses. I do know the pain of a child who is unhappy every day, evening and morning. That roller coaster of feelings, grabbing at half an hour of cheerfulness as if magically everything is alright again for good and of course it isn't.

Ds2 (now nearly 14) came out of school 4 years ago and has been able to do the things he is keen on. Our relationship has improved. He has now stopped his distressed behaviours. He no longer even bites his nails. I do not know what he will decide to do about qualifications, but I am sure he will one day announce that he is off to do something wonderful and we will all sit back and sigh with relief.

trulyscrumptious43 · 04/12/2011 20:38

TooJung I know exactly what you mean about grabbing that half hour of happiness and clinging on to it.
I am feeling that I would really like to talk to someone in my area (west) face to face or even have a phone conversation with a home educator. Lots of questions. Taking DS out of school feels like a really big jump; or is it the thing I should have done ages ago? I just don't know.

OP posts:
ommmward · 04/12/2011 22:33

Have you google searched home education + your nearest big city? I know there are big HE communities in Cardiff, Bristol and Gloucester, for western examples, but maybe that's far too south for you!

FionaJNicholson · 05/12/2011 10:01

You can join local support lists and go to weekly meets in some areas to talk to experienced home educators. (Be breaking up for Xmas soon though)

edyourself.org/groups

Education Otherwise and the Home Education Advisory Service may also be able to put you in touch with locals.

shineynewthings · 05/12/2011 13:41

I just want to say that I really feel for you. I'm not going to say just go ahead and pull your son out of school, but I will say that it doesn't sound to me like you have much to lose other than a very miserable and distressed child.

I cannot tell you what to do, so this is my personal opinion and partly comes from my own experiences. I am a single mother also with 2 HE'd boys 13 and 10 and face the problem of working too. Am (rather unsuccessfully so far) trying self employment too. Finances are dire.

If I were in the same position as you, and I suspected that my son was about to fail his GCSE's massively after a very wretched and unhappy few years in school leading up that point, (i.e. not just messing about or laziness) I would take him out. I would not risk the potentially tremendous damage that failing his GCSE's would have on his self esteem. There is nothing quite like the blow of seeing everyone in your age group crowing about their passes, when you have tried really hard but 'failed.' I would spare him that potential experience with the inevitable dive in his self confidence which could hold him back in life.

I would rather he concentrated on doing a couple of GCSE's in core Maths and English at home as a private candidate over the next year or so, and let him study everything else in his own time. Better to taste success in two subjects than fail everything. (there is an EXAMS list for home educators/children studying for exams at home. Someone here might have the link or if you're interested I can find it for you later) You may find his interests lead him to other things. Some children have got on to courses that interest them without the full requisite GCSE's, my point is that if he doesn't do well at school anyway you really don't have much to lose.

With regards to him 'not liking being taught,' that is understandable, but for my peace of mind I would tell my son that he can only come out if he agreed to me helping him with his English. I find now that I don't really teach so much as work alongside my eldest, sometimes that means pretending I don't know the answer to something I really want him to learn and we end up solving it 'together' LOL.

If you decide to go ahead, working and being a S.P. will probably be the greatest difficulty. At 14 he can be left alone for short periods but only you can say whether you'll be able to arrange some sort of care for when you're away. With regards to his studying you can be as flexible with that as you want -I sometimes take out the chemistry book on the train to somewhere or we do nothing on a Friday and use our Saturday morning or Sunday evening instead.

Finances will be stretched, but how much you spend is up to you. Ask for stuff you really need at Xmas, the library is good, and I have an account for exams which I put in spare change.

Also some find that the social aspects for teens being Home ed are a challenge, it has been that way for us. That is something else to consider.

HTH a little

trulyscrumptious43 · 05/12/2011 17:18

Thanks for your posts. I will read them in more detail later. In the last half hour DS has gone from lying on the sofa crying, lying on the floor saying he wants to die, and shouting at me and kicking the door - because I asked him to complete 5 mins homework his maths tutor has left for him. Ok, in fairness he's upset about lots of other things too but really this happens nearly every day (an improvement on when it was every day).
Right now he is screaming, bellowing and kicking things round in his room.
I have talked to him, sympathised with him, cuddled him and am now trying to ignore him.
Can I cope with this being the reality every day? School at least takes him away for a while. God I feel awful for thinking that.
He will reappear in a minute with a meek apology and we will start the cycle again.

Actually shiney I think he is a bit lazy - if I had let him go straight on to his computer game when he came in from school none of this would have happened. He had to do 5 mins homework and 20 mins housework (our house rule that each child does a household job every day, he didn't do much at all last week so is catching up). So we have had an hour of wailing because that is preferable.

We live equidistant from Bristol, Gloucester and Hereford and are totally in the sticks - a village of 200 people. The few HEs round here I used to know moved back into the city so they could be in a HE network.

I have talked to DS quite a bit recently about the reality of HE. He takes this as a cue to refuse to go to school, so arguments in the mornings too.
TBH I don't know what the reality is, apart from DS doing around 3 hrs of research/learning a day in what interests him.

Sorry what is HTH? (Dummo)

OP posts:
ommmward · 05/12/2011 18:01

I just sent you a private message.

The reality: anything from

sit down at a desk for x hours a day to follow a formal curriculum

to

no formal learning at all, just get on with living happily together as a family, and the learning slips in around the edges, in snippets of conversation, or a game of some kind.

My family follows the latter path.

ommmward · 05/12/2011 18:01

hth = hope that helps

TooJung · 05/12/2011 18:26

Our family life is rather like Ommmward's from the description.

julienoshoes · 05/12/2011 19:35

Our son was nearly 14 when we took him out of school. He was suicidal when I found out that home ed was a legal viable option, and got him out immediately.

After being home ed for a while he told me when he was in school he needed to come home and play the PS in order to zone out of the pressures of school/get to a place where he could forget the stress and terror of the reality that was school.

I'm not saying that he didn't play on his PS after we dereg but he did it a lot less often and the screaming frustrations diminished dramatically too.

if talking in real life on the phone would help, you can contact me via [email protected] which will come straight to my inbox.

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