just about to start HE...what do you know now, that you wish you'd known at the start?

[MrsBradleyJames]

Would love some advice from those who have done HE for a while....if you could give us some advice, what woukd it be??
Our ds is 10 and he will be starting HE in a couple of weeks. He has been unhappy at school for a long time so we realise he will need a bit of healing time, but from there on.....all advice welcomed!!!

I wish I had known how wonderful it would be and what a close relationship would develop between ds and I.

I wish I had not spent so much on a course that he's not interested in (but I don't see how I could have found that out as this course doesn't offer a trial and the only reviews were positive ones).

I wish I had known which family members would try to sabotage us and then I could avoid them.

Two things I wish I'd known: (1) That de-schooling is a jolly good idea - friends tried to tell me but I was in full-on school mode and it just seemed like a waste of time and I had this school-based fear that my DC might "fall behind" if we did the de-schooling thing. We didn't de-school and raced straight into a curriculum and the atmosphere was a little too highly charged at first. We should have relaxed into it but no one could tell me! I wouldn't listen. (2) That starting home ed would feel much like winning the lottery - that's how happy it made us.

That trial and error is the best way of finding out what works.
That they learn things even when you don't think they are learning anything.
That you don't have to see someone from the local authority if you don't want to.

That there are lots of useful groups on Facebook!