Autonomous home ed - am I doing this right?

[Lookslikerain]

Background is that DS is 5 and a half, dx with autism at 3, and technically should just have started school (Scotland). He attended an amazing mainstream nursery for 2 years, but school is just the wrong thing for him.

His attention can be awful, especially if he isn't particularly interested. From what I've read, a child-led, autonomous approach is definitely the best fit for him. I'm just concerned that I'm not doing it right, or missing something. I guess the problem is that we're just continuing to do what we've always done day-to-day. He tends to stagnate if we stay in the house too much, so we've always been a busy family both during the week and at weekends (also have DD and baby DS). We do lots of museum visits, parks, library, baking/cooking, playing, meeting friends anyway, and he's always really enjoyed that stuff. And we do all the other stuff like going to the shops, post office, running errands etc. We have also met some other home-edders too, though he was pretty uninterested.

At the moment, he's into bugs and was trying to build a bug house in the garden using an empty box today so tomorrow we're going to the library to look for some books on bugs, and we might try and build a proper, big bug house so we can attract lots of them for watching. But this is something I'd have done anyway, just because he was interested, not something I'm doing because we home ed.

Am I getting this right? I almost feel like it should be more difficult and less fun!

[AngelBlue12]

I was HE, I did english GCSE when I was 14, Maths GCSE when I was 15 and got accepted into College to do an NDC course when I was 17 without any problems at all.

My DH was also HE, did no GCSEs, was still accepted into college. And for the past 10 years has been running a local IT business.

We are now HE our children, our eldest is 11 and along side maths and english etc she is 1/3rd of the way through doing a Diploma in Feline Care, Behaviour and Nutrition with Compass Education and Training.

Unfortunately there are a large amount of educational professionals that take issue that children can be just as successful if they bypass the traditional education routes.

[fuzzpig]

Not RTFT yet so I'm ignoring the debate but your OP sounds good to me.

We aren't autonomous because I do insist on some structure for literacy/numeracy (which they are definitely responding well to - but different strokes and all that) but I want to be pretty child led for other topics and projects. They have a lot of interests and I love that we can have the freedom to follow them.

[Mumstheword18]

OP - it sounds like your and your DC are autonomously endearing wonderfully

It sounds like DS, DD and baby are having a great time and things really shouldn't be overly difficult or stressful, education should be fun!

AngelBlue that's a great story, thank you for sharing.

My feelings are that as I read the well written and kind comments from the HErs on this thread, I am so glad to be part of such a great community, it really is lovely and I feel blessed. Reading this thread makes me so grateful we (autonomously)educate as we do!!

[cdsnhf]

It sounds to me as if the original poster is getting it just right. I have personal experience of the success of autonomous ed, and there are files in the Unschooling Network on FB which show that so many young people have thrived with this way of education, be they neuro-typical or otherwise.

In fact, recent evidence on the neuroscience of learning almost always makes me think that the evidence is stacking up in favour of autonomous learning over school based models. Books such as Benedict Carey's "How we Learn" implicitly repeatedly demonstrate that a classroom scenario is extremely destructive to learning, as did the recent Horizon programme on Creativity and the Mind. That programme didn't address the problems that schooling causes for creative thinking, but the problems there are...eg: You can't go play with lego, take a shower, mow the lawn at exactly the right moment to allow your mind to idle...a frequently essential prerequisite for creative problem solving. However, with autonomous education, this is precisely the sort of thing you can do! All in all, AE is just so much, much more efficient!

On the other matter above, it is very sad that the HE mum hadn't researched what would be needed for her daughter ahead of time, but round these parts, I don't know of a single family who has made that mistake. Autonomously home educating families usually know what they will need to do to do the things they want to do, and so far, one way or another, all have managed to find a way forward, be that sixth form college, OU courses, MOOCs, apprenticeships through to full employment. It hasn't and needn't be a problem.

[dirtynakedandhappy]

Dearest lookslikerain ... I know you've been back and said you still feel you're on the right track but I still felt compelled to comment. I am following an autonomous path with my ASD daughter who is nearly 8.

Your son is such a young thing, how sad that someone had to hijack this post with irrelevant nonsense about qualifications and college acceptance... goodness even knows what the situation will be by the time that you need to support his higher or further education choices.

Home Ed is on the rise, progressive teachers and schools are starting to acknowledge some of the unique features of home ed and are attempting to include them in their classrooms - Minecraft anyone? - and many business leaders acknowledge that the jobs our children will be doing may not even exist yet... times are a changing.

I'm not that interested in the debate about college access but I feel I must speak out about the crass and incorrect comments made on the first page of this thread. If our naysayer "knew" about autism then they would know that there is a paradigm shift underway globally, that actually we're just realising that we don't know so much about autism.

Please don't get freaked out about "early intervention" nonsense.

That poster definitely doesn't know about autism: you can't learn 'em to be social, even if you start 'em young - you can learn some of 'em to fake it (that probably works better if you start to break 'em in young), to feel they need to hide their difference, confusion, fear, sadness... but where we justify things and people with approved formulae not as individuals, I'm sure surface conformity does seem like success.

The majority of young people with autism can't get or keep a job, even with tons of qualifications... maybe they need one of those "we have anything going down to "towards independence" in which students learn to use a washing machine and pay bus fare" courses that our expert offers (like any more evidence of underlying ignorance or attitude was needed).

But I don't want to waste any more rhetoric on them.

You are walking a more complex path than a lot of HE'rs and Mums with kids in schools too. School can be the perfect setting for a child with autism, there is no doubt.

I could also win the lottery.

I'm not being sarcastic: the perfect setting is out there - it's possible and what we all wish for (I include most teachers in that), just like the winning lottery ticket - it just isn't guaranteed to come your way.

I don't mind wasting the odd fiver on a lottery ticket but I'd be a fool to think of it as my pension plan. I'm not sure I can leave my daughters education to chance either.

Schools are very unpredictable places even when they are trying their utmost. Teachers get sick, supply teachers have to come in; timetables get altered; kids are loud; playtimes are chaotic; fire alarms need testing; weather changes routines; etc etc.

Please follow your heart. You know what feels right. Making a decision that you are going to autonomously home educate for the next period of your DS's life isn't going to be tattooed on your or his forehead permanently anyway! From personal experience, I believe you are starting the right way round.

Your dedicated attention, your unique specialist understanding of your unique son is his best chance of success. Watch him, love him, learn his loves and share them with him... grow together.

You obviously have a clear, intelligent, thoughtful mind and a warm loving heart and both of those you can change whenever and to whatever you want, whenever and to whatever your DS needs.

Build that bug house! I've attached a picture of ours xD

[Micksy]

State maths teacher here. Four years ago many of our students took their GCSEs in year 9. They then went on to take the igcse as an additional qualification. It was far more difficult, being as it included set theory and basic calculus. We considered it a very good grounding for c1 at a level.