unschooling & recovery

[Snowrose1311]

Hi Everyone,

My DS2 is 12 years old, he has Aspergers, and I've very recently pulled him out of school due to bullying. He's been bullied by teachers and pupils on and off for 2 years, and constantly from Nov '16 - Jul '17. He's been withdrawn, down & pretty difficult as a result. Over the long summer holidays, after 5-6 weeks away from school he just started being his old self again, cheerful and engaging with the family / playing with his brothers nicely. Then as we approached the new term he started to regress, feel anxious. He was bullied his first day back and came home very withdrawn. I have tried many times last academic year to work with the school regarding the bullying, but they don't seem willing to tackle it. Anyway, I have now removed DS2 from this school.

Right now I'm dealing with the fall out. It's pretty tough, my son feels that he's been 'forced out' of his school by the bullies and teachers who won't deal with them. At this point it is not clear if he'll settle into home ed and do this long term, or whether it will be a temporary thing until he can find another school to go to next term.

Anyway, what I want to ask is - how does unschooling / recovery differ from how you normally home educate? Does this mean maybe no formal learning during the unschooling period?

Also, is there anything I can do to help my son recover from what he's been through and this feeling of being forced out & missing out?

Lastly, my DS tends to use his iPad to excess (I think it's an escape thing, when he finds life too hard to face). How can I simultaneously prevent him from spending too much time plugged in and also unschool him?! Can anyone give me any do-able tips? I have 2 other children, little family support.

TIA for any tips / advice x

It may help him feel a bit better about the situation if you fight that school somehow. Make a formal complaint or get him to write a letter of you want. You have to make sure that he doesn't feel at fault or like a failure over what happened. As for limiting iPad use maybe you could take this as a good time to spend some quality time together just the two of you and do some new things. Enrol in some art classes, take up golf, go to nearby museums or NT, grow some plants in your garden, get him involved in cooking dinner, maybe look into local homeschooling groups if he is up for it.

TBH if you aren't sure whether you are going to home educate long term (for at least a year I would say) or whether he will be back in a school in 6/7/8 weeks then there is no point deciding to unschool. I think you need to make a decision about what's happening for the next year at least before you can decide to unschool (which is really no formal/books/lessons learning) or whether to home educate to a programme or curriculum or routine. If he is going to be in school again in 8 weeks then he will need to be doing work at home to keep him up to date with what the class he goes into will be covering in all subjects. Otherwise he will struggle more than necessary to settle into the new school.

OK, there are two different things here :)

Unschooling is a whole educational philosophy about education not being something that's best done by adults to children, but that instead, children can learn through their own projects, endeavours, and the role of the parent is to facilitate.

Deschooling is what you are talking about really :) Deschooling is a process of recovery when someone comes out of school. It's a period in which they find their mojo again. They gradually remember what it's like to have time to do something just because they want to do it themselves, because it interests them. They gradually remember what it's like to be a self-directed, self-motivated learning machine (like they were as a toddler). This process is HIGHLY recommended when someone comes out of school, whether they'll subsequently be formally educated at school or at home, or whether they'll be unschooled. The rule of thumb is one month recovery per year spent in school, although it can take longer if there was any trauma in the school experience.

What this means is that it's really important that you DON'T settle into a formal education routine until next easter at the earliest (yes, I mean it). Obviously, there needs to be plenty of educational stuff going on, but that needs to be low stress, low risk, low anxiety (e.g. if he's into art, then sign up for a home ed art class; or if he's into swimming, then go swimming twice a week together, just to have fun in the pool, but it's also a learning opportunity; or maybe he'd like to do karate; or join one of the home ed minecraft communities [facebook is your friend...]). For all the other stuff, answer his questions when he asks them. It is going to take time, but in a month or two, you'll just begin to get those toddler-esque "why?" questions coming back at you, and can begin to answer them, or google/research answers together. Don't let those questions turn into a project - let the answers happen to the depth he wants, and then let them float away.

About screen time - it can really help to have a rigid daily routine. For example, put a timer on the iPad, set to an agreed time, and then that's it until tomorrow. Or have an agreement that after breakfast, the two of you do agreed chores (make a list, he chooses 5 on the list to do with you - clear and load dishwasher, put on laundry, weed vegetable patch, piano practice, whatever it is - at 12, one of the most valuable things he can be learning is how to be a fully participating member of the domestic round!) and then you go out somewhere (home ed group, sport, park, walk in the woods, whatever), and then it's screen time from 3pm onwards or something.