20 year old furious with me for home educating them

[woollybean]

Has anyone had any experience of this as I am really struggling. They are depressed with anxiety and blaming it completely on them being HE’d. They have alway been able to communicate with anybody when they were a child and they were never isolated, encouraged to join groups etc. Their mental health is really bad at the moment and it’s breaking my heart. I have suggested making an appointment with the GP for help and they already see a private therapist for CBT but they’re just getting worse. They say that they’ll never get better and they’re just existing.

It sounds a very similar situation to my friend’s DC. I watched her growing up and it was very clear she had a happy childhood and benefitted from home ed in many ways. I think she would have struggled at school. She doesn’t accept she feels different as she has ASC and so home ed is an easier explanation for her. Do try not to take it too much to heart. As a parent you can only do what you feel best at the time.

Thank you.
Im sorry I wasn’t clearer about college, he did a course which was for a year which he completed but chose not to do the next level of.

Damned if you do, damned if you don't. If you'd forced him to attend school he'd have blamed you for his difficulties. Do you have records of what was happening back then that you could show him, and remind just why you HE'd?

Well at a guess being home educated may have meant he struggled with the atmosphere at college compared to his previous education, being unused to that kind of schooling environment. It's an easy argument to throw at you for what is undoubtedly a far more complex problem. While I do believe bad parenting has a lot to answer for, I also find that if you want to find a reason to have a pop at your parents, it's very easy to find one. He may or may not genuinely regret being home schooled but the fact is you can't do anything about that now. Focus on how to achieve what he wants to do with his life next. It sounds like a new therapist may help with that.

Try the GP as anxiety meds may help

I have reminded him that this is what he wanted and that he wasn’t coping in school due to Aspergers and he said I should have just made him go and shouldn’t have let him make his own decisions. Everyone has always commented on what a happy child he was and he has grown in to a very intelligent, funny young man. But he struggles socially and he is convinced he wouldn’t if he had gone to school. I am going to try and get an appointment with the GP in the morning even though he said that there’s no point as he’s never going to have a life, he’s just existing 😢

Well this is his autism and mental health talking - he's seeking to place blame, and its easy to pin it on you. Fact of the matter is that he'd be struggling regardless of where he was educated. Is he open to listening to that?

Home Ed is the scapegoat here. If you'd made him to go school he'd have been blaming that, and maybe been feeling even worse.

OP
Based on your posts, it seems your son would likely still be very upset and lash out even if he had gone to school. He had several chances to attend in the past but chose not to, making it clear he wasn’t interested. Forcing him into school would probably cause more problems and add unnecessary complications.
He’s navigating life with Asperger’s and the challenges of being a young adult, including anger issues.
Don’t let his struggles pull you down, and don’t let him spiral into guilt, regret, or resentment.
If the weight of these negative emotions becomes too much for either of you, seeking help or exploring other supportive options might be essential.

Find/Show him ALL the mainstream schooled kids and adults who're also struggling, some who are just 'existing' right now too. His case isn't different just because he was home ed. School or home ed, outcomes vary and there's no way he'd have known.

You did what you felt was best for him. The only thing is to move forward. He may need further counselling to stop navelgazing/finding blame and accept that this is no one's fault. Then a solution to what he may want to do.

I know it's easier said than done though as when someone is in the throes of a mental health crisis, it's hard to see the woods for the trees. Having someone to blame is the easier thing to do so maybe just let him do that and hopefully, he'll come out the other side soon.

CBT is not effective for Autistic people as far as I know. (Did you know Asperger’s is an out of date term btw?) Home Ed can be a wonderful choice and is definitely better than mainstream for many, not just neurodivergent kids. I think that’s pretty obvious given the number of mainstream kids also struggling with mental health concerns. The system is fucked. There is no right or wrong and blame is pointless. I’d look for a different therapy more suited to autistic kids.

Unfortunately he won’t listen to anything at the moment, all he can see is that he is massively struggling and it’s because he was home educated.

No I didn’t realise that CBT wasn’t effective for Autistic people nor did I realise Aspergers is an out of date term. I will look for more suitable therapy, thank you.

I am ringing the GP first thing and hope I can get an appointment quickly and with a doctor that is open to medication.

Yeah, my mum, home educated me for no good reason and I never forgave her for it.

I feel she deprived me of a huge life experience that I will never be able to experience again. When other kids were hanging out in the playground and socializing and going to lessons and passing notes, I was stuck at home with her.

Even now, as a grown adult, I still look at teenage girls in school uniforms, having fun and chatting after school and I feel sad.

Unless there is a compelling reason, such as disabilities or special needs, just don't do it.

It would be very unusual indeed for a child to be angry with their parents for not home educating them

No home education allowed in my country,

It's about sociailsation (sp?) as much as education.

Is he on any medication currently ? I take Propranolol for my anxiety & Venlafaxine for my BPD/depression. Definitely get him set up on some medication, I've suffered with my MH since I was 11 and started to harm myself. Now I'm much more stable and I think that's due to my age & medication. It can take a few tries for anti depressants to find one that works, took me 4 or 5 different ones to finally find one that works for me. Tell him not to lose hope if the first one doesn't work and to work with the DR to find one that helps🩷

Nice to actually read some positive home ed comments for once!!

So how does it work if they just can't cope or won't go?

No one’s saying we’re happier now than in comparable conditions in the past. We don’t know how happy people in the past were with their lot. We have massively higher expectations than our ancestors did because progress has given most westerners an easier, more comfortable life.

Education for all children has been a big step forward. Very few of us could do the same job as a trained professional teacher. OP’s son’s condition meant he wasn’t able to get full advantage from a normal school education. It wasn’t OP’s choice.

I don't know if the education method has affected your daughter or not, but I knew someone who at age 30 was upset at her parents for sending her to a private school and she viewed herself as 'creative' and thought she would of fared better and achieved more if she went to the local high school. When people are struggling it can be easier to point their finger at something out of their control, than focus on what they do to change their mindset or situation.

I am sure you made the best choice you could at the time with the available information, because home schooling would have taken sacrifices.

I think that's a silly response.

Up to the invention of compulsory education in (iirc) around 1900 (certainly the late 19th C), children spent their formative years working in the fields or the mills or alongside their parents in cottage industries.

Communal life was the norm, with children spending most of their time with other children either at work or at play. The exception was the children of the upper classes, sequestered at home with nursery maids and governesses during childhood and then the boys were packed off to boarding school.

Lacking the opportunities in modern communal settings like school (and former settings like the farm or factory or outdoors in crowded slum streets) to learn to rub along with their peers, home educated children are deprived of the daily socialisation that children have had for thousands of years. It doesn't always work out well for the children.

To be fair to your child, telling him he chose it or was all for it at the time is quite a cop out on your part. You were the parent.

have you … read the thread? Or just the ops posts?

I have no particular comment on home educating, but I can back up what another poster in regards to CBT for autistic people.

I tried CBT as a teen due to depression and anxiety, and it only made me feel worse. I felt condescended to, and like they were trying to trick me into getting better by getting me to come up with coping strategies I'd already tried and found unsuccessful. I dropped out of CBT after a few months and waited years before trying therapy again; after that first experience, I just didn't trust that it would actually help. Eventually I tried DBT, and then moved on to a mixed-approach counsellor combining techniques from talk therapy, DBT, relational therapy, transactional analysis, trauma therapy, and more. I've now been with that counsellor for several years and consider my current sessions to be "maintenance" more than active treatment, and it's done wonders for my wellbeing.

Not all CBT is ineffective for autistic people, and not all autistic people find CBT ineffective, but that does seem to be a common theme. I know some therapists provide an adapted form of CBT with autism in mind, but me and many of my autistic friends have found DBT much more effective. I won't go into why I find it better than CBT so as not to turn this into more of an essay than it already is. It's worth looking into DBT providers and trauma therapy* providers with a specific interest or specialism in working with autistic patients. The National Autistic Society resources may come in handy when looking into what's best for your DS. You're clearly keen to help and support him, and having that solid parental advocacy in his corner is already a great start.

*This is not to say that homeschooling is inherently traumatic, but an acknowledgement of current theories that many autistic people seem to be "easily traumatised." That's an oversimplification, I know, but some studies suggest that autistic people develop trauma responses to "non-traumatic" events. In my experience keeping that in mind when approaching therapy has been incredibly helpful, and may explain why he feels homeschooling has exacerbated his issues. Please understand that I'm not suggesting that you traumatised your DS with homeschool, just that this isn't an abnormal response in autistic people. Appropriate therapy will likely help him process this and understand that you made the best decision available to you at the time.