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's not your fault OP. He was very happy being home educated and he was happy at college. He's not happy now. So he needs to think about what he's doing now. There's too much of a tendency to dwell on the past, which of course can be the cause of current problems but very often depression is situational. Mine certainly is even though I come from a very dysfunctional family. I was still a happy child and a happy young adult even though I was bullied all through school. I'm not happy now because I'm isolated and lonely. I know this because I just had a few weeks staying with a friend and I became relaxed and happy during that time. Now I'm back home and my brain is in turmoil again.

I still use Asperger's...I was diagnosed with it ten years ago when it didn't officially exist. I find if I say myself or the kids have autism, people assume we have a learning disability. It was never helpful to change the labels.

Does he have anything to do? Having nothing to do when you are young can make you really depressed I think. Could you encourage him to do another college course or find a job? The right course or job could make a massive difference.

As far as educating children before 1800 /As most were working in factories or on the land .there was little need for a traditional education. I dont think that there is a comparison to be made .The working classes were not allowed the vote,and the tube lines were in different colours .This was because most people couldnt read and just saw yellow for example as "their" line.

I sometimes use the term Asperger’s because ‘autism’ is so broad.
So if I tell someone DS has autism they really don’t know what sort of needs he has. I usually say something like ‘he’s autistic, the Asperger’s kind’.

Most laypeople aren’t familiar with the terms ‘support needs level 1, 2 or 3’. The term high-functioning is not in favour now either, and anyway he’s not in many ways so it feels wrong (he’ll probably never live independently due to severe MH difficulties).

Asperger’s is shorthand for saying no intellectual disability or speech issues and most people recognise that meaning.

I took DS out of school too OP. I had no choice.

What a load of shit. it’s not food or water or exercise. It’s not family or friends. It’s not a need, nor a want for many. She “denied” them an imposed time at an institution that only became a thing for girls 130 or so years ago. an institution most of us didn’t enjoy, some of us liked and lots of us were actively destroyed by. School as we know it was designed to feed factory owners’ worker pipeline. and how on earth we have been conned into thinking it is normal to hand our kids over to people we don’t know for them to guide them in their values and understanding of the world five days a week, while we get threatened with jail for spending time with them other than the weekends is insane.

If the op gave her a decent time homeschooling there’s no reason this is the reason she is troubled by it any more than if she had a decent time at school.

she is 20 and something(s) has happened that she’s trying to assign a reason/blame to. It could be that a boyfriend/gf broke up with her and she’s trying to find a reason why… “he didn’t like me because I was too quiet, im quiet because I was home schooled”

or she was SA’d (not to put too finer point on it but it’s very common at this point in life for women to experience their first assault so just something to consider) but won’t tell anyone so is hunting for something to blame… “if I understood boys better I wouldn’t have let that happen, I didn’t go to school with boys so therefore I was stupid and didn’t see the assult coming”

or she is neurodivergent and it’s catching up with her now she’s trying to be independent, if she’s undiagnosed she wouldn’t know it’s that so…”I’m weird and can’t cope because I was homeschooled”

or she has fallen out with friends or doesn’t feel like she fits in at uni and she is trying to understand why… “I don’t fit in because I was homeschooled”

or she’s at uni and she is finding the structured work and group settings a bit much… “Im struggling, it must be because I’m homeschooled”

sorry if there’s updates I’ve missed, I was just super annoyed by this first comment!

edited to add that she might absolutely be lacking in certain areas of society due to not being mainstream schooled, just as she’ll be more advance in others. So it might actually absolutely be to do with being homeschooled - but homeschool is not the problem, it’s a red herring for what she is actually upset about right now. She just needs to figure out/face what that is.

@woollybean sounds like you did the right thing for him at the time and gave him a happy childhood and a good education that ended with him getting GCSEs and going to college.

Unfortunately despite that, he is an unhappy adult.
If you had dragged him into school every day where we was stressed and probably bullied, he would also be an unhappy adult but likely without the foundation of a happy childhood and good education.

They? Surely he or she or are there several.

The answer to this is, whatever you decide for the best, you can't win.

This was our experince as well. My son is now 19 and after 2 years of being at home and doing pretty much nothing m, his mental helath is somewhat better than when he left college. School was incredibly traumatic for him, it was an abosolute nightmare, in particualar years 9-11, though to be fair he barely went in during year 11 and year 10 was mostly covid home schooling, which in my son's case actually helped a bit compared to year 9 . Had Covid not happened, I think he might have got even worse being forced to go in to school in year 10

He said several times during year 9 that he wanted to kill himself. Not only my DS but my DH and I are almost traumatised by the stress of those years. Looking back I seriously wish I had been able to make the sacrifices required to home school him

Op - I think your son had a good childhood and didn't have to deal with much stress or difficult times because you helped him do that by avoiding some of the things that would have introduced stress. School can be a very toxic environment for children who don't fit in. All the talk about 'socialising' being a good reason to attend school assumes the child has the ability to socialise without a great deal of scaffolding and help. Help that schools are are not set up to provide as they focus on academics. Many children with ASD are thrown into mainstream school with no proper help wuth the social side of things and in fact help in that area is incredibly dfficult to provide, particularly in the teenage years. Your son is just now facing a very stressful time in his life , he is moving into adulthood. My son is also finding this an incredibly difficult and stressful time but he is nowhere near as stressed as he was at school so I think he (generally unvoiced) thoughts are that at least this is better than school was.

I met a few people at university who were home educated because of parental preference and they all had the feelings of deprivation and resentment that you describe. It's a really cruel thing to do to a child unless there is a very compelling reason. In all the threads I've read on mumsnet over the years where the topic of home schooling comes up, I have never once seen anyone who went through it who was glad that they missed out on going to school.

I’m sorry. It sounds as if home educating your ds was the best option for him at the time, and I’m sure that when he’s older he will realise this.

Dc often blame their parents/friends/other people/life for anything in their life they don’t like; it takes maturity to take responsibility for your own situation and feelings.

Keep on going as you are. If his mh improves, then his outlook will probably also improve.

Take care of yourself too.

I do think other posters are right though that all you can do now is accept he feels the way he does and say you're sorry - you made the best decision you could with the knowledge you had at the time.

I have lots of thoughts on this, not least because my autistic teen is at online school for similar reasons!

I think your best bet is to invite your adult child to read around this issue. The literature on school and the sort of autism your child and mine has is pretty clear. You should set up a very clear alternative narrative, which is backed by the evidence - that chances are had he stayed in school he would have had poor attendance, would have been ostracised or bullied, and would have burned out. Yes, of course some autistic people do fine in school, but your view as a family was that school was not the right place for him.

The fact that he was sociable in primary is neither here nor there, frankly, and he is kidding himself if he imagines that he would have similar relationships in secondary school. It’s normal for autistic kids to do better socially as younger children. It’s equally normal for those friendships to melt away in their early teens.

You don’t mention how your DS did academically but if he is unhappy with his qualifications, he can go back to college.

I would say if he is struggling socially now, he would have struggled worse in school. Adults are more polite than children.

I think you need to be very blunt with him and fight your corner. The quote from Chinua Achebe springs to mind - “a man’s accusing finger will always find a woman”.

Re CBT - it was a strongly pushed by DD’s previous physical school and was a mistake. That said, I saw Naomi Fisher recently saying it can work better for some autistic people. How is he at knowing how he is feeling? Being dispassionate about those feelings and learning lessons from previous events? If the answer to both those questions is “dreadful” then CBT is not the answer.

I’m so sorry you are going through this.

you did what you thought was right and your child wanted at the time.

I’d explain to your child now that you can’t undo the past, you are sorry it’s upset them and you’d love to support them to have a more positive future. Ask them - Can you accompany them to the doctor? Or anything else they can think of to help?

depressed people are very quick to blame something or someone else for their unhappiness. I really hope you both get some help.

Exactly. I don’t think the (predominantly) middle class parents who constantly rag on formal education have any understanding of what most ordinary children would end up doing without schools. Looking at other parts of the world where there are less socioeconomic opportunities, it’s clear that many children would be working, living on the streets, and experiencing abuse and exploitation.

Btw .. did you know if you were diagnosed with Asperger’s, that’s what on your medical records, and it’s still okay to use that term?? 🙄😵‍💫

If you'd forced him to go to school, he would have still blamed you. He would also have been at a heightened risk of bullying. As an Asperger his problems are inherent (I have Aspergers).

The truth is he has become an adult and has started to notice the widening gap between himself and his peers, and this is depressing him. I went through the same.

He is also learning that he will always find life hard, but still thinks it's fixable or is caused by something other than his condition, o he's trying to find something to blame (you).

Unfortunately he isn’t well enough to get a job at the moment. I am self employed and I get him to do some work for me. He also helps with the household chores and goes out on errands most days.

Might be worth pointing out that neither of you know the counter factual so can’t assess whether it was the right decision or not.

DH really likes that one.

I started the thread out with ‘they’ rather than ‘he’ as I was hoping to not be recognised but realised that it was going to be more difficult to keep that up especially as I was getting (mostly) great advice and feedback.

Thank you for those names of places that can help, he wouldn’t do it now but maybe in the future.

He is doing some work for me at the moment as he wouldn’t be able to do ‘proper’ work, he does household chores and goes out on errands regularly. He goes for at least 1 walk a day too.

Aside from his current situation/difficulties … does he get PIP? He would be entitled to it based on the information you’ve given so far. He can also claim Universal Credit. Having his own income that way for now may alleviate some pressure.

I make sure he eats healthily (although he does have a drink every night as he says that is all he has to look forward to 😢) and gets out of the house each day. He does still research his special interests which is something.

Why can’t OP use they? 😵‍💫 Many do nowadays 🤔

Thank you for all those suggestions, I’ll certainly look into to them.