“De-schooling” ideas for child that uses the iPad a lot

[EmPeEf]

I’m thinking of taking my 12 year old, year 7 son out of school. He’s neurodiverse, waiting for assessments and EHCP at school, has an initial assessment with a mental health worker coming, and has a current plan with the school SENCO to use movement breaks and their “Attic Pass” which are currently making no difference.

I home educated his older brother for two years when he was much younger, and we involved ourselves in groups and classes. It was easy to fill our time.

However this child experiences severe burnout going out of the house or socialising, and his main hobby is using his iPad for games. We moderate it as much as possible, especially regarding fast dopamine hit activities.
He also is under a physiotherapist for pain, mostly in his knees, every day. So he’s physically limited.

How do I handle taking him out when I know he’a going to want to sit on his iPad all day. I’ll really struggle to suggest alternatives, as he even has to recover from a drive in the countryside looking at wildlife etc. Physical activity is not an option, and I can see him complaining of boredom a lot. This is the only factor I’m concerned with regarding trying to home educate him. I’m a bit stumped.

Chess, reading, art, board games?

Put it away. Hand him a book, games, craft, art, music, cooking, baking. Gardening if you have a garden.

Are there any tabletop activities he would enjoy? Jigsaw puzzles, model airplanes, painting or other craft? Things that are slow and don’t need your input all the time.

This.

I also recommend things like (if you have a budget for buying the resources) snap circuit kits, Turing Tumble, model building/painting (is he into anything like Warhammer? It's a great way to have very structured social interactions for ND kids).

Does he like animals? Is there a dog you could borrow to take for walks or even better to one of those dog fields (less walking and more stuff to interact with so might suit your DS better)?

I have knee pain and the best thing I do is a swim. The pool is quiet mid morning and no one chats. I would take him for a swim four days a week.

Music. Both lessons and practice get him off screens, and there’s an instrument for everyone. If you do end up homeschooling, county music services music hub activities are great. Quite a few homeschool families use our Saturday morning music school.

All really good suggestions, thank you! I guess my biggest hurdle will be being firm and just coping with the idea that he feels bored or annoyed but going “it’s tough shit” in my head.

He does art. He draws anime figures including digitally.
I’d love for music to be one of the things but that’s one of the classes he has to use the attic pass for because of the noise sensory.
I bought a jigsaw for the Easter holidays and we all sucked at getting it done 😅 but I wonder if he’d like something more advanced like the figure painting. He has Rainbow High dolls and I used to restore My Little Ponies. Maybe we could do some custom stuff.

I should probably add that I’m physically disabled (electric wheelchair out of the house), have autism and ADHD, have three noisy dogs and am about to give birth 😅 It’s literally the worst time to try and do something like this but I am so sick of the tears and things he says like he can’t do life and wanting to run away 😢

Really appreciate these ideas though. I definitely want some more outside of the box ideas. Maybe I should get a sewing machine.

Sewing machine is a great idea.

Does he like audio books? My (very similar sounding) DS will sit and focus on all sorts of crafts and fine motor type activities if there's a good audio book playing. We have a Listening Books subscription which is much cheaper than Audible - if your DS has a diagnosis and EHCP you'd qualify for one too.

He might find solo music lessons with an instrument of his choice to be very different to a class music lesson in school! So could be worth a try. You could find a teacher who will come to you for some instruments too.

What style of home ed are you going for?

I ask because I think screen time can be much more disruptive to unschooling/self- directed approaches than to the "school at home" type home ed. Because of tendency for quick dopamine hits to interfere with a person's natural curiosity and motivation.

I've only seen unschooling work in households that severely control devices- which is one reason why I didn't choose this approach for my own kid.

We did a limited number of non-negotiable "mum directed" activities like maths and writing. And I let him use screens as he wanted the rest of the time.

He's do things like designing flags for imaginary countries while listing to a podcasts running on another tab.

It was surprising how educational his use of screens could be. Although I was definitely more comfortable letting him do his own thing, knowing that I had the basics covered.

In terms of non screen based stuff my son enjoyed:

1. Model making (clay, pipe cleaners, craft wire etc)
2. Science kits
3. Snap circuits
4. Making costumes and puppets
5. Home ed meet ups.