Advice wanted from adults with a HFA/Aspergers Diagnosis

[Ohthatiswhy]

Hi,

I am looking for advice from adults with a HFA/Aspergers diagnosis (formal or not). If you look back on your education and could have your teenage years all over again would your preferance be to go to mainstream school or to have been homeschooled please?

My 11 year old refuses school. Sometimes goes in but has long periods where they can’t manage it.

Did you dislike school and long to be homeschooled or do you look back on your mainstream school years as enjoyable or essential for your education?

I am worried about forcing my child back to an environment that ultimately will do more harm than good but I’m interested to learn if people have persevered in mainstream and are glad that they did. Thanks

I look back and wonder how the fuck I wasn't diagnosed. I went home sick almost every week. I hated the noise and the social stuff and was bullied a lot. Most of my memories are being lonely and trying to make it through the day, wandering corridors in breaks looking for quiet places to be alone.

I loved studying though and the few friends I did make (who were all very nerdy) are still vaguely in my life, which makes me feel normal (ish) sometimes.

I guess I'm glad I did well and went to university but I wonder if I'd have been happier in a world that didn't funnel me that way.

I don't know the practicalities but could you try home-schooling for a while and see how it goes? Make a logical plan saying this is why we're doing this (xyz) and measuring success/progress along the way in an objective way?

What do they want to do?

I’m autistic and hated school, but I have no idea if I’d have thrived being at home more.
I don’t have any happy memories of School, and feel that this did affect me long term, self esteem and confidence levels, plus expectations that everyone will hate me and find me annoying, so I’m that respect perhaps Home education would have worked better.

I can say though that my two autistic boys (17 and 13) and been HE for 2.5 and 1.5 years, have thrived for being out of the School environment.

It hasn’t been easy, and my mental health has suffered, but for both of them I can see that it was the right thing to do.

Even if it’s temporary, to give you both space from the stress and work out where to go from there, it could be very positive.

Ds1 now has a full time job, doing something he loves, having had time to focus on his passion (tractors and engines)
Ds2 has just been awarded an ehcp and we're trying to thrash out the final stages to get him into a SS. I don’t regret taking either of them out of school.
I would have liked them to be better supported in school, but as that didn’t happen we had to do something.

Homeschooled. I hated secondary school and refused to attend. My dad wouldn't even let me try a change of school as he said it would be 'running away from my problems.' I hated the noise and overcrowding, the fact that I couldn't relate to my peers at all, the uncomfortable uniform, the petty rules that made no logical sense. I used to be ten minutes late every day and then stay at school until 6pm because I couldn't bear to get on a crowded bus with shouting schoolchildren. From 13 I used to self-harm at school. I hated homework not because the tasks were too difficult but because it meant I had to do 'school' at 'home' and couldn't be free of it anywhere. I rarely completed it. I had no friends. I couldn't eat at school because the lunch hall was too loud.

I missed all of year 8, had sporadic attendance in 9-10, and skipped most of year 11. I felt a tremendous sense of guilt for not being in school, but the anxiety was too much. When I skipped school without my dad's consent, I'd go to the library all day and read and learn things. I was willing to learn, it was the school environment that was completely wrong for me. My dad saw this as 'wasting time reading' and just thought I was misbehaving by not going/not wanting to go.

I would have had a very, very different life if I had been allowed to study at home. Not just in terms of academic achievement but with my mental health and self-worth, too. I've recovered from it, but it took a long time. I left after GCSEs. I went to university at 29 and I really excelled there, but before that I just thought I was stupid and couldn't cope. No doubt homeschooling wouldn't have been perfect, but it would have been better than what I went through.

Thank you so much for the responses. My child’s preference is most definitely to be home schooled. I am reading all of your responses very carefully, the crowds, noise and isolation within a crowd are significant issues for us and bring on huge anxiety.

I’m not sure wasting more time on the wrong environment is useful for anyone and can obviously be damaging for some individuals.

I guess I was hoping that there would be a balance of responses that include really positive experiences after an initial difficult period.

Joy breathing space is good advice.

I do not want to shoehorn my child into the NT world of education and make them ill.

Have SS been a more successful option for you or your child?

Adore thank you for sharing your experience with me.

Mogle they very much want to be home schooled. I’m more worried about my ability to support that option.

In fairness, I think that the views you'll get here are more likely to be "I had a terrible time".

Our autism is a big enough deal for us that we're here in this hidden topic on Mumsnet.

Can I recommend joining Reddit and posting on Aspergers or Aspergirls? You'll be talking to mostly younger people who won't necessarily have the viewpoints we do.

Mogle. Thanks will do. I’m reading and going to as many RL groups as possible to try and navigate the next stage (teenage years). I’ve meet with some fantastic people that are helping me to better understand and help shape my child’s future.

I’m always delighted when people respond to my posts.

I'm not sure if my view will be totally helpful, because for me school was an escape from an awful home life, so although I hated secondary school for years 7-11 (sixth form was much better), I hated my home life more. Also for me, I understood the routine of school, and what was expected of me, which I didn't at home, so it was a part of my life that made sense. That being said, I had major mental health issues throughout my school years, which being the 90s, weren't treated properly (my parents seemed normal and I was intelligent so although many of my teachers were lovely and looked out for me, they never considered that anything serious was going on, probably because they expected my parents would have brought it up).

Anyway, to answer your question, I actually did refuse to go to school for a while because I was incredibly anxious about something. Homeschooling would never have been an option for me, but I don't think being forced back to school in the way that I was was the right thing either. If I'd had supportive parents, then maybe homeschooling might have been better, but I did eventually make some friends - people I'm still in touch with now - and in sixth form with more freedom, no uniform and proper friendships, I would have picked school every time.

Your DC is still young. I would at least give them a year or two at home if you can afford to, and try to help them find coping techniques for the things they are anxious about as well. If you're worried about not being able to support them from an educational POV - they could join back into a school in year 9 (assuming you can find somewhere suitable) and still do GCSEs that way potentially. It was actually year 9 I missed part of, and I would say from a personal point of view, it's at that point that catching up becomes harder.

Lost I think you are right regarding coping strategies. The mental health issues are my biggest worry. We are busy trying to unravel and get treatment for MH. Whatever decision is made I refuse to put education in front of health. I’m sorry to read that you were stuck between two unsupportive environments, it must have been exhausting for you.

I am lucky in that I don’t seem to suffer much with loud noises and crowds and so on, I’m aware that I’m different from other posters in that way.
I liked the routine of school and so homeschooling would have been difficult in that sense, ie not having to get up for a certain time, lunch being at 1:15pm, that sort of thing. It was also a fairly small private school (not like the local comprehensive I also got a place at where there would’ve been 240 pupils in the year!)
My biggest issue with school was my organisation... dear god it was awful. My school were used to intelligent girls who also worked hard... and so my teachers could be somewhat frustrated with me. Funnily enough many of them did like me (heaven knows why!!)

Bizarrely, I also do much better when I’m with people my age, more “grown up” in a way. Being stuck at home with my mother all day wouldn’t have been much good for my social skills, which I was at least able to pick up to some extent through being with others all day.

I am aware that I’m unusual in my experience, and if your child is really suffering then I probably would home ed for at least a year or two. If having a routine is important for her then I would probably try and implement one, so that she knows what is happening when, maybe get her involved so that she feels she has input and control. There are also various online schools, InterHigh being one, that deliver lessons in real time so she could follow their timetable. (Obviously this option costs money so you’d have to take that into consideration).

OP you sound like an incredibly understanding and supportive parent. I'm really glad that you're putting your DC's health first. The mental health system in this country is not easy to navigate at the best of times so I wish you luck with that.

And thank you I'm still picking apart bits of it now, which is rather frustrating.

You're welcome OP

I'll second the comment that you seem like a really supportive parent. I imagine that will make an enormous difference to your child.

I don't blame my family for my experiences - they were told by a professional that I was 'school phobic' and the solution was to try to make me go to school. It baffles me now, considering the severely depressed and anxious state I was in. Any adult in that situation would be signed off work or at the very least advised to try to find a different job in a better environment. Not 'you're work phobic' or 'finding a new job is running away from your problems.' All I got was 'you're a child, all children have to go to school.' It wasn't even about the educational value, just being normal and doing what others did.

I hope that MH treatment is much better now than it was when I was a teenager, but you might want to be careful that the emphasis is on helping your child with their anxiety, not just getting them back in school (if the end result is that they feel able to cope with school, great! But as you said, health before education).

If you're concerned about your child being isolated if you home educate, it might be worth looking up groups in your area. Obviously it won't be the same everywhere, but I know several areas with thriving HE communities that are very inclusive of different needs and arrange things like sports, educational days out and group projects.

Adore Threads like this, reading and attending rl groups are my biggest support for MH and autism advice. Nothing else compares to discussing the issues with people that are/have experiencing/experienced them.

I have been thinking about education and what it means for my child. I’ve gone a bit philosophical over night

I was happy enough at school. Do you have an option to look at visiting different schools? Some schools are better than others at supporting. Eg some schools will understand and allow pupils to have a time out card and go to a quiet room if needed. Your child is entitled to adjustments like this to help.

Notevil thank you. I aim to interview as many schools as possible. I think the sensory issues will be the biggest hurdle. We are busy nursing MH issues and when recovery comes I need to be sure that the right environment is found going forward.

I also think that life experience is a matter of chance. One experienced autism aware teacher/kind friend/ understanding LSA can make all the difference to my child coping or not.....

Could she possibly use noise-cancelling headphones/does she use them? Even if you ultimately decide to homeschool. If she wore them when going out in public, people would probably just assume she’s listening to music if she felt self-conscious.

Hi toffee all 5 senses are acute super powers!

Things that would help are no school uniform, packed lunches eaten out of sniff reach of the canteen, chairs with a cover, moving between classes before the bell, tinted glasses, a quiet space to retreat to, headphones and a fan.

I have some idea of what is needed because my child is vocal and explicit, which is a positive, but I’m struggling to see how it all translates to a busy school environment.

The experiences that others have had in school where their needs have not been met are crushing.

The philosophical view on education is making me think long and hard. What is education and what is the end goal and is there more than one way or a combination of routes to get there (wherever ‘there’ is)