DD2 has just BEGGED me not to send her to school

[lougle]

She's had the most lovely time with her cousins - a sleepover then a day out with them. But it transpires that they've been telling her not to suck her hand in the last couple of days, as do the children at school, and the teachers at school.

She's just begged me to be a 'home learner'.

The saddest thing was when she said 'I really want to learn at home but I'm worried that if I do miss my friends I won't know the way to their houses when they invite me over to play.' The truth is, she doesn't have any friends to be invited to play with. She associates with the other children, but none would be 'friends'. That's why it was so precious to go and spend time with her cousin (same age, same year group, same school, different class).

It kills me to hear her distress and I know that she knows we keep ignoring her pleas. I can't work out if we genuinely think it's the best for her (she is a child, after all, so we can't let her unilaterally make decisions), or if we're just chicken.

It's the default position for everyone to say 'Oh she's fiiine...'That's what school do. That's what people around us do. Except if I talk about one element in isolation, they'll agree! SIL said she's fine, but when I was talking about her restricted pretend play, she said 'I have noticed that.'

For me, the litmus test is my parents. They are the ultimate 'don't rock the boat' types. My dad, especially so. Yet he is the first one to say 'there's something not right there, you know.' about DD2.

Is her only special need anxiety or does she have something else?

If she does, would she be more suited to special schools in the future? If that's something that's been thought about then maybe it might be worth considering moving her earlier, as she may find that to be a better school environment for her.

If not then I would consider moving her to a new school before home schooling- it might not fix the problem, if it is something she has with any peer group, but then it might, you never know. Though I understand this would be a difficult thing for a child with anxiety to cope with.

The problems with home schooling her would be whether or not you feel able to teach her across the curriculum, especially as she progresses to secondary school age, even if there are groups available that help teach these things.
Also does she have siblings, would you home school them too, I think I would find that hard if they had big age gaps.
Would she be able to develop socially, something she already has problems with- would the groups be enough?
Would she struggle with the fact that she wouldn't have 'home' a place to relax and live with family and 'school' a place to learn and socialise, but that she would now be incorporating the two?
Would you be able to get her to do all the tasks you wanted- my dsd (with learning disabilities) has huge problems doing homework, we have to split it into one piece per night, as she ends up crying her eyes out if you try and get her to do any more, and I really struggle trying to get her to read or practice times tables on top of this- at school she sometimes protests apparently but because all the other kids are doing it, she usually does too.
Would it actually be of benefit to her to not face her problems, even if they are very distressing for her- or would it give her problems when she grows up.
Are you likely to be able to continue to home school financially, through her whole education- or is it likely that you will need to work at some point in this time and have to send her to main stream school- would this be more traumatic- having to readjust?

I hope you manage to do what's best for your child, it's so hard to know what is best at that age!

Hiya lougle

Sorry to only have lurked for much of this thread (stupid password thing, changed it then kept forgetting & locking myself out)

you sound like you're thinking carefully & will get it right

Have a few more bits to add:

So she's clearly confused- she sounds a bit like my DSD socially- she wants to be included and liked by others desperately, and is worried she will loose this if she wasn't at school. But there is something about school she hates- is it the social pressures and being around so many people at once, is it the strict routine- so she can't just eat or play when she wants, is it the work itself that she hates- because she is struggling with it or because it is a lot of effort? If it's the work then there is no real way to solve the problem, unless she is given more assistance.

Alita - DS1 refuses point blank to do homework, but will do anything I ask of him when I teach him at home, exactly how I ask him to do it, and then beg for more. It's a very different mindset for a child who is both demand avoidant and wanting nothing more to do with school, itself.

snap with DS!

Our Home schooling experience is NOTHING like the battles we used to have over homework. Any difficulties we have now behavior wise are directly related to his frustrations when he can't read a tricky word/grasp a concept as fast as he wants to. He makes me chuckle to be honest with how eager he is at times to get down to work - something I couldn't have imagined in my wildest dreams during his school years.

DS loves learning, but loathed school, (& therefore anything associated with it) - they aren't the same thing at all.

For us, the main problem with homework was inadequate instruction from school so that ds wasn't sure what he was meant to do when he got it home. Cue massive anxiety and meltdown, every damned week. That doesn't happen with HE and it's why a lot of home educators report that their children work much better at home than they used to at school. But it's no magic bullet and there are bound to still be some issues to work around.

I'm another who came from the standpoint of "I can't do any worse than school". My benchmark was for ds to get through to 16 with his mental health intact and so far (15 and a half ) we're managing to achieve that. The rest is bonus.

Neither option is perfect and IMO children will most likely miss something whatever their educational experience, school or HE. But in our case my prime concern was for my son to be safe and happy and with a chance of a productive, independent future. He wasn't going to get that in school because the SN approach was too rigid and didn't fit his needs. He was falling to bits.

We did lists of pros and cons before deciding, but in truth it was more to get ds onside before I deregistered because dh and I had already come to the conclusion that school ed wasn't working and never would. We could see that HE would be more likely to succeed if it was ds's choice as well as ours, and that's a very important consideration, obviously. You'll need to be able to look at the factors that your daughter won't have considered and paint a very realistic picture of what HE will mean to her.

I'd spend some time looking at local HE groups (real life and online) and getting to know people before taking the plunge, find out what happens in your area and whether or not it fits.

double snap!

At school i am told DD refuses/chooses not to do any written work at all, which is why they have assessed her level as being so far behind, despite being of average ability. Any homework that is sent home will be guaranteed to cause a meltdown at the mere mention of its existence!

Yet in the last few weeks, while on Easter holidays, DD has filled 3 A4 sized exercise books with writing on various topics. Science/geography/maths have been covered by her studying the plants she has been observing growing. She has started a history project on the lives of people living in the stone age and plans to next learn about bronze age, iron age etc. right up until 'the time when you were a little girl, Mummy'
She has also written several stories and is currently sat with a pencil in her hand drawing the characters from her latest fantasy world, along with a short bio/description for each one. This is more than she has written in the past YEAR in school!

The important things is that I have not asked her to do ANY of this, she has just chosen to do it. If i had asked, I'd likely get pens thrown at me and paper torn up. If I tried to force her to do it, either by bribery or sanctions, I'd probably be smacked, kicked or bitten (this is what happens in school) and still the work wouldn't have been done.

I have no idea whether DD will continue to do this long term when we home ed, or whether by letting her do things out choice only, she will fail to learn some fundamental basics. but as other posters have already said, it can't be any worse than at school, so we are going to give home ed a try and see what happens.

Ahh I wish DSD was like that! The only thing like that she ever chooses to do is maths practice books bellow her level - in fact she isn't too bad about doing things she can already easily do, but anything that challenges her even a tiny bit causes a tantrum or at least tears. Even with sweets as bribery for doing her reading flashcards (1 sweet per 5 she gets right) she still ends up in tears because she can't work out a word sometimes before she's even tried sounding it out. I know sweets aren't the best idea for bribery but not much else works, at least she's willing to try if she's getting sweets :)
Other than that the only other option is documentry style programmes. She likes it if I tell her about how something works, but her lack of memory retention means I have to ask her questions about for weeks after to make sure it sticks, which she doesn't appreciate :P

It's not that she doesn't like learning, she just doesn't like having to read or write or do maths any harder than she can do. And unfortunately, as she has a reading age of 5 at 10, she really needs to practice it, as I think that is holding her back significantly in other areas.

Ds is very poorly motivated, and at 15 he would be expected to be more self-directed if he were in school. At least at home we can switch tasks and provide encouragement and support, or try new approaches, instead of pushing him towards anxiety and meltdown because he can't achieve what's expected of him. The flexibility of HE is ideal for children with additional needs because you can spend more time focusing on the developmental side if that's what's needed, and not just the academic. You can tailor the provision to the individual, which is supposed to happen in schools but doesn't very often, really.

Lots of replies, thank you

Alita7 "Is her only special need anxiety or does she have something else?"

I, my DH, my parents, 2 of DD1's carers (she has SN and goes to special school), etc., are all convinced that she has SN. I, as my hunch, think ASD, but it could be something else and the anxiety gives ASD type reactions, I guess. Unfortunately, school have responded to my reports (and video evidence) of her anxiety, but they see a smiley, happy child. The Paed has only seen her once, in his office. SALT has shown her pictures, told her that she works with DD1 at her special school (true, but I don't think a fair tactic to build a relationship), talked about dogs (her obsession) and shown her picture tests (her strength). Then have said she's fine.

She's far too high functioning for a state special school. But, within her MS class, she's in the bottom group for maths and middling-low for literacy. She needs lots of adult support in maths (but no IEP, no SEN acknowledged). I think they're not using methods she can get to grips with, but as I don't know what they're using, it's hard for me to help her at home. She gets very upset if things at home aren't exactly the same as school, such as number lines.

I'm reluctant to try another school, because she's only been in this one for 1yr 2 months because I had to remove her from her first school after a completely disasterous transition from yrR to yr1 (she got poorly, massive anxiety about all the changes, then attempts to take her back to school and further illnesses corroborated by doctors lead to HT indicating that I was FII). I suspect that we'd just go through the same cycle - token 'new girl' friendships until they realise that DD2 can't be like them then slowly drift away, massive anxiety, token attempts to calm it, then once that's effective, remove it

She hates lots about school. Not just the work, but the pressure, the anxiety, the noise, the chopping and changing of what they're doing, the pace, the busy break times, the crushing assemblies (the hall is so small that they have to file in class by class and are sat in a regimented arrangement so they can all fit), the homework, the feeling that she's thick at maths because she's a circle and the class is always told 'and circles, you don't need to do x bit of the homework because it will be too tricky for you' (or at least, that's what she says. It could have been just once).

I've investigated a bit more. There are 5 HE groups in my local area.

We were talking at the dinner table about looking forward to going back to school and DD2 said 'No, I'm going to be a home learner.' I said 'who told you that?' and she said 'I did. I told myself. I decided.' Then she spent the rest of the afternoon before bed time pleading with us to let her HE.

She thinks she isn't going back after the Easter break

We still need to tackle getting DS1 into school after Easter, lougle. He jumped on stage in front of parents, before Easter and announced that he would be leaving, soon. I've been trying and failing to get through to him that his new school possibly won't start properly until September. I've been dropping some very pointed hints ie "when you are back at school next week, I shall have to finish painting this room".

We'll have to see how it goes.

Yes. It's so hard, isn't it?

I said to DH tonight that one thing I think is really important. I want to be able to look DD2 in the eye, no matter what happens between now and when she's older, and say that we did everything we could to help her. If we ignore her consistent and strong representations about her education, will we be able to say that?

We're the parents, of course, but she has to live it every day. She hates it. Her attendance is 100% (bar one day that I took her home after consulting the teacher on a suspicious crop of spots when C.Pox was going around her class). They say she's happy in school. She says she's not and that she wants to learn at home. She's never wavered from it.

You're meant to be keeping my feet on the ground, zzzzz
Have ever mentioned that I adore stationery? I would obviously have to keep lots of data to reassure the LA that I'm taking my responsibility seriously....I might even need to colour code stuff...

seriously, DH had said that he thinks we'll 'end up doing it'. We had a chat with the girls earlier and said that fair is the right thing for the right person at the right time and that we were sure that DD1's school is right for her, sure that DD3's school is right for her, but we're not sure if school or home is right for DD2 yet, so we're thinking carefully about it.

I already have a head start there, zzzzz. When I was young, most people treated myself and my sister the same even though there was 3.5 years between us and we're like chalk and cheese.

I liked to carefully open a present, examine it, thank the giver, then enjoy it. She used to rip open the wrapping paper as fast as she could then glance at the present, throw a thank you over her shoulder in the general direction of the giver and rip open the next one, until she had all her presents in a heap. Then she'd look at them.

Every Christmas I knew exactly what presents I'd been given without opening them, because whatever she had, I had in a different colour.

I promised myself that my children would be treated as individuals.

ironically, they often want the same things!

Gah!We need a house before we can have a room like those lol! Now I'm totally green with envy at those rooms.

Books, books, books make a home feel properly homely as far as I'm concerned. Go meet some of those home school groups and find one you feel comfy with as they vary so, so much before making your final choice.

The irritating thing about LA checks is that there are no proper guidelines or rules as to what they want to see as evidence. . If you don't know what the criteria for judging is - how can you meet it?

I have an EP & specialist teacher visit coming up and I have NO idea what they want to see from me tbh. The letter says they want to discuss DS's curriculum in detail - but he does online school so I don't decide the schemes of work iyswim. NC level testing never gave the true picture with DS as he can't write for toffee and his profile is SO spiky anyway.

I keep telling myself that our past history with the previous LA is bound to make me paranoid and that DS is happy and learning & that'll have to do.

Our LA seems quite sensible - this is their info on HE.

I know on the HE board they seem quite cautious about LA involvement, but I'm not sure I could be that bothered by their involvement. If we decided to HE and they wanted to advise me, go ahead. They might have some useful thoughts, or know some useful contacts/tips.

The biggest challenge is going to be getting DD2 to return to school on Monday. She's convinced herself that she's a 'home learner' now. Then we have the TAC meeting the following Monday.

What a tricky situation OP! Could it be there may be other options other than HE? Is there another school which might be more suitable - sometimes just a change of scene can work wonders. Or is it worth talking to her teacher about the hand sucking and ask for this not to be mentioned (and to suggest some circle time where other children might be able to be taught about understanding difference a little more?)

As other posters have said, HE is a huge step (and very possibly the right choice) but do exhaust other avenues before committing, and definitely find out how easy/difficult it would be to return to the school system? Does your DD have a statement - might this help find her a school which is better set up for her needs?

Good luck!