ASD, secondary home ed, experiences?

[leafandpetal]

Hi, I wanted to post on here rather than in the Home Ed boards, coz this feels more like home for me! I wondered if anyone would be happy to share their experience of taking their dc out of secondary school to Home Ed, either short term or long term? My DS is 12, ASD, and in Year 8 at a mainstream school. He hates it, has pretty much stopped going. So tempted to try home schooling for a year, in part so we could take our time finding another type of school. I'd have to not work for a year. We'd be broke, but it's like he's got the weight of the world on his shoulders, he's so stressed there, plus he's making almost no progress. Can anyone tell me whether it's been a good or bad thing for them, and what's the trickiest aspect of it? Thanks

Thanks zzzzzz. Will wait with bated breath (no pressure!).

No worries, I know those days well! 👍

We home educate (nominally) ds2 age fourteen.

We agonized over the decision but ultimately it was because (i) His academic progress had stalled and (ii) His behaviour was deteriorating and school were restraining him far too often in our opinion and (iii) He was very socially anxious.

Since leaving school eighteen months ago he is less depressed, his diet has improved considerably, incidents of aggressive behaviour have dramatically decreased, he can manage visits to relatives again and manages to got to a weekly social club., he manages things like the dentist again.

Academically it is difficult to judge where he is at because we do not do anything formal with him because of his demand avoidance. However, he does self teach.. One thing that has been lovely to see is his renewed interest in learning. In no way is it following the National Curriculum and it will not result in GCSE's but he is learning which is more than he was doing at school.

Difficulties we have found are to keep him from being on the computer all day and to provide a peer group so he is isolated. For various reasons we do not access home education groups but they are fairly active in the area. It constrains what dh and I do as although we can leave him for short periods we don't like doing this too often or too long.

I don't know what the future holds for ds2 but I do think he has a better chance than if we had kept him at school and certainly for the family it has been the right thing to have done too.

Yep, forget the big drawback of the financial repercussions - not just short term but long term in terms of pension contributions. I do manage to work a bit from home though so not quite as bad for us..

Thanks zzzz and oneineight. I had my ds's annual review this morning, hence not getting back sooner.

It's all very interesting to hear. Yes ds's academic profess has completely stalled too, and not only that but he's now really losing the belief that he CAN learn at all. He's anxious, lost a huge amount of confidence. I'd really like to spend the year with him, building up his confidence, working on life skills as well less conventional learning, encouraging him to try new things. I think we'd also have challenges about him being on the computer though as well. I've gone onto the 'entitledto' website and coz I currently earn so little we may not be that worse off!

Thanks both. I'm inching towards a decision! 😄