advice from homeschoolers please

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i am considering homeschooling my son, i see it reccomended again and again, i have thought about it i'm still not really sure, i guess part of it is my lack the confidence in myself to do it.
what do you know about it?
costs?
set up?
finding or designing cirriculum?
provincial standards?
any good places online to look?
do library's have textbooks to check out or can yo borrow from schools?
what do you do with younger siblings?
i live in Manitoba, Canada.
i still kind of like the idea of him going to school and learning the social skills and interaction with others his age. plus i don't know how to teach him some stuff, do they show you how in the books?
OR
is it better to leave him in school for the early years then look into it later or if things aren't going as well.
i love my son, sometimes he's a bit overwhelming for me beacuse of our communication issues, but i am enjoying the break i get when he's in preschool, and he seems to really enjoy it so far, but he's so academically far ahead i just worry about when he gets into older grades.
i know i'm kind of all over the place with this but any help would be appreciated.
thanks
(i am NT son is dx AS)

Hi, am 44 year old Aspie mother of 8 year old boy with AS/pervasive development disorders. He did not like school. So he's stayed home, and apart from a correspondence course at about 100€ a term to keep away the zealous french academic inspectors, and of which we just do the homework for assessment purposes we do nothing "academic" at all. Have left son to own devices, which in the case of reading and writing has def worked, despite slow start that had me worried. But he just learned , by himself, motivated by wanting to read stuff on internet and in his cartoon books. Don't know what will do later.
If your son is happy at school at moment, if he really is happy, then leave him there.
Does he know he has any choice? If he doesn't then he may be making great efforts to adapt because he thinks, intelligently enough, that if can't stop going to school he should make best of it. I was one of those, resigned to wasting hours every day on this place, getting on with the stupid activities because i thought there was no alternative. And i wish i had known. IF it is a possibility for you, to have your son at home if he wants to, then you need to let him know that he has the choice. Unless you want to make the choice for him.
I totally understand wanting time for yourself; i would have loved it too; the second time we tried school was because i so wanted to have peace in the daytime. But son has never liked school.

It can also depend on the schools available to you. And the kinds of things which interest him.
Good luck!

I briefly homeschooled my son last year during a hard time for him. I got level-appropriate workbooks for every subject and a book called What Every First Grader Needs To Know (there is one for every grade). I prepared by scheduling the day. So much time for reading (language arts), computer time, math and break for lunch and PE (we'd take the bus to the park for sports) and then return for science. This combined would take 4-5 hours. Though book-learning was like 2 1/2 hours, which is what other parents report. I would add the long lunch/PE break to make it more like a school schedule and to keep the day structured. (to keep him from tv, video games, etc)

I got the materials in teacher's store and at a bigbox bookstore. I kept a journal of troubleshooting. This was a time where we had to unteach a bunch of stuff from Pop's school experience. So, I logged what he was doing, good and bad and what I was doing to discourage/encourage. We took a lot of breaks for stretching and resting hands. I hugged him when he got anxious and made him do jumping jacks if he was getting really distracted.

If I had continued, I was planning on joining a Homeschoolers support group, which meets once a week for chat and PE. They're like a co-op, they get group rates on activites in the region (field trips). I would also enroll my son in a city sports class.

I believe some places you are entitled to free textbooks from the school district. I wouldn't use them because they're so backwards and boring.

You first need to find out about the legal stuff pertaining to where you live - I just Googled "homeschooling Canada" and then got to this:

http://www.edu.gov.mb.ca/k12/specedu/in ... e_sch.html

it has a ton of info. for your particular area. I am in the 2nd year of homeschooling my 10 year old and it has been a life saver. You do not have to know how to teach every subject -there are so many resources online, book, etc. you will be amazed.

As far as the "social" aspect of school you probably have read other posts about how public school isn't always the best or kindest environment for an aspie kid to learn socialization - in my opinion it's probably the worst. You may find that the older he gets the more problems occur in school. Maybe not? Maybe you'll get lucky? My son did fine in school 3rd grade and then bullying started and didn't stop - it was a stressful, bad place for my son to spend 7 hours every day.

You are going to have to do some research- get ready to sit at the computer for awhile gathering information. Homeschooling can look however you want it to look - you don't have to have a "structured, textbook type curriculum". We sort of use a unschooling approach and it seems to suit my son for now. That's another important part of your research -finding out how your child learns, what gets them really excited about learning, do they LOVE workbooks? do they HATE to sit while they learn? I finally figured out that my son needs to move a little bit (pace around or fidget with something) while he is learning so I let him - In public school he probably would be sent to the principal's office for that!

Good Luck !- ask us homeschoolers any other questions you have - we would love to help!!

My wife homeschools both of our kids my son who is 11 is an aspie and my daughter who has surgery every 6 months. I found this online public school called www.connectionsacademy.com (which unfortunately is not available in every state) and it has worked awesome before we began homeschooling him he was a c-d student at best last year my son jon was a-b student and on the honor roll this year so far he is getting straight A's his lowest grade this yr so far is an A- we are very proud of his progress so far and the cirriclum is actually harder than he would have received in "regular public school". What made up our mind to homeschool him was he ended up in the fetal position under the teachers desk crying his eyes out cause they were pushing him to hard and they decided that it was not important enough to tell us about! We could not believe it and we started thinking about what else they were not telling us about so we decided that we were done with that school my wife is disabled so homeschooling was an open option for us. The only problem I have with homeschooling is that the children do not get the socialization they need. check out their site to see if they offer schooling in your state is all I can suggest

I have to jump in again and disagree with the last posters concern about socialization and homeschooling. This is simply not the case. There are many homeschool co-ops, classes, outings, etc. where kids get a chance to get out of the house. These opportunities are everywhere. The quality of socialization a aspie kids gets in public or private school is questionable since school is not about social development - it is (at least in our state) about testing. An aspie kid sitting in a classroom of 30 or 35 kids will probably never learn to socialize - he will learn how to avoid bullies and unpleasant situations that he has never had the chance to figure out how to handle. That's what homeschooling can offer - a chance to socialize on a smaller, more manageable scale where meaningful learning can occur.