"Could Your Child Homeschool If S/he Wanted To?"

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I read so many school horror-stories on here, in which children suffer terribly because of school, that I almost never come on the parents forum; it is so depressing.

I have an 8 year old boy on the spectrum, and am also myself. When I read yet another thread about a child going through hell at school i feel sick with grief, because my son homeschools and I know that if he didn't our story also would be HELL. I recognise over and over again the things talked about on here, the difficulties children have at/with school, because I saw them happen in the very short time my son actually went to school.

His happiness is very much the result of not having to cope with/put up with the hell of school, its pointless timewasting rigid non-adapted, ridiculous, mass production, one-size-fits-all, madness/mental illness, ( because that is what school is, aswell as monolithic vehicule for social control) and which I think many children on the spectrum recognise.

But the few times I have suggested homeschooling as the solution on here either it is completely ignored as an option, or the parent, usually mother, says they could not do it because noone is at home during the day, thus the suffering is actually because of a poor baby-sitting situation/service in reality.

So I wondered , how many parents on wp could in fact have their children homeschool if they wanted to, immediately? How many could if they took a cut in income?

The tragic waste and suffering of all these children being sent, ( 8 hours a day, 5 days out of 7, 38/40 weeks a year, for 16 years, no early release for good behaviour) , to the cheapest baby-sitting service available (school) , especially if there is a parent at home in the day, does my head in. I almost can't believe, certainly can't bear, the almost total absence of insight into how school not only hurts sensitive children, but isn't necessary, IF there could be one parent at home.

How many children know that the only reason they have to go to this hideous place is because their parents "need" two incomes? How often in fact is that the case?

Last edited by ouinon on 22 Mar 2008, 3:02 am, edited 7 times in total.

NB: "Not possible" vote: Please expand in thread, because reducing income, making sacrifices for child, reorganising/making big changes, are actually possible.....except when.....

Do please explain why it is/would be impossible, in the thread. Thank you.

I have conflicting feelings on this issue.
I at times have wanted to keep my son at home. This has been because of the inadequacies of (special) school.
I have at times been "forced" to keep my son at home, as school wouldn't have him. My experience was that me teaching school work was fine (better than at real school), keeping to a structure was fine, but I didn't push him forward enough - we seemed to just maintain the status quo when it came to autism issues, behaviour, ect.

I do NOT believe keeping my son home is the right solution for my son or our family for several reasons:
It is important my son has friends and practices social skills. He gets depressed without kids to play with.
I am not a good enough autism teacher - although I know all the right things to do (believe me, I'm an expert!), my hands on experience is confined to my son, and I cannot constructively widen my son's horizons as he has need of very specialised help (he is very autistic). I think a lot of mothers feel they can "save" their child by staying home. But end of the day, the kid is still autistic.
I would go mad in the long run - my brain needs feeding!
It would be bad for my other children and my marriage.

I would like to be able to be at home a lot more, though, but this is impossible. This makes me feel bad, as when I am busy, it is hard to do a really good job with my son - i.e. keep visualisation and structure running smoothly.

I instead believe in fighting to make school a great place - so my son get's the help he needs.

I work 2 days per week and I work for my mental health. I don't do if for the money. If I wasn't working 2 days per week I would be a wreck and be no good to anyone in my family.

My sons have some friends and enjoy seeing them at school. They like having the different specialist teachers: German, Music, Art etc

I don't have what it takes to Homeschool - I don't have the skills/knowledge to educate them.

Also, I am Neurotypical and need time living in the 'neurotypical world'. I need noise, socialising and chaos to function well.

It is not such a black and white issue. Not all parents have what it takes to homeschool. The system is definantly at fault - you can't put it down to parents being selfish or lazy.

I think this generation of parents and students are pioneers and the school system will improve/evolve with time.

In the meantime, I do the best I can to advocate for my sons and educate the school.

Helen

Because your son was unhappy? I discovered that it takes time, that everything took more time than i would have imagined. I kept being horrified by how slow progress/change was.

I'm only feeling a lot calmer about this right now because he did eventually learn to read, ( which was an important milestone for me, as it is a crucial tool for navigating the world, and for independence), in his own time, at his own rhythm, and without me teaching him, because that just put him off.

I know that I did often think things were standing still, that we weren't getting anywhere.
It is something that homeschooling parents in general remark on, is how long it takes children to rediscover their own rhythm, their own interests, motivations, desire to learn/find out, and also the confidence and energy to do so. School takes quite a long time to recover from.

Also, children have different rhythms of learning, sometimes very different; ( well, don't need to go into detail about that on here ! ! ), but most schools most of the time even when supposedly allowing for some "specialness", don't really .

Is he actually unhappy in school? What would depress him most? Home, with no other children in the day, or continuing at school.
I sometimes think that modern society puts too much emphasis on "widening horizons". Sometimes close up, and focussed, is good. Don't know why homeschooling your son would stop you feeding your brain? How might your other children suffer? And why would your marriage?
School was designed this way, and serves too many big business purposes in preparing good consumers and docile workers, for it ever to be changed into something "great".

Last edited by ouinon on 19 Mar 2008, 3:14 pm, edited 4 times in total.

What does it take to homeschool?

Many homeschooling parents have little higher education, and yet have no problems; many find that the child teaches them things in learning. And it is not necessary to have a school-like structure, lessons, textbooks etc. Children, just like adults, oddly enough, learn passionately, and far more efficiently/effectively, doing what they love, or are interested in.

Having children in a house usually means "noise and chaos" , and for socialising just carry on doing what you do already 5 days a week. Why send your sons to school for 5 days a week if you only work 2?

But if your sons are fine then there is obviously no need to change anything anyway. I am responding to posts/threads about childrens misery and suffering in school, of which there are so many, apparently without parents seeing that perhaps, just perhaps, the problem is school, and the solution is to take the children out of it. i think it's on its last feasible legs. It's on its way out, and that is another reason why it is so sad to see parents, but most awfully the children, struggling to cope with it.

Last edited by ouinon on 19 Mar 2008, 5:03 am, edited 2 times in total.

The reason why I posted this thread is because there are so many/hundreds of threads on here about how much children are suffering at school, not because it's a lifestyle choice that I want everybody to make, but because parents keep posting about their child(ren)'s horrible experiences at school.

If it wasn't for those daily weekly hundreds of posts full of misery and pain and trouble i wouldn't have cracked and started raving on about homeschooling to convert anyone.

But this suffering apparently exists, if it's not just parents making mountains out of molehills about their darling little ones and the "awful" school system, and i am horrified by it. And know how homeschooling has been essential and crucial in my sons happiness, and in his peaceful learning of many things.

If everybody's children are actually fine then i wonder what all the miserable threads are about.

Last edited by ouinon on 19 Mar 2008, 5:20 am, edited 1 time in total.

I have currently been really thinking about home school (well, cyber school).

We have a fairly good school situation, in that he gets the accomodations that he needs, which aren't a lot, but the school is more than happy to accomodate when needed. He has a group of friends to eat with at lunch, he's known these kids forever, and he likes the school. He's getting good grades, and when his meds are working, he seems happy.

Our problem is that, although things seem to be going well, we are having a heck of a time getting the meds to work. He can't pay attention in class. So we make up for that by RETEACHING everything when he gets home. This is, so far, effective. But there will come a time when that won't work. He doesn't take notes in class, he misses vital information (when quizzes, tests are coming up). He's fairly good at writing in his assignment book, and he is doing fairly good at bringing home books. He just (and he's the one that tells us this) goes catatonic when he's in class most of the time, unless the teacher is highly animated. This seems to be very common with AS people in general -- I've read about this problem in college students on this forum.

I would LOVE to keep him home. He's a super happy child, and really fun to be with. I would enjoy the teaching process, feel up to the task, and cyber school in our area is popular and pretty effective. My reason for NOT homeschooling is that I fear that he would miss his friends, and even if we did it for a short amount of time (a year or two), I think that once he returned to school, it would make socializing even harder. If he were having social problems, I would rip him out of school without a second thought.

Kris

Have you asked him what he would like to do?

A lot of questions

My son actually loves his school!

He is in a very special situation: he "crashed" about 2 years ago, but is now back at school in a class of 6 kids with Asperger's. He has been "ono-to-one" for almost two years, but is now almost totally re-intergrated in his class. When he was really bad/sick his greatest motivating factor was to get so well he could go back to school.
While he was at home, we had the help of a very talented team of teachers. These teachers took him back to school - were there all the time - and now have started teaching other classes at the school!! !
This, along with the fact that the teachers at my son's school have become much much more competent in autism paedagogic (English word?) means that I really shouldn't complain about the school. It has improved 400%. It is much more flexible and in no way your everyday school.

That said, we still sometimes have problems with the school, and my son will keep it together at school, and react when he gets home.

About "horizons": my son was so limitted a year ago he didn't even want to leave the house! I'm not talking wide horizons! Just being able to go for a walk, to the store ect.

My brain is high maintenance. It loves new stuff and time to focus. Also I love the social side of being out! I go looney without social and intellectual imput and demands. I can't change who I am.

My other kids have to deal with a brother who takes a lot of attention, time, care and thought. Often needs one-to-one. So yes, if we "did it right" one parent would be with my HFA son, the other parent would be with the other kids, shop, cook, clean ect. We have tried this - it was imperative a year ago - it was hard work!

We decided many years ago that our having an autistic child didn't mean becoming an autistic family. I want our identity to be more than that. Despite this, I often feel our whole life is influenced by having an autistic child. I do find autism incredibly interesting, though, and it is quite a "hobby" of mine!! !

This poll doesn't really apply to him then ; I meant it for people whose children are having repeatedly difficult and miserable experiences at school, which I read so much about on here.

I am very glad for you that he is happy.

This is a website about homeschooling an aspie. It's an Australian woman's website.

It's her blog, with lots of links to activities her son performed.

For anyone considering homeschooling, this site may be helpful.

http://homeschoolingaspergers.blogspot.com/

Helen

I wish someone would have pulled me out of school earlier. I tried my best but I just had to stop at high school. Luckily HS Diploma was attainable at community college here.

great site, thanks.

I know the thread is only about 4 hours old, and that in UK daytime aswell, so it's rather too early to draw any conclusions! , but I'm wondering whether it will turn out to be the case that the reason most children on the spectrum have to go to school is because most of them have NT parents.
Homeschooling is a very good way to expose yourself to new stuff. And there's plenty of time too! So children on the spectrum have to put up with "noise, socialising, and chaos" aswell ( at school)?
....
NT perhaps....
And NT parents also impose their own ideas of what is normal and acceptable behaviour on their child. We very often don't want to leave the house. And many others on wp feel the same.
Why should your son do it, just because that's what NTs think must do to live correctly?
And is it as important as you think, socialising? NTs think so, but lots of people with ASDs don't.

Is school really necessary just for socialising? I went to school; I don't think it helped me; in fact it "corrupted me" into thinking that socialising was indeed what mattered. I concentrated very hard on it and became an attractive, socially-successful woman, who went on to have lots of sex, an abortion, take drugs, spend lots of money on drink and clothes, etc.

When all I really wanted, way way back, was to read, and think, and draw, and think some more, and watch insects in the grass, etc.

Socialising!! NT fools gold.

Last edited by ouinon on 19 Mar 2008, 9:00 am, edited 5 times in total.

No, I haven't asked him yet. My concern is that he would JUMP at the chance to stay home from school, without having the maturity level to think about the repercussions -- not as much or nonexistent contact with his current school friends, loss of ability to endure the noise and chaos of school (but then wanting to return to school, and having a rough time with the noise), and/or lack of progress in certain academic areas (and not being prepared for college).

I would JUMP at the chance to have him stay home for school based on how much I would personally enjoy being with him all day. He is very sweet, innocent, and genuine, and I would totally enjoy being home with him. But is that best for his particular situation and makeup? I constantly wonder.

As I've said before, if my son was enduring bullying or just generally having a bad time of it at school, I wouldn't think twice about pulling him out and having him stay home. But that isn't our situation (currently -- I'm try to keep an eye on this type of thing happening in the future).
Kris

Since I have homeschooled my son for 2 years (he's 11) and feel VERY strongly about it I will try to mainitian my composure and not retalitate with some of the ignorant comments that have been made- I probably will do a poor job - I apologize in advance.

I have a very active mind and need stimulation as others have mentioned- not sure how homeschooling would stifle that? That one came up several times? Do you think we sit and watch TV all day? And why do your needs supersede your childs?

Unless you are independently wealthy already, you will sacrifice financially if you decide to homeschool. But would you rather have a big bank account or a happy kid?

I never thought in a million years I would homeschool my son but the thought of wasting time fighting the school district (who sometimes was well intentioned but mostly very slow moving and incompetent) and having my son suffer while I played Don Quixote every week just didn't sit well with me. He was truly suffering at school every day. Of course your kid can keep it together at school and then fall apart at home- that's what my son did too but I just couldn't watch it anymore.

People keep mentioning their fears over no socializing if their kid is homeschooled - Again - do you think we sit in the house all day and watch TV? Why do people assume so wrongly that homeschooled kids never get out of the house?

Homeschooling is so misunderstood and people who are considering it would do themselves and their children a favor by honestly exploring it - not going on assumptions or by the example of that one "weird" family they've heard of that bakes their own bread, don't watch TV, don't own a video game system and only lets the females in their family wear dresses (I really think this is the impression most people have of homeschoolers.