The Home Education Journey

If you had said to me two years ago that I would be home educating the boy I would have laughed in your face! Me? I could not even help him with his maths homework without getting irate, let alone teach him the whole curriculum!

 

But I have and when people marvel at this I say its because I had to. The situation we were in was so dire with his rapidly increasing anxiety and our lack of knowledge, lack of professional help in managing this, home education seemed like the best and only option. I likened it to fixing a broken leg before the football player can play again. There was no way the boy could learn if he was not comfortable in school. Plus he was missing so much education by refusing to go that at least I could ensure that he was learning. The most important factor in all of this was his emotional wellbeing and his education.

 

One day I will do an entire page on school refusal from a parents perspective and the little things that I have learnt along  the way that will hopefully empower parents so that they do not hit the wall like we did. Best make sure for that post you have a hot drink and tissues as its rather heart breaking.

 

Anyway, the decision was made, we de-registered him and the school were extremely understanding, probably because we were taking responsibility for him instead of relying on them. There are heaps of fantastic resources on Home Education.  A good place to start is Education Otherwise http://www.educationotherwise.net/ which informs you about the legalities of it all plus, there are templates of letters that you can print to inform local authorities. I read books, (Dad always taught me to read around the subject!) Ross Mountney http://rossmountney.wordpress.com/ is a particular guru of mine and when I read her book, it just made sense. Very reassuring that I was doing the right thing.

 

There are two main  approaches within Home Education, Structured and Autonomous. Autonomous schooling is child led, they choose what they want to do and concentrate on activities that supplement that. Learning is through play and this type of education would support the view that learning is occurring outside of the classroom, thus a visit to a museum at the weekend can contribute to this or a walk on the beach. Quite a few parents within my Home Education Group are of this genre. Their kids have never been to school and they look at me in shock as I talk about lessons, "needing to learn" and "curriculums"

 

 Unsurprisingly, we fall into the former camp whereby we try and follow core subjects, sometimes this is in line with the National Curriculum and other times we go off piste. We follow the school term, as the girl still attends school so we break when she does for holidays. We work from books, online learning resources, the boy is currently studying World War 1 Aviation design on an Open University course that is free.https://www.futurelearn.com/. We have been able to access a Dyson Hoover from the James Dyson Foundation and take it apart, we have borrowed microscopes from the Royal Microscope Society, there is so much out there. It is mind boggling at times!

 

I use a diary to plan our work, we roughly follow the same pattern every week, thus daily maths and English, twice weekly Science, weekly history and Geography. I work one day a week ( more about that another time) and on this day, my Dad teaches him maths plus he is required to complete work that I have set him. This ranges from worksheets, to an essay or poster. We attend a group within the home education group specifically for the teenagers once a week, the teenagers also have a lovely PHD student teaching them historical views on gender, race and class once a month at the University, plus we do some voluntary work, filling a book case at our local vegan shop. He walks the dog with me every day too, thus there is plenty to be getting on with. The home education group also organises trips and recently we were very lucky to visit the local newspaper building and see the newsroom in action.

 

 Our first day was awful, I had planned so much and we ended up shouting and crying at each other. A lot of Home Education resources describe the process of de -schooling in that the child needs to recover from being schooled and they quote that this takes a month per year that the child attended. During this time, no attempt should be made to educate them. I knew that  we had to re build his trust in us so I got round this by ensuring that  the material we used to educate him were documentaries and sensory based activities, such as cooking and planting because he was so anxious. By about February of this year, more activities that his school attending peers were participating in, could be introduced to him with good results.

 

He is now doing a distance learning English and Maths KS3 course which involves completing assignments for a tutor to mark. He did very well in his English recently so it is reassuring to know that he is not falling behind his peers.

 

Am I getting any help with all of this you ask, the answer is plainly no. The boy has the new Education and Health care plan, so I thought by obtaining this for him I would have some support, financial or a least a pat on the back occasionally but it  seems to fall to me to be ensuring that all the provisions are met. There is currently no financial assistance which would be true for most electively  home educated children. Some authorities have welfare officers that visit the home and check that the family has a philosophy of education and evidence how they are going to achieve this. Ours doesn't, but I think that is because our Home Education group has worked so hard to achieve a good relationship with the authority that it isn't deemed necessary or as a priority.

 

GCSEs are looming, he has expressed an interest in working for the police, intelligence or as a farmer. Will keep you posted on that side of things as we progress along.

Relax a bit more

I said I was quirky didn't I?

Bit of a Body Combat addict me, my instructor plays this very loud, its like clubbing again but in the name of keeping fit! Absolutely LOVE this song, so thought I would pop it on here just to share and have a lighter hearted post.xxxxx

And......relax

Fighting the Anxiety Monster part 2.

A while ago, I read this article by Dr Tanya Byron and it really struck a chord with me.

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/health/child-health/article4020135.ece

At the time we had been through the CAMHs system with the boy and felt her frustrations at the lack of priority we had been given when we needed help so urgently.

I have often marvelled at parents who do lots of activities with their children. I always felt very lazy,  as the boy had the odd hobby and the girl has her dancing, but some of my peers were out every night and weekend with various competitions and activities. Both of the children, especially the boy, love their technology and media so would prefer to spend time with these instead. We have a dog, so they do get out for a walk and they can walk for ages so I felt less guilty about that, but I would often desperately try and encourage them to join in other activities or put time controls on the computer so they would do something else instead.

Until I got my sewing machine. Suddenly,  here was something I loved to do and I would feel extremely cross that I would be expected to stop sewing and make dinner.  I remembered how I would read as a child, so much that my Dad would hide my book so that I would socialise and I thought about how frustrated that made me feel. Was it right to control my childrens free time as well?

I read on some home education blogs about how time on the computer is controlled and the tantrums not to mention sneaky tactics employed by the children to get it back were rather scary. Another blog advocated letting the child choose and this is something that I do. Much to the horror of other parents.  However both of my kids are well behaved, sleep 10 hours a night, eat all their meals with us and join in with activities,  chores that I ask them to. Like me with the sewing machine, they too can break away, reluctantly at times to do something else. The boy is a bit of a geek,  so the games that he plays are not your average violent Call Of Duty type. He gets very fed up with the portrayal by the media that gamers are associated with.

I digress. So since I have been less controlling over the childrens time, the ambience in the home has been bliss. They probably interact with me more now because they get bored and want to do something else. Even the boy has been known to ask about a dog walk in the afternoon. I have applied this with caution though, which introduces one of my all time favourite parenting experts that has changed how I parent the kids. Dr Laura Markham,  wrote Peaceful Parenting and writes the Aha parenting blog which always makes sense. I struggled with reward charts and again I always considered it to be anothet method of control. Since reading Dr Laura, the relationship I have with the children has improved no end as has their behaviour too.

I will talk about it more another time, but for now here is a link to an article that I read yesterday that spoke so clearly to me about the girl and the Anxiety Monster.  This half term has been 8 weeks long, she has worked hard and its time for her to chill out and enjoy having her time to herself again. No timetables, no following someone elses agenda, just time to be her again.

http://www.ahaparenting.com/_blog/Parenting_Blog/post/11_Ways_Your_Child_Loses_When_You_Rush_Him/

Anxiety Monster

Focussing on the girl today who has had a turbulent few days recently. She started to come home from school, crying because she had not achieved any points for her work, which she thought that meant she must have been chatting when she quite clearly hadn't. Or the teacher at swimming was cruel to her friend and I had to do something about it.
I found that by validating her feelings and agreeing that she must be worried but did she really think that she was chatting did not work, however a cup of tea, toast when she got home soothed away all her frustrations and I  put it down to needing to decompress like I do most days.
Her parents evening came along and her teacher also noted that she was less energetic than normal. She was also concerned too and wanted to help. She commented that the girl was a bit of a perfectionist and wanted to please everybody.
Hmmm, where had I heard that before? With a sinking heart I realised that the Anxiety Monster had claimed another one of my children and all the battling that I had done to rid itself from me amounted to nothing. It was sat there, smiling smugly and large as life. But I am not going to let it win.
The teacher suggested that the girl keep a journal to record her worries and if she showed them to her she would write a reply,  so that the girl would not let them grow and turn into something even bigger. We also started this at home too and she engaged really well. It is strange that my chatterbox daughter prefers to write her thoughts down rather than say them to me, but as long as she is getting those thoughts out rather than letting them fill her mind, I am happy to go with it. We also finally got the " would you rather be home educated " question out into the open and whilst she admitted she was jealous of her brother and she would also like to be with me, she also stated that she loves her friends and teacher too.
She left school, today, remarking that her head was empty of worries and she felt happy.  She had used the journal in school and the teacher had responded really well.
When I was about 12, my mum gave me a Judy Blume diary which I used for similar reasons. I have kept a diary pretty much ever since and find it so helpful. I was touched to discover that my dear Granny also kept one and that we had a similar style too. I use my diary now to discuss positive events too.
So Anxiety Monster, we are on to you and we will fight you.

My next post will describe another tactic in my strategy.

Sensitive mouths

My mum will probably say but the boy isn't fussy, he never stops eating!

 

Which is true, but I have noticed over the years that he has an aversion to certain textures and this is very common in children with dyspraxia/sensory processing disorder type traits. The muscle control of the mouth is also an issue for some children which means that they can not co ordinate the mouth for speech. This is known as verbal dyspraxia and it may occur alongside or in isolation of the big muscle groups in development. Speech Therapy is often needed for these children. Lucky for the boy, his speech was not affected at all.

 

I never forget trying to teach the boy when he was about 3 years of age how to eat a grape. I sat opposite him and exaggerated the action of opening the mouth really wide and biting it. I knew that the nursery he attended also gave them fruit at snack time and my friend had told me that they had apples to eat some days. How did they manage to get him to eat an apple? I tried all the methods I knew of, but the boy just could not crunch into it. I asked the playworkers there and they assured me that he managed.........I think perhaps he may not. He also had problems with biscuits, chocolate, sweets anything that needed chewing. For a long while he would only eat sausages and pasta in a butternut squash thick soup. My other half got rather bored of this menu as we would eat it 3 times a week! But I felt that by cooking what he would eat and gently adapting it, his repertoire would grow and indeed it did. Since becoming a Health Visitor and using the Infant and Toddler Forum as a resource for feeding under 5s, this has also been encouraged with fussy eaters. Here's the link if you want more information, yes look at me getting all technical!

 

https://www.infantandtoddlerforum.org/extreme-food-refusal#.VEZ7bnV0yP8 

 

  The boy has an amazing sense of taste, strangely enough, he has  loved olives from a tiny age, strong cheeses and fish too. He was even tolerating chillies for a while until last year. His current favourite meal is Marmite pasta, I think he would make me make it every day if he could! He now prefers his food quite dry in texture,  lumpy casseroles are no longer tolerated because he calls the vegetables slimy. My mum hides vegetables in his meat sauce which is a great idea, she puts everything in it, blitzes it and he will often have seconds!

 

The sensitive mouth issue reared its not so pretty head again when he started to be seen by an orthodontist. He would always need to be prompted to open wide, with me reminding the dentist of the dyspraxia, I guess he can't feel how wide his mouth is due to his proprioception difficulties. Anyway, I was sent out of the room during one appointment so that he could be X-rayed. The next thing I knew, the nurse came out all flustered because he refused to hold the plate in his mouth. I found him in tears. Apparently he had dropped it and she told him to bite harder by which time he had had enough. I was not impressed by the nurses attitude towards him, so I registered with another dentist, who wanted to X ray him and was not at all sympathetic when I told him that the boy was anxious. The boy by this time was practically in my lap with fear.

 

So we avoided the dentist for two years.

 

You will find that I have not been very consistent in the boys childhood in remembering that despite having a diagnosis of dyspraxia, I have not treated him as such. To me, he is the boy and I often expect him to muddle through like everyone else. My other half and I often need hefty reminders in the form of a meltdown to make us go "oh yeah, he's going to act like this because of the dyspraxia". Thus an epiphany arrived one day when I thought about the Special Needs Dentist, of course he would be eligible for this. So a quick word with his school nurse who referred him in and a few weeks ago we went there. What a lovely service. The X ray machine does not need you to hold the plate in your mouth. Hallelujah! So understanding, so patient. He is also prescribed a high fluoride toothpaste, I guess because manipulation difficulties prevent children cleaning their teeth adequately so there is more protection, definitely a good service if your children have similar diagnoses.

 

 

Difficult Day

Am sure I will post lots of these, though since I started home educating, these days are now occasional rather than weekly when we would be at loggerheads with one another.

The issue today was Maths. He could not understand it, he would not read the information to help him understand it, he could not see the point of reading it or learning it because it had no relevance to his future. Am sure that many neuro typical teenagers have the same resistance. So I adopted typical parent tactics, rattled on about his future, good job, wage etc and the final weapon in my arsenal was the removal of his computer until he came downstairs and LEARNT it.

He then became very sad and talked about how he was scared of his future. He does not feel ready yet for GCSES. I guess he isn't really. A few months ago, I met some of the organisers of the Dyspraxia Foundation and she told me that her son was 26 but acted like a 23 year old. The emotional maturity does not magically catch up it seems. Even though there is less of an obvious difference between a 23 and 26 year old, she could still see it. Throughout his life boy will often catch up with his peers to then have rapid changes of rules and expectations foisted upon him whilst he catches his breath.

Sometimes I think the girl is more emotionally mature and she is 3 years younger than him.

When I started home educating, I made it clear that I could not teach him GCSE level. This is starting to look as if I am going to have to. We have an Education and Health plan but that is not doing anything at the moment, it just loosely talks about supporting me with home educating him, so far, so nothing. The council want him to go back to school, I don't think that will happen either. The whole system of having to wear uniform, be timetabled and somebody else's routine to adhere to, let alone cope with the social skills, the chaos of lots of pupils is just an insurmountable task. I could join the millions of people who claim that this is life and he just has to get used to it, trust me I have tried. I see all of the teenagers walk past my house in their uniforms and my heart still sinks as I look out on a world that I can not be part of any longer.

But, I remember the tantrums, long and hard tantrums, the constant walking on egg shells, the girl crying in her bed because she was too afraid to come downstairs in case he hit her. I see a boy now who will laugh, reach out to touch me on my arms as a sign of his affection and gently tease his sister. This is our new world and we love it.

Anyway, after him getting the hang of his maths and answering all the questions correctly we went to our Home Ed group. As per usual he had the other kids laughing at his jokes which he tells in a very dead pan manner, I exchanged the horror stories of the morning with the other mothers who had similar things happen to them too. We are normal in our own way.

Setting up the blog

Hello everyone, welcome to my blog!

Very excited to be here.

I am a complete technophobe so please bear with me whilst I try and set up, I am sure that as I go along, things will change and look more professional. However I just wanted  to start writing and the fact that the blog was not looking pretty enough was stopping me so am just gonna go ahead and post anyway and it will be a learning curve as we go.

Sooooooooo, following on from the positive comments I had from Facebook when I did a daily awareness post about Dyspraxia, I felt spurred on to continue this and bore you even more!

The boy is now 13 years of age, he was diagnosed as Dyspraxic when he was about 7 and this followed a rather turbulent toddlerhood and preschool years. When he was 12 he was diagnosed with Aspergers as well. I will write about the early years in the near future, so much to say about them and I guess what each diagnosis has meant for him and us.

Today we went to see his doctor who diagnosed him with Aspergers and depression last year. The boy has made a significant improvement since he last saw his doctor and I wanted to see if his anti anxiety medication was still necessary as I felt that I was managing Dyspraxia/Aspergers symptoms rather than those of depression. Bearing in mind the last time he saw the doctor, he hid in his room and barely talked to him, today we attended the clinic and he engaged really well.

Talk turned to socialisation, or the S word as we home eduactors like to call it and first we discussed the other teens in the homed educated group that we attend. The boy stated that he felt they were too "alternative for him". When explored further we ascertained that the teenagers were happy to play in a park and climb the equipment whereas the boy felt that this behaviour was too immature and not cool. However he then talked about school kids and the hierarchy of who has the best phone, most girlfriends etc and I think he also felt out of place there. So I guess he still has not found his tribe. I expressed to the doctor that the boys who have Aspergers that are home educated do not come to group because of their own reluctance to socialise. I on the other hand have insisted that the boy attends these groups to increase his social skills. I just refuse to be ruled totally by the boy's anxiety as in order to have a job later in life, he will have to TALK to people so lets make this feel less uncomfortable in a managed safe environment to gain experience. He does go off with them happily and participates in activities but I doubt  that I will be having anyone over to tea as yet.

The doctor felt that when and if (oh please when) the boy starts sixth form college, he will meet other people that are like him there. This I have often expressed to him, indeed, I loved the 6 th form when I was younger because all the annoying, class disrupting kids had left and we could learn in peace. So we watch and wait.

The boy is to stay on his medication for a bit longer, and to review this in the new year. The doctor also felt that the boy may need specialist help in the future to help him cope with making changes but this would need to be expressed as a need by the boy and not me/us. I agreed. He and us are all comfortable at the moment and we are apprehensive about re-joining the rat race again. Currently I feel that by giving him space and time the boy will progress and catch up with his peers. I can not force him. It needs to come from him.