Published on 12, July, 2020
Hi there
My daughter was diagnosed with aspergers with high anxiety earlier this year and she has been going downhill for over a year now. We have been paying for private counselling and they believe the best thing for her would be to homeschool her as she is struggling with the social side of school so much. The school have been quite good and introduced some things to help her but the main problem is friends and that can't be fixed. Most of her friends have withdrawn now and she is often alone. She has always been exceeding educationally so there aren't any concerns there but I don't know what to do now. She is horrendous at getting to bed - she has really long drawn out routines that have to be restarted if she makes a mistake or if she talks to one of us after and it has to be done with each of us, including the dog! We started taking her computer etc away two hours before bed and she is fine then but takes hours to get her settled. It also takes her ages to get out of bed and get dressed and often insists on help to get dressed. We are at the end of our tether and wonder if it would be trying to pull her out for a break or even for good if this is the trigger that's making her so unhappy? She never wants to go in and is clingy and tearful in the mornings. I have struggled to get her in a few times and so kept her off but her attendance has fallen below 90% so I've got the obligatory warning letter. Spoke to the doctor and she said sounds like I'm doing as much as I can and they should be understanding as to why she is off more than normal. Plus I do more with her at home than she probably gets at school!!
Anyone have any advice please??
Caveat - this is my opinion only and written in haste. After some very unsuccessful 'schooling', we decided to home 'educate' our two children on the spectrum (there is a big difference between being schooled and being educated...). It had it's ups and downs but was mostly a good experience - I have no regrets having given up my job to do it, I was a teacher. GCSEs and a whole range of stuff from home. Daughter did a few GCSEs then joined a very small school for some GCSEs. In London, there were loads of HE groups (does depend where you are based), trips and opportunities to socialise but it depends how sociable your child is too. People HE for all sorts of reasons so cannot be put into a box (eg: religion, SEN, lifestyle choice).
The NAS has a good link to Home Education as an option:
https://www.autism.org.uk/about/in-education/choosing-school/home-education.aspx
As well as this forum, I would join the HE Special Forum (you can find this under useful resources further down the page that is linked to) - they are an excellent source of support.
Good luck.
Thanks so much and I’ll definitely look up those sites. It must have been a bit reassuring for you that you knew what you were doing being a teacher so I’m just wary of letting her down as she is so bright. Ive been told though that you’ll always find the answers online as there are a lot of passionate teachers out there that post videos to aide home education.
Just wish I had a crystal ball to see what the best path would be!
That's what we are trying to figure out - what harm this is doing to her mental health and whether she would be better off away and socialising in groups that she feels comfortable with and have a bit more understanding. School keep saying she is ok while she's there so we should keep her there but like you said, it's like banging your head against a brick wall saying the same things over and over. She is not ok and school is the trigger.
So we are going to try half days for a bit and try and see a different counsellor for their feedback and go from there. One day at a time I suppose!!
Again, any of the following is true for us and our experience only.
I knew quite a bit about the GCSE examination system back then but would say I learnt much more about education through home educating than I did as a teacher for many years - giving up my job actually gave me a chance to read much more around educational philosophy and educational approaches. Being exposed to people's different ideas of HE was an education in itself.
In some ways HE was hard work but in others it made our life so much easier - less stress for the autistic children (relief was immeasurable). I also felt like I was banging my head against a brick wall, saying the same thing and offering the same advice to school day in day out. I came to the conclusion that I would rather have good mental health for my children/me. My idea was to come out at the end of yr5 for ds (dd was yr 3, also to be diagnosed ASC later that year) to avoid transition and do GCSEs from home and drop back into 6th form. In the end, we did this for ds and dd dropped back in for Yr10 GCSE at a very small school. I feel like we avoided some of the more tricky teenage years of their peers and that not much was happening in ks3 anyway that I couldn't replicate in some way shape or form. We joined groups to make sure there were plenty of social opportunities but my kids weren't that interested socialising and just wanted to do their own thing. The HE group was where they made some firm friendships. That said, there were HE people that were wary of us and didn't really understand ASC.
Dd did have anxiety issues at school and she has suggested yr10 was too soon for her to rejoin and she would have preferred later. Just a few GCSEs in one yr at 6th form, then A levels.
Here is a link to a page about Home Education and Exams:
http://he-exams.wikia.com/wiki/HE_Exams_Wiki
BWs