As someone who has typically always derived comfort from existing within a system, and trying to exist within it, I did not at all expect to be beginning a career break with neither of my children currently attending school at all.
For reasons I’ll explain in more depth in a future post, both my sons have been unable to attend school for some time now. My eldest, 11, since the Autumn term of this academic year, and my youngest, 6, since February this year. My eldest child, diagnosed with Autism and currently in the throes of a lengthy period of recovery from Autistic burnout (an experience I wouldn’t wish on anybody), and is too unwell to attend school currently. My youngest, age 6, awaiting assessment for Autism and showing all the hallmarks of a PDA profile, who absolutely hasn’t coped in school as the academic demands have increased.
All the while I have been trying to work, for fear of the obvious financial consequences that will ensue if I don’t. However, this has become… chaotic and unsustainable.
I’d like to say I am taking a career break due to bravery and a conviction that I’m doing the right thing, but honestly – although I do have faith that this is the best decision we could possibly make at this point, I’ve waited until we’ve hit rock bottom and it really felt like our only option before being bold enough to take that leap. Really, I’ve believed this was the best course of action for quite some time now – but it’s taken this long to feel courageous enough to actually go there, following a false start and unsuccessfully exploring alternatives.
I’m now at the point that if I don’t take a step back from work then important things will fall apart, and it could no longer wait.
Even then – I haven’t quite gone for the bravest option. My career break is temporary (11 months) at which point I will have to determine whether to return to my previous role. We’re not yet in a position to know whether it can be sustained beyond this.
My plan is to deregister my youngest child, whose second school placement has just broken down – and home educate him. My eldest has a slightly more complex situation, as he is about to start secondary school in September – so he remains on roll of his primary school while being too unwell to attend while we discern his next steps.
I wanted to start this blog to chronicle my journey through Home Education, Autistic burnout and PDA. I do so much thinking on a daily basis and I expect this year to hold a lot of experiences that I would like to refer back to in the future. As well as this, I know there are plenty of other families in our situation and my hope is that our own day-to-day experiences can provide some solidarity to others, as well as how practical experiences have panned out in our house – in case this can be useful to people.
I figured there is no better time to start writing about experiences than when I have a rare moment to step back from work and stop firefighting in as many domains of my life… although I’m certainly not expecting it to be plain sailing.
I’ll be back soon with our experience of starting off home education with our youngest child.