So long in the making was my decision to home educate my youngest child (age 6) that there was a great deal of buildup. As mentioned in my previous post, we even had a ‘false start’ around 6 months before we finally took the plunge with home education, before deciding to try another school (which didn’t work out and, in fact, made things a lot worse – but that’s a story for another day!). After all that thinking, I wanted to write about what it was like once the home education officially began – once the deregistration letter was sent and the first school day rolled by where we weren’t expected to send him.
What it was like for me
I’ll start with a summary of what it was like for me emotionally throughout the day. It doesn’t entirely feel real at this very early point in our home ed journey. I felt a sense of empowerment and excitement at the beginning of the day at the agency we are taking with our lives. I also had an uncharacteristically peaceful start to the day which felt rather nice. I am absolutely not an early riser, and generally really am not enthused at getting out of bed – but my son’s sleeping pattern has shifted towards a later bedtime and wake up time and our morning starts have often felt sluggish and ‘off’, so I got up before him prepared some things so I could have a calm start to the day, and so could he once he woke up.
By the end of the day, things felt more overwhelming, and things ended up feeling quite daunting. The energy requirement was very high, because there is still a lot of dysregulation at the moment and we did have meltdowns in the middle of, and at the end of the day. My son requires very frequent input at the moment and I really gave it my all, getting involved in lots of activities with my son and paying careful attention to what he is learning.
Despite all this I’m pretty certain we’re on the best path for us right now and that things are going to improve over time without the stress and pressure of school (otherwise I wouldn’t be doing it).
How my plans panned out
Given I had a lot of time to think and plan in my own mind, there were a lot of things I had waited to try once we started home educating ‘for real’. I was always aware, having read about others’ experiences, that it is a good idea to start slow. However, I almost thought better of this given my son had had several months of being unable to access education, and had become bored and frustrated. So even though I was well aware of the merits of deschooling, I wasn’t entirely sure whether this will apply for us. ‘Let’s go in with a little bit of structure’, I thought.
In reality, the ideas I had in mind fell pretty flat. For example, I had bought a pack of ‘Trugs’ – Teaching Reading Using Games, which is a pretty cool card game (in my view) I had seen other home educators use to help children learn to read. I didn’t think this would feel too ‘schoolish’ and reading is an area my son had really struggled with during school, and he left midway through year 1 with the ability to recognise letters, but hasn’t yet gotten any further than that. I hoped progressing in that area would alleviate some of his anxiety and help restore his sense of confidence. Being able to support him through it at home at exactly his own pace seemed like a great opportunity.
When he spotted the cards, though, he was excited only at the prospect of submerging them in water (which is an activity he has enjoyed recently with other objects!). When I informed him that they were too expensive to use in a soaking experiment, he let me know in no uncertain terms that he wasn’t interested in reading and I had wasted my money.
This didn’t surprise me a huge amount so I was able to take this on the chin. My plan is to keep making opportunities available and allow him to engage at his own pace. Experience has told me that trying to force or even encourage too strongly leads to backward steps, and I have to relinquish control to a decent extent for now.
What we did in reality
We set off for a home education park meeting, but my youngest decided to turn around before we reached the park gates. Instead we had discussions about road safety, how long it might take to learn enough about it to be able to ride safety on the road. We visited the Cats Protection League website, as my youngest loves cats and regularly likes to do this. We discussed the different coat colours of the cats, their typical lifespans and the care needs each cat had and how that related to their history. We planted cress seeds in a pot he had painted at the weekend, used a 3D pen (and had a discussion about melting points relating to the plastic filament in the pen). He played Minecraft with his Dad where they built a structure which had water flowing through it, and we watched a film together where I spotted my child commenting throughout on the characters’ reactions and questioning why they might be responding that way. I spotted some learning during bathtime – he was observing ‘pressure’ differences in the water given the bath was deeper than usual, and controlling the properties of the bath by making it shallower, and adding bubble liquid to make it slidier and more fun. None of this remotely like school, and all much like a typical day for my child.
What surprised me the most
What surprised me the most, was how little changed as a result of starting with home education. Although it was what I expected to a degree at this very early stage, I suppose after all this time of building it up in my mind, and saving up ideas, it still took me aback to some extent. Even in terms of starting a career break, I held a remote role after taking a step down at work (something I had prioritised in my job search when my children started to look like they needed my support) and had needed to become increasingly flexible (working unusual hours, reducing hours prior to that…) in recent months, so it has felt like a gradual evolution rather than a sudden change.
The major difference was the lens with which I viewed my child’s activities. There seems to be a huge amount of learning occurring all the time. I feel there will be a learning curve to observing this and expanding on it (the Strew app is helping with this so far).
What I found most difficult
The biggest challenge, really, is the energy expenditure required for me to do a good job of this. The first reason is because my son is still prone to dysregulation. The second reason this is especially tricky is because a lot of families (including in our case) arrive at home education after long periods of difficulty, often years, of trying to support children who are struggling in school, engage with systems which are not easy to deal with, supporting children through burnout, and juggling employment – until it isn’t possible any more. All of this has left me feeling very low on energy – and it is a difficult position to begin home education with. It requires me to draw on all available resources. But, as mentioned before, I’m hoping this will improve as time goes on especially as my youngest becomes more regulated, and I am on a career break and juggling fewer plates.
My approach going forward
My child is not one who likes to be steered by an adult and any influence I try to have needs to be carefully implemented – there simply isn’t an option to say ‘here is what we’re doing today’ or introducing any sort of set in stone plan of what we do each week. Those with children with a PDA profile or experiencing burnout will understand. My plan is to keep a structure in mind but not speak it out loud (as this can result in major resistance and backward steps) – and be patient, adapt, and let him engage at his own pace.