Our son was always slightly different to his peers in development and interests. Whilst at the crawling stage he would be busy playing with pram wheels and a pudding basin and his visitors sat with their teddies. He always found the toddler groups a nightmare and often screamed. I was told to persevere, but inwardly felt he just didn’t’ want to be there. At nursery he became so unhappy that he stopped singing, something he had always done, and eventually stopped talking. It took several months and a number of Thomas trains to coax him back to talking and singing.
From nursery/prep school traumas we moved onto reception at a local state school where I would have to go out to buy books to put into the library so he could bring something suitable home. He was an able reader at this time and made no progress in that year, coming top of the class. After several discussions and initial promises to accommodate him, it became clear that no help was on offer. In fact the only help came from the children, who at the end of the year, still had no grasp of the alphabet! Moving on, we tried a further three schools over the years until he was finally removed by us after Year 5.
In each school, be it state or private, his differences were not identified, and he was bullied and mis-understood instead. I was labelled an over-protective mummy, but he was so miserable at school and happy at home. Every summer holiday was a nightmare where he constantly asked ‘how many days until school?’. At school he struggled to cope with noises, lights and the buzz of classroom life. He felt isolated and friendless, unable to fit into their system.
One area of interest that kept him going was music. From the age of 6 he took up piano, followed by cello, then singing and viola and music theory. To date, he has achieved Grad 8 singing and Grade 5 viola with distinction, and is preparing for Grade 7 piano, Grade 6 cello, and Grade 6 theory. We have had some patient teachers over the years and some that perhaps couldn’t cope!
As with all his academic subjects, he fires off questions relentlessly, and has an uncanny knack of discovering a weakness a teacher my have in their subject. He has to verbalise everything he is learning, it is his way of reinforcing what he has learnt. Worksheets are just a frustrating repetition of what he already knows.
By the end of Year 5 the Head finally agreed that maybe there ‘was something going on there’ and we saw and Educational Psychologist who assessed that he was very bright and had Asperger’s Syndrome. This came at the time he also had a diagnosis of Chronic Fatigue Syndrom (CFS) and Myalgic Encephalopathy (ME), which the Educational Psychologist could not agree with at all. We felt very let down at the joint meeting with her and the Head, and gave our notice to remove him from the school after persevering for a further term. At this time our son one day said that life was not worth living, and this broke my heart. Some of the incidents that occurred in school are perhaps best not mentioned; abuse is not too strong a word.
I spent that summer holiday researching home education, and we took the step to register him with the then LEA on the first day of the new school year. That was three years ago, and I wish that I had had the confidence to never have sent him to school and kept him at home to find out how he learnt best.
From the start, there was a joint sense of relief, no more screaming at the start of term; or tears in the morning; no more uneaten lunches because he was too stressed to eat; no more bullying. My husband now goes to work without having the pantomime of getting him into the car on time to dash into the city, to double back to his own work through heavy traffic. Because of his CFS my son is usually unresponsive or tired until 10 o’clock, or sometimes later, so we start working when he is ready.
Over the three years at home we have tried and discarded various forms of learning. The way our son learns is quite different to school methods where there is a lot of repetition and reinforcing. When we commenced home education he would have been finishing KS2 if at school, so I picked up from there and came up against a brick wall. My son wanted nothing to do with this material, he was bored, so we moved onto KS3 for Maths, and other subjects. In time after the tutors we were using had left, we hit the road for IGCSEs. We have gone down the route of tutors from a reputable agency, which has caused us grief; we have tried the famous CGP workbooks and written on perhaps three pages. We have also tried their study books, which were deemed unhelpful by my son.
Correspondence courses and on-line school have all been tried with varying degrees of success. Audiocassettes for language got a big thumbs down because there is no visual element to the presentation, he favoured the BBC Learning First Steps courses followed by their Ma France and a German course from a news site in Germany.
We have found that he learns best when he is relaxed, and mostly from just reading the textbook. Generally, he retains about 85% of the material in this way; the rest is covered when we revise. He dislikes writing out exercises so we discuss most subjects, but he does have to do some maths on paper (under protest). He now reads some subjects for himself, usually kneeling on the sofa, arms draped over my footstool with the textbook on the floor. He enjoys learning from well-structured CD ROMs that are interactive, when he was smaller he loved the Jump Ahead software followed by the Learning Ladder series, for maths we used the maths2x1 for KS3 and 4. This was topped up with an IGCSE text and CD ROM in preparation for the exam this May. All in all my son’s learning experience has been an experience for us too. I wouldn’t like to say how much we have spent on aborted courses and textbooks.
In three years he has progressed from KS2 (almost) to IGCSE and beyond, he has just sat IGCSE Maths and Chemistry at 13. He still struggles with times tables and has no grasp of the size of numbers, but really enjoys Differential Calculus, and can’t wait to get to grips with Complex Numbers. This from a child who struggled with KS2. Peculiarly, his real strength lies in the literary field; he has a desire to be a writer.
We have a hospital Consultant’s letter requesting his Access requirements, which has helped enormously with his coping with the exams. He is allowed a break halfway through to ‘chill’ and also 25% extra time to help with the slowness of writing, along with a keyboard for essay-based exams, since writing in volume is too painful to his joints.
We anticipate that he will sit a few exams at a time to spread the stress/workload. One big advantage of being at home is that we get to decide which subjects he sits and when. On the downside it is a big headache for most home educating families to find a local exam centre that will let candidates sit their particular exam subjects and exam boards.
We are trying to avoid specialising him too early, we want him to have a broad-based education, and be free to choose later. We hope he takes around 13 IGCSE/GCSEs, sitting a few at a time. He needs time to recover from his health problems, time to catch up on his emotional development and time to decide what he really wants to do.
A common comment aimed at home educators in general (and we have had our fill of it) is the big question of socialisation. Our son has some friends not many, but that is partly due to being on the 99.7 percentile and thinking on a different level so much of the time, and other children find him hard work. HE is great with small children, very caring and kind, and happily engages with adults and will hold forth on the political situation if allowed. He does sing in a local small choir, which has taken a while for him to cope with.
We have seen him maturing with his social skills over the last three years, and with the help of some acting lesions when he is well, we expect that he will be fine in the end. A retired vicar suggest acting skills as he, like our son, had Asperger’s Syndrome and had to learn how to portray himself as a caring person although he already was inside.
For us it is always difficult gauging the right balance of time spent with friends and time resting. With his CFS life is quite unpredictable, he can suddenly have frail spells with no warning, only to pick up and seem almost well again. Coupling this with the stress he suffers going out, mixing in a crowd or just visiting a friend, it is almost impossible to gauge how much is too much. It’s always the days after a visit that show how well he has coped.
My one big ‘if only’ is if only I had had the confidence to stand my ground when he was small and follow my instincts to keep him at home, then we would have spared him a lot of pain and trauma. As it is, we have learnt from our experiences. He hopes to get to Oxford, although he is unsure which Degree to go for – will it be English Literature, or Latin, or History, or maybe Music, or maybe even Maths?
For further information and support:
www.nagcbritain.org.uk
0845 4500295
www.nas.org.uk
0845 0704004
www.meassociation.org.uk
01280 818968
Showing posts with label Only children. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Only children. Show all posts
Tuesday, 2 December 2008
Homeschooling an only child
We decided to pull the plug and homeschool our child when he was so unhappy and started talking about death, sometime into his 1st term in Year 1. I have to say then, tho I was very aware of my rights to educated him different, and that homeschooling is legal and permitted, i wasn't very sure where and how to start, other than to hand in that de-registration letter and to ask for formal acknowledgement from the headmistress.
I was also aware and prepared for the in-evitable enquiry from the LEA's. We were lucky in a sense that me and my kid is of foreign passport, hence we were able to justify that the LEA's involvement will not be able to support, but possibly obstruct his education. For we could not see how the LEA is able monitor suitability and efficiency of a foreign curriculum and syllabus that will be taught in duo language, English and Malay. It was our intention to part educate our son according to my homeland's syllabus and language, in preparation for our eventual return to my homeland.
So really, the fact that he'll be an only child didn't even register as a problem. I supposed me and hubby already resolved the "only child" question a long time ago when we have decided we will only have 1 kid. To us, the philosophy "less man, more share" applies. With only one kid, we can afford to provide the best of everything from attention and focus to financial matters. So really, "homeschooling only one" is not that different from our philosophy of having only one kid.
When we decided to homeschool DS, we were aware of the fact that we will be financially supporting his education on our own, which made us very glad that we only have 1 kid. From museums visits to homeschooling events and gatherings, movies to books to science kits, we're only paying for one, and not two or three. We are very electronic medium-based learning, so I am glad that I am only paying for 1 child's interest, from pc games to online community games to video games.
On our daily lives, I'm glad I am only homeschooling DS, for I only need to accomdate him, and no one else. We go wherever and whenever we want. I didn't have to play mediator between 2 or 3 children to find common grounds to make everyone happy. Every so often, I read of families with 2 or 3 kids, struggling to find common interest that will make everyone happy. In any homeschooling event, I can focus on helping my child with his chosen activity without having to be worry about the other child. We will stay for as long as we want and leave whenever we want.
Socialising? Well, if your child is the type that thrives on friends and social interaction, there is tons of homeschooling events, from drama to sports to science clubs to reading clubs to join in. And you don't even have to worry about which child does what, or pacifying the other child who hates drama classes but gets dragged along anyway because one of the child loves acting. When you have only one child, you can pick and choose to attend the one's that your child is interested in. My child don't like any structured or sit down events, so I was able to happily skipped alot of these without any guilt of the other child missing out.
My child started out being happy on his own. He had such a difficult time during his schooling years that he actually enjoyed the space and freedom of being left to his own devices. He opt to stay at home alot in the beginning, which was easily accomodated. We went to a few homeschooling gatherings but all he wanted to do was play on his own. He wasn't interested to join in playing with other children. After a few months, he just plainly told me he found the gatherings boring and would rather stay at home doing his own things. Because he was the only child, again it was easy to decide to do just that. During this time, we went out only when he felt like it. We went to places that he decided on, from swimming to movies to museums to bowling or which friend to call upon to visit.
One and a half years later, he's decided that he's had enough of being alone and now needed company, so he requested that we started attending regular homeschooling gatherings near us. Again, when and which gathering to attend is according to his preferance. Because he is the only child, I am aware that if he needs interaction with other kids, we'll have to go seeking it. Not all existing homeschooling groups appeals to my kid. So, if we want more our kind of social events than what's available, we created it, at the places he likes. Hence the occasional playdates in the park, at the local funhouse or even at our house. I'm not good at long term, regular events. I tend to organise "one off" events. We like outdoor, lots of space for high energy running and climbing, "doing what boys should be doing" sort of activities. There weren't many so we organised our own and listed our open-invitation on the local list. We always do end up having a lovely happy day full of fun and interactions with many other families. And because my child is the only child, he is very privilege to have loads of toys. Hence a playdate at our house is always convenient and exciting because he had so many toys to share with everyone. Homeschooling your only child allows you to accomodate your child's education according to his/ her interest, pace and development, and derive the best out of your current circumstances.
Lastly but not least, I have to say my child is diagnosed with Asperger. I strongly believed homeschooling DS alone has provided me the flexibility to accomodate him on all levels comfortably. It allows me plenty of time to focus on how best to facilitate his learning without having to split resources or worry about another child. And the luxury to drop it, chop it or change it, at the drop of a hat, if it doesn't work. Without having to consider the 2nd or 3rd child's needs. So to me, homeschooling an only child in the 21st century is no longer an issue. The invention of the internet has played a huge role in making homeschooling a viable and possible path, no matter where you are. It has provided huge support to many homeschooling families, and connected all of us homeschoolers to each other, at all times of the day. And this is no different to our children, especially our only child. With the invention of telephone and internet, our only child can now be as socially active as they want to be. My kid uses the telephone alot to speak to his friend. He also communicates alot with his online friends over the internet. With the common practise of possessing a family car, we're no longer alone and isolated, for social events can be easily accessible. Even without a car, the availability of public transport can help make it happen.
SharonBugs, happily and successfully unschooling 8 yrs old DS. http://mamagecko.blogspot.com/
I was also aware and prepared for the in-evitable enquiry from the LEA's. We were lucky in a sense that me and my kid is of foreign passport, hence we were able to justify that the LEA's involvement will not be able to support, but possibly obstruct his education. For we could not see how the LEA is able monitor suitability and efficiency of a foreign curriculum and syllabus that will be taught in duo language, English and Malay. It was our intention to part educate our son according to my homeland's syllabus and language, in preparation for our eventual return to my homeland.
So really, the fact that he'll be an only child didn't even register as a problem. I supposed me and hubby already resolved the "only child" question a long time ago when we have decided we will only have 1 kid. To us, the philosophy "less man, more share" applies. With only one kid, we can afford to provide the best of everything from attention and focus to financial matters. So really, "homeschooling only one" is not that different from our philosophy of having only one kid.
When we decided to homeschool DS, we were aware of the fact that we will be financially supporting his education on our own, which made us very glad that we only have 1 kid. From museums visits to homeschooling events and gatherings, movies to books to science kits, we're only paying for one, and not two or three. We are very electronic medium-based learning, so I am glad that I am only paying for 1 child's interest, from pc games to online community games to video games.
On our daily lives, I'm glad I am only homeschooling DS, for I only need to accomdate him, and no one else. We go wherever and whenever we want. I didn't have to play mediator between 2 or 3 children to find common grounds to make everyone happy. Every so often, I read of families with 2 or 3 kids, struggling to find common interest that will make everyone happy. In any homeschooling event, I can focus on helping my child with his chosen activity without having to be worry about the other child. We will stay for as long as we want and leave whenever we want.
Socialising? Well, if your child is the type that thrives on friends and social interaction, there is tons of homeschooling events, from drama to sports to science clubs to reading clubs to join in. And you don't even have to worry about which child does what, or pacifying the other child who hates drama classes but gets dragged along anyway because one of the child loves acting. When you have only one child, you can pick and choose to attend the one's that your child is interested in. My child don't like any structured or sit down events, so I was able to happily skipped alot of these without any guilt of the other child missing out.
My child started out being happy on his own. He had such a difficult time during his schooling years that he actually enjoyed the space and freedom of being left to his own devices. He opt to stay at home alot in the beginning, which was easily accomodated. We went to a few homeschooling gatherings but all he wanted to do was play on his own. He wasn't interested to join in playing with other children. After a few months, he just plainly told me he found the gatherings boring and would rather stay at home doing his own things. Because he was the only child, again it was easy to decide to do just that. During this time, we went out only when he felt like it. We went to places that he decided on, from swimming to movies to museums to bowling or which friend to call upon to visit.
One and a half years later, he's decided that he's had enough of being alone and now needed company, so he requested that we started attending regular homeschooling gatherings near us. Again, when and which gathering to attend is according to his preferance. Because he is the only child, I am aware that if he needs interaction with other kids, we'll have to go seeking it. Not all existing homeschooling groups appeals to my kid. So, if we want more our kind of social events than what's available, we created it, at the places he likes. Hence the occasional playdates in the park, at the local funhouse or even at our house. I'm not good at long term, regular events. I tend to organise "one off" events. We like outdoor, lots of space for high energy running and climbing, "doing what boys should be doing" sort of activities. There weren't many so we organised our own and listed our open-invitation on the local list. We always do end up having a lovely happy day full of fun and interactions with many other families. And because my child is the only child, he is very privilege to have loads of toys. Hence a playdate at our house is always convenient and exciting because he had so many toys to share with everyone. Homeschooling your only child allows you to accomodate your child's education according to his/ her interest, pace and development, and derive the best out of your current circumstances.
Lastly but not least, I have to say my child is diagnosed with Asperger. I strongly believed homeschooling DS alone has provided me the flexibility to accomodate him on all levels comfortably. It allows me plenty of time to focus on how best to facilitate his learning without having to split resources or worry about another child. And the luxury to drop it, chop it or change it, at the drop of a hat, if it doesn't work. Without having to consider the 2nd or 3rd child's needs. So to me, homeschooling an only child in the 21st century is no longer an issue. The invention of the internet has played a huge role in making homeschooling a viable and possible path, no matter where you are. It has provided huge support to many homeschooling families, and connected all of us homeschoolers to each other, at all times of the day. And this is no different to our children, especially our only child. With the invention of telephone and internet, our only child can now be as socially active as they want to be. My kid uses the telephone alot to speak to his friend. He also communicates alot with his online friends over the internet. With the common practise of possessing a family car, we're no longer alone and isolated, for social events can be easily accessible. Even without a car, the availability of public transport can help make it happen.
SharonBugs, happily and successfully unschooling 8 yrs old DS. http://mamagecko.blogspot.com/
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