I really need encouraging. .Help.

[discoverlife]

We took DS2 10yo (SEN) out of school at the beginning of this term (de-registered etc). We have been going over his school workbooks and doing some of the tests online to find out where to start teaching him from.
Today we found out that he doesn't really know his 2 times tables, he doesn't know them 'automatically', he still has to add up on his fingers for 2x7 2x8 & 2x9.
But the bad thing is that I snapped really badly at him (bloody heck, thats easy, you should be able to do that etc) for not being able to do the game we downloaded,(2 times table stuff) to help him, and he was enjoying the game so much. Now he doesn't want to do it again as 'he can't do it'. I've blown it and its only the first week. I was so angry at him for giving up so easily on part of the puzzle but I shouldn't have taken my frustrations out on him because it wasn't him I was so frustrated at, it was the school s for telling us that his strong point was maths and that he was working with his peers etc..
I just don't feel I have the right temperment for this. DH is more patient, but he was ill in bed for the day (he's disabled), I've been on the verge of tears all day and have told DS repeatedly that its not his fault that Mummy was angry. But it doesn't stop me feeling so guilty, I should have taken him out of school years ago and now I've done it I can't do the job.
Wail!!!!

[controlfreakyhappyandnew]

feel completely ill qualified to help.... but dont be so hard on yourself.... tomorrow is another day and all that..... bumoing for you....

[controlfreakyhappyandnew]

BUMPING!

[TooTicky]

It is hard. To suddenly have a child at home who has been at school - you will both need time to adjust and get used to being around each other.
I took my dd1 (11)out of school out of school in September and not every day is easy. Actually, it is much easier now that she is leading the learning and I have stopped feeling pressured and obligated ... does the maths really matter right now? If he enjoyed it, I'm sure he'll go back to it in his own time.
Don't be hard on yourself. Talk it over with him and apologise for snapping. Tomorrow is a new day.

[Julienoshoes]

My children are all dyslexic and don't automatically know the answers to their times tables.
Didn't stop DS doing all of the statistics for his A level Sociology.
Didn't stop my daughter being able to learn about navigation when she went sailing around the British Isles for the summer
Doesn't stop any of them from managing bus and train timetables as they travel around the country independently, doing (killer)Sudoku, knowing how much interest will be paid into their bank accounts, being able to work out how much paint they needed to redecorate their bedrooms.

Look at this article about deschooling
home-education.org.uk/article-deschooling.htm
"Sometime a child may have been traumatised by their school experiences. Perhaps by bullying, or the sense of being a small cog in a large institution. Sometimes it can be specific incidents leading to school refusal that leads to the decision to home educate. In these kinds of circumstances the process of deschooling is not limited to relearning how to learn, its learning how to trust in their own safety again. In this sense its the re-establishment of the child's concept of self and individuality.
Since their education has sometimes been bound together with fear and low self esteem then attempts to introduce formal learning into the child's life too soon after a removal from school may well be met with resistance from the child. It therefore can take some time for the child to see formal education as a safe and positive thing."

We tried the same sort of thing when our children were deregistered. All that happened was we were reproducing the pressure that they had felt at school to home. Suddenly they were getting the pressure from the two people they had felt safe with and who had been building self confidence-us!

We stopped and allowed deschooling (for them and us) to happen.
It has been suggested that children need a month for every year they have been at school, to let go of it all. For my ds it took longer than that.

My suggestion
Tomorrow get up and go for a walk
Dress up warmly, put on wellies and go jump in puddles!

Look around you as you go and chat to your ds about the weather/animals you see/the trees/clouds-anything and everything you see.
Find a cafe, have a delicious treat together and giggle about the fun you are having.

Talk to him about what he wants to talk about.
Make plans for the holidays you are going to have.
Have fun!!

And then when you get home and are chilling out some more, reflect on everything that has been said and you'll see what a lot you have covered just from having fun together.

[discoverlife]

I would like to de-school, but DH thinks that a child needs a minimum to be able to go autonomous. Which I intellectually know is wrong but my de-schooling hasn't happened yet.
I just seem to be beating myself up about the fact that I should have seen how much he was suffering, I should have taken him out sooner and that I should be able to cope. I should be a brilliant mother and teacher and everything else expected of me. Intellectually I know I am talking out of my behind, but the feelings of guilt are so overwhelming today.

[TooTicky]

Guilt will eat you up from all directions if you let it. Shut the door in its face. It is not helpful.
The point is, now you have taken him out of school and are trying your best. I love Julienoshoes' suggestion - do it.

[discoverlife]

Thanks TooTicky.

Julienoshoes. Do you know of any kid that hasn't started auto learning, that has just thought of it as one big holiday and never got off the PV or TV. Crikey there I go showing my school oriented leanings already, I don't see the PC or TV as valid education tools.
I think my big problem is DH, he likes to see me putting something in my journel each day to prove that DS has done some learning. And as he had a brill time in school he is trying to replicate that in our home.

[ilove8pm]

hi discoverlife. I am not HEing my dcs - yet. But anyway, saw your thread and just wanted to send you hugs and support for today, whatever you and your ds do. Have no advice or tips for you except I really admire you for what you are doing

[terramum]

Hope you have a better day today discoverlife. Something fun for both of you & take the pressure off...

Babies learn autonomously from the moment they are born - that's what humans are programmed to do....might be worth pointing this out to your DH - has he forgotten your DS learned to walk & talk perfectly well without any 'formal instruction' on how to do so? .

From what I've read on the various HE lists it can take a while for both children & parents to de-school and usually the parent takes slightly longer . We haven't even started HE yet as my DS is only 3.5 but I still get days when I catch myself trying to 'teach' him, I think, because of the way I was brought up & educated....my solution is usually to drop everything & head out to the local wood for an explore & a splash around in the muddy puddles - does us both the world of good!

[AMumInScotland]

Hope today feels better - the pressure has been squashing you all down for so long, it's no surprise there's a few flashes now the lid's off.

If you could get DH to read a bit on deschooling, he might understand why it's not easy to get straight back into it - even though you've just finished a school holiday it probably wasn't that relaxing if DS was fretting about what the new term would be like, so you're due a break before getting into it again.

If DH really wants to see something in the journal each day, (maybe worried about how it will look to LEA?), perhaps you could think up ways of describing what you've done rather than doing things because they sound right? eg making cakes could translate to things like "reading recipe", "weighing and measuring in metric units", etc? (even 2x table if you make double the recipe...)

Sorry if that sounds facetious, I'm not trying to minimise the real frustration you're feeling with it at the moment.

I don't know how you tend to explain stuff to DS, but I'm sure if you let him know that it's the school you're anrgy with, and yourself for not helping him sooner, he'll cope with the occasional outburst. You don't have to be perfect at HE, any more than you were the perfect mum to a pre-schooler. Even if his formal education comes to a dead stop for 6 months, he'll still be far better off than he was at the school, as he'll be getting into a position where he will be able to restart.

[emmaagain]

agreeing with all the upthread stuff -

YOU need to deschool, mama. Just live life with your child for a few weeks. rebuilding his trust and self condidence is a major part of what you need to contribute to his education just now.

Forget testing, forget establishing what he knows, just do fun stuff together and let his curiosity gradually unfurl.

as for the guilt - you have a choice. You can revel in it, punish youtself for every day your child suffered, or you can choose to be fully present right now with your child, with all the optimism and potential for joy and learning that goes with it. Be present now. You cannot affect the past, it's gone. He'd rather you had a great time with him now than that you spend the next 15 years apologising to him - how is that fun?!

It's a completely different way of life from school. if you can manage to back off, you'll find that things come up when they need to, not because you push it. And for this year's LA report, if you decide to write one, it is perfectly justifiable to say that you spent the first 3 months nurturing and re-establishing your son's trust in himself which had been so damaged by the school environment that you had to remove him. It's rehabilitation. think of him as someone who has just come out of jail and needs to just be in a halfway house for a while before he can take a full part in teh community again.

[Winetimeisfinetime]

I was in a similar position as you in that my dh wasn't that keen on HE and I felt under pressure to prove to him that we were achieving academic things each day. What helped him get on board with a much more relaxed approach to education was going to local EO meetings with me where he met other parents and HE children who were intelligent people with eloquent confident children. The other thing that convinced him were the amount of parents there that were former teachers ,who had seen the education system from the inside and didn't want it for their children. If there is a local group it would probably be worth going along for some socialising and support. But otherwise I agree with what everyine else is saying - don't try and rush things and put pressure on yourself and your ds. I know it's hard to start with as you feel you ought to have some structure - I remember feeling really paniced at what I'd done taking my ds out of school, especially when your dh is not totally convinced but honestly it does all work out.

[AMumInScotland]

I just re-read your comment "I would like to de-school, but DH thinks that a child needs a minimum to be able to go autonomous"
and wondered if your DH has missed the point of the deschooling?

It doesn't mean that after you deschool you'll not be able to do any formal stuff again.

The point of the deschooling isn't to forget about how to learn in a structured way, it's about letting go of the stress.

Even if you were going for a formal style of HE, it's still perfectly normal to deschool for a while before starting up - think of it like the long summer holiday between one school year and another, giving you the chance to relax and recharge your batteries.

[discoverlife]

Thank you all for your uplifting words. We had a normal shopping day today, and DH bought a microscope, which DS wants to play with as soon as possible. So who is it needs de-schooling?
I am feeling much better today thank you all. Yesterday is going down in my book as the 1st bad day of the year.
It didn't help that DS1 had not told us it was his Christmas 'Do' (he's a chef and they have their christmas party after New Year when its quiet), and he was very late getting home, and his mobile wasn't on. So DH went looking for him at 2am. I wish it had been a girl, I really do. Anybody out there with a 16 to 21yo daughter who would fancy a chef?

[AMumInScotland]

Glad it's been so much better today - just one of those blips on the road of life....

[Julienoshoes]

discoverlife said;
"Julienoshoes. Do you know of any kid that hasn't started auto learning, that has just thought of it as one big holiday and never got off the PV or TV."

No
But to an outsider our life probably looks like one big holiday. We don't make our children do anything. If they chose to sit in front of the TV that would be okay. We know they won't do it for ever-it gets boring and as we facilitate the education they are directing, they usually choose the many other things they are interested in.

"Crikey there I go showing my school oriented leanings already, I don't see the PC or TV as valid education tools."

Both TV and PC have been brilliant educational tools in our house-we do not restrict the access to it.
They bring all sorts of things they have learnt to us to discuss and have certainly taught me many things I didn't know.

I also know of one home ed family where the children watched lots of Tv and used the PC++ all three offspring are now working and excelling in that field.
This is one of the families that inspires me, their youngest has never been to school, never had a formal lesson even in reading or writing.
He recently has taken himself to college to do a Computer course.
College base line assessment test. He
scored something like 70% in English and 90% in maths. they didn't ask him to do the IT bit of the test as it would have been an insult, considering the level he has been working at (he is 17)
he is still out there camping whenever we get a chance or doing outdoor pursuits that interest him and can and does instigate indepth conversations on all sorts of subjects with people of all ages.

Have a look around joyfullyrejoycing.com/
it may well answer some of your questions

I also like www.education-otherwise.org.uk/Links/HE_Adult_St/IWild.htm as it explains the reason why we educate in this way. really well.