A personal story...

I took my son, J--, from school, in October 2002. He is 13 in May 2003 and very mature for his age. From starting school he was always advanced in all areas and I was very pleased with his schoolwork. However, getting him to school was always a complete nightmare; every single morning, we went through the same routine of arguments; why he had to go to school etc. etc. etc.

On arriving home from school, I had to go through endless arguments of why he had to go back the following day! Bedtime was hell on earth, because J-- knew that that was the end of that day and it all started again tomorrow.

I felt helpless and didn’t know how to cope with it all. As J-- grew older, he started with physical symptoms which had everyone worried and baffled. This went on for years.

To cut a long story short, J-- started skipping school and I started having visits from the authorities. At 12 J-- was a very intelligent boy who was fine during school holidays but ill the rest of the time: to such a point that he would be sick as he left the house and cry every morning when he knew he couldn’t get out of going to school.

All this was making me ill too. My heart went out to him, but I had to do ‘what was right’.

One day it all became too much and I decided to talk to J-- about home education. I had been thinking of it for a while and wondered what he thought. As soon as the subject was brought up, we both felt an enormous sense of relief and I knew it was right. However, I did have a huge problem; J-- had had enough of learning and wasn’t interested in anything I wanted to do, even though he knew that by law, he had to be educated. So, after a few weeks of ‘rest’ and then lessons, I backed off and did nothing. J-- began asking why we weren’t doing any work.

After a long hard talk, it was decided that we would only pursue what J-- wanted to do and see how that worked out. Since then, things have been almost perfect. He is learning guitar and doing really well, he loves art and is very good at it and spending quite some time learning skateboard manoeuvres and getting very good at that too. In between, he spends a lot of time on the computer or we ‘play’ games such as trivial pursuit, who wants to be a millionaire, scrabble and any quiz we come across…a favourite at the moment is a geography quiz on the computer called around the world, from a Comptons 3D atlas disc. J-- ‘hates’ geography, but so far knows every flag in the world and wins me around the world nine times out of ten!

So, he does English, Geography, P.E., music, art and I.T and we have the occasional day out visiting somewhere of interest. The last visit was a science museum and was a great day out. We have spent so many years arguing that I thought we could never be friends, but thank heaven; we are finally enjoying our lives together. I wouldn’t have it any other way now.

If J-- was still being forced into going to school, I doubt that he would actually be in class, let alone be learning anything; at least I know where he is and what he’s doing now - And of course that he is learning something!

I hope this helps anyone else who was beginning to wonder if they’d done the right thing.

Update November 2004: After having my letter printed, I have had several emails from mums in the same position as myself and I have been very pleased to hear from them. They have described their lives as parallel to mine and it has helped both me and the mums; being able to share experiences, the happy ones and the sad ones, is such a help to all involved. A simple chat on the phone has kept us all going at times!

J-- and I have also had a meeting with the education authorities, which was very encouraging. The officer was impressed with the change in my son – he spoke to her and asked questions, rather than sat with his back to her and mumbled replies to her questions as he had done before.

J-- has written quite a few poems since he came out of school, and was told that they were worthy of publishing, so that is our new quest!

We have found that endless quizzes have helped us enormously, as J-- is competitive and has an excellent memory, so we use them as a source of learning – a great idea for anyone in the same position, and its fun!

I do hope our story is of help to any one family out there, trying to teach a 13 year old!!! It isn’t always easy, but well worth the effort. One really worthwhile result is the change in my son’s health – he has not had one day of illness since he came out of school!