I've moaned extensively on the 2E board so won't go into too many particulars here on DS and his struggles.
Thinking about doing one year (ostensibly eighth)* of homeschool to allow DS13 to relax and detox a little. DS is a classical autodidact (if that is a thing).
He enjoys:
composing music electronically
video-editing
sports (watching, reading, discussing--not playing)
politics
history/current events
creative writing
comedy
He is good at math and will do it without much fuss, but doesn't love it.
He doesn't like anything "academic." <---translation: other people's ideas about what he should be doing.
He games a little but not obsessively. I haven't allowed RPGs for him and won't until he's older. I mention this because my biggest hesitation is that DS might spend an entire year doing nothing but screens. He mostly uses screens productively, so my feelings are mixed.
If he took a year off of public school, what are the most important traditional subjects he needs to keep practicing so he doesn't end up with a skill gap in high school?
I'm thinking math, online, is the only super important one. He reads constantly, writes on his own, and is usually doing something productive on non-school time, if he's not exhausted.
I'm also thinking maybe a coding course. He has taught himself some code, but only in response to needing a Minecraft server to do something he needed. Nothing formal. Where is a good place to start learning code for a young teen?
He says he could see himself doing something music/tech related for a living, but I wouldn't even know what to call that, in terms of what formal education would lead in that direction.
Am I missing important things?
*He will technically not be missing a year of school, because he will have completed the MS curriculum this year, and will have banked some HS credits, as well. So this is a relatively low-risk experiment.
