Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy Pulling an 11 year old out of school to "unschool"

Hmmmm... well, from experience, such a gaming/internet 'addiction' (if one calls it that-- it could just be "obsession" instead) can be diffuse and not focal in nature. That's how it seemed to us, because it WASN'T any "one" site, or even any one behavior. It also wasn't addiction so much as escapism channeled through a particular obsessive interest.

Or it could be focal and furtive enough that you just don't know what it is, or think that it's relatively minor when it isn't.

I have no idea what he places a premium on. I've been asking myself that for 5 years.

I think that you have to figure that one out. What does your GUT tell you he cares about? What does he do when he can do ANYTHING he wants to do? (I mean, really, truly carte blanche.) What previous obsessive interests has he had trouble managing, if any? Those things are all clues to what he might be using as an escape.

What happens if you disable electronics overnight each night for a week?

This is a minimum? It doesn't sound like unschooling to me. It sounds like schooling, except at home and without anyone else to talk to. Personally, I think you'd be setting yourself up for power struggles that surpass what you've seen already.

You've said in many posts that your son has trouble getting stuff done at home. Why would this change if he's suddenly forced to spend all of his time at home? My eldest is homeschooled and he's very self-motivated. Even so, I have to guide him quite a bit.


I didn't understand what you meant here until I read this:



So, he was in school or in a scheduled activity from around 8 a.m. until 5:40 with exactly 5 minutes off? This isn't downtime by a large margin. And then he had another scheduled activity at 7? And he's on a baseball team? This seems to be a very heavy schedule. Maybe he's just worn out (or burning/burnt out).

Also, you seem very negative about daydreaming. I believe that many developmental professionals say that significant solitary time spent in unguided thought or pursuits is essential to healthy development.

Just wondering: is this a typical evening? If so, I can understand why he might rebel. But I don't think he was "stupid" because he missed Scouts. I also don't it's healthy for a anyone to be "on" from early in the morning until close to bedtime, and certainly not a child.


I'm confused. Why did you say "hah!" here? Is being a section leader a bad thing? Overall, from what you've written, he seems to be having relatively few problems in school and more issues at home.


Gentle suggestion: maybe you're overinvested here.

I'm only making comments based on what I've read. I know that what I've written may not be what you want to hear, but from what I've read, homeschooling --- especially if he's against the idea --- doesn't sound like a good idea. Have you thought about asking him if he'd like to ease off on his activities? If so, let HIM pick which one(s) to drop, not you.

Although your son is a lot older than mine was, I have to echo what HK said - we never saw a single behavioural issue at school, they were ALL at home. bad sleeping, bedwetting, anxiety, "I'm tired" all the time, apathy, not wanting to do anything except watch tv, degenerative in speech, physical development, emotional development etc. Bad eating too and then aggression, anger, lashing out etc. Also, within 3 days of school ending it all would fade away, until we would remind him of school starting in 2 days time (or whatever). Then it would start again.

He also told us he liked school - when I went to fetch him he would hide away and beg for 10 more minutes. The school saw no problems except the ones "in your (my) head".

We pulled him and it took 9 months of weekly play therapy and almost as long of doing absolutely nothing to help him be self-motivated again. This is called deschooling. Where he was allowed to ride his bicycle, swim, daydream, play lego, go for walks, watch tv, choose games to play, outings to go on, playdates with friends, sleepovers at grandparents etc.

Initially he would ask for work, but I could see that his heart was not in it - he would dawdle, redirect and put it off over and over. So I would say lets rather go on a picnic etc.

Eventually he started seeking out activities of learning on his own.

So let me ask: is it such a big deal if he doesn't go into 8th grade in the fall? Would it be the end of the world if you kept him home now, let him have serious downtime and then decided together just before school starts back what you will do then? (whether test for 8th grade or homeschool or unschool?)

If your instincts are telling you this is what he needs, then don't toss those away; trust your instincts and allow him the freedom to do absolutely nothing for a while and then see what happens. The joy of switched on kids, is that they don't fall behind; they learn without trying and so you will know by then if he is ready and wants to do 8th grade or not. Time is one thing all our kids have - they can do more in less time and it can often be a blessing if we allow it to lead to more time to just be a kid.

That was not a typical evening. It just happened that we had the two activites on the same night.

I don't think he was "stupid" to miss Scouts - he's the one who started calling himself "stupid" and got very upset about missing.

I said "hah" about the section leader not because it's a bad thing but because he is so disorganized at home that it is very hard for me to believe he can be so organized at school. I didn't tell him that - just congratulations.

HE doesn't want to drop ANY activities. In fact, he wants to add more. And, daydreaming is not a bad thing in general. It does hinder you, though, if you WANT to get to boy scouts and you spend your time daydreaming instead of getting done what needs to be done so that you CAN get to boy scouts.

Electronics: he has to have computer access to do much of his homework. At 8 pm, though, they go off, on school nights anyway.

I guess if he could do anything he wanted, he'd either play on the computer or read. We've actually "grounded" him from reading in the past. We have taken away electronics as a consequence and used elecronics as a reward but it never seems to make a difference.

I think he could finish the required coursework by just doing a lot of reading in those subjects. Which he loves to do. The Algebra would be the only thing that would have to be structured as he needs it for Algebra II next year.

It was just a thought that maybe a break would help things. I'm exhausted, he's exhausted.

I probably am overinvested but he's my child and he needs help. I'm trying to find ways to help him.

And, like I said in my first post, it was just an idea, not thought out in any sense. Like, "oh, he's got mono, maybe he needs to be out of school for a while" or "he's recovering from lyme disease, let him rest". If he's worn down from the stress and anxiety of his life, maybe he needs to rest.

Not saying it's a good idea. Just saying the thought occurred to me.

I think that exhaustion and stress can look like ADHD and executive function issues. I once worked as an executive assistant. I had to coordinate multiple things at once and be able to prioritize and focus on the most important thing at the moment. I was good at it. I was always on time. Now that our family is going through medical issues, the anxiety and stress I feel absolutely affects my executive functioning and it seems so hard to get anywhere on time. My son, who always had trouble sleeping, now has anxiety that is making his sleep issues worse. He always had trouble turning off his mind and now it is worse. He can't fall asleep until almost morning now. It seems like the melatonin stopped working. It feels like things just get harder and harder and harder.

Out of necessity, we are unschooling at the moment and it is just the two of us. One of the reasons we homeschool is the medical appointments and stress that they cause. My son chooses to work on learning Japanese and history and economics and psychology and philosophy and current events. He reads everything he can on the newest advances in technology. He likes alternate histories and likes to imagine what life would be like if some small thing in history was changed. He is very picky about what he reads. If it is boring and doesn't make him think he will not read it. He finds the most interesting articles on politics and he loves to discuss and debate important issues, but all he has is me, his dad and his sister. I let him learn what he wants right now because I feel that he needs this. Mental health and health in general comes first. I just wish my son had more of a support group that included people beyond our family. We live in a town where almost everyone goes to a church that preaches against gays and although he is not gay he feels that people are born this way, just as he was born with disabilities that he did not ask for, and he doesn't want to be around people who would focus on something like that. Our only local homeschool group is very religious and they kicked out a family that had different views on this matter. They post things on facebook that lead us to believe that they think most of the problems of the world have something to do with accepting gay people. I think they would see my son's refusal to think the way they think as defiance. We talk about this a lot lately.

When my son has trouble getting out of bed, he is cranky but I don't see it as defiance. He says that he feels bad all day if he doesn't get enough sleep and I know it makes anxiety issues worse.

The neuropsychologist my son saw when he was 11 didn't think the fact that he hadn't slept much the night before testing and was getting a migraine during the test and had anxiety would affect the results of the test. Since I know these things affect my performance I didn't think the results of the test really helped us that much except that is a picture of his ability when he is exhausted and stressed and has a migraine. It helped me to realize that compensated for these things well in some areas and others, not so much. We got confirmation that he was verbally gifted but there were some test results that did not make sense at all when looking at what he is able to do outside of test situations and the neuropsychologist did not like it when I mentioned this. I hope you get more answers than we did.

It was easy for me to pull my son out of school but I don't think I could put my son back in school. He will have to learn the way he learns best and take college level CLEP tests when he is ready.

I think not being able to do band would be hard. Band is the one thing in our football obsessed small town for smart kids who don't do sports and they just look like they have so much fun together. I used to wish my son could just take band and nothing else but it isn't allowed here either. He used to have friends who were in band as well as musical theater. When my son had to quit musical theater because of medical issues there was no opportunity for him to be around other teens except church and I have been tempted to force him to go, thinking he really needs to be around other teens.

Madoosa,

You must have posted while I was writing the above. It might have been your post about de-schooling where I got this idea. He wouldn't have to go into 8th grade but I wouldn't want him to repeat 7th grade. It's already too easy and repeating it wouldn't be a challenge at all. Plus, all his classmates would be going on to 8th. I think he'd really rebel if he had to repeat a grade.

I think he is not "switched on", which is a good phrase, thanks. That's why the deschooling might be good for him. So, I guess my post should have been about deschooling instead of unschooling. My instinct tells me that something has to be done. My head tells me I have no idea what to do.

You seem to know what to do. Nothing is forever and if you feel he needs the down time then I would suggest giving it to him. I am sure you could still get him into 8th grade if you both wanted him to return to school by then. Otherwise he could stay home and learn through home or unschooling and then have more time and energy to hang out with friends after school.

At the very least if something needs to be done, then please don't leave it. Do something, even if its just to remove the school thing and allow him time and space to just be for a while. You can figure it out together later. Nothing is forever

all the best in making the decision. You will find that once you have made it it will be a lot easier and YOU will feel at peace about it.

Petunia, no offense, and apologies if this sounds harsh or judgmental-- it's not, as I hope that my thread from two years ago shows-- but there are some things that I think you should be thinking about before you DO anything else.

1. Everything you've described sounds like escapism to me. Your son's preferences for leisure time, his desire for "down" time (reasonable or not), and his daydreaming. What is he looking to escape FROM? Or is it that it's something in particular that he's escaping TO which he has no other access to in his life?

2. IF you make the decision to remove a child from a social milieu that they enjoy and are functioning well in... you have to consider some things very carefully in a cost-benefit analysis. Lori and Madoosa have both offered some insights there, and I'll add to that chorus. If your child is at all socially-oriented, and particularly if that child is also an ONLY child... hit pause and don't skip this step. What will he LOSE if you do this? What will he GAIN? What about the negative things lost and gained?

3. Will homeschooling make your child your SOLE focus? Some of what you've said indicates that this may already (mostly) be true. There's nothing wrong with that, by the way-- Lori and I have both lived like this for years, as I think is obvious from our posts. But it WILL raise issues that you'll have to look at with a fairly critical eye. Being at home with a preteen/adolescent who is isolated is a recipe for enmeshment unless you guard very carefully against it, and always keep your eyes on that particular gauge with brutal self-honesty in place.
Ironically, it is EASIER to enmesh with talented children-- at least I suspect that it is-- because we can cover it up with rationalizations about "nurturing" and "push parenting" and "support/hothousing." It's very hard to remain healthily independent when it is so tempting to "guide" your child's every decision and action-- and when it is POSSIBLE to do so.

Please understand that I'm not accusing you of anything like that. I'm pointing out that this is one of the dirty little secrets that is almost universally true about homeschooling families. You DO have to be very deliberate about promoting independence from yourself as a parent, and you have to admit that this goes against many of our natural instincts as parents, to boot.

GREAT advice.

I agree with MoN and would also add "Involve Dad in this decision."