#6 - Lived Experience - Our Journey to Unschooling with Jane Nicholson

In this first 'Lived Experience' episode,   Jane Nicholson, mother of three neurodivergent boys, shares her family's challenges with mainstream schooling and their decision to home educate two of their sons due to ‘School Can’t’ induced stress and trauma. 

Jane discusses the deschooling process, creating a flexible educational Unschooling environment, the challenges of finding your Home Education ‘tribe’  and the mental health benefits of Home Education. 

If you have a School Can't Experience that you'd like to share on a future Lived Experience episode, you can email us at schoolcantpodcast@gmail.com

Useful resources:

• Dr Ross Greene’s Collaborative Problem Solving (CPS) framework - https://livesinthebalance.org/
• Dr Naomi Fisher’s book, ‘Changing Our Minds’ - https://naomifisher.co.uk/books/changing-our-minds/
• Accidental Homeschool - Jane’s blog about their experience with home education - https://www.accidentalhomeschool.com/

Transcript

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Leisa Reichelt 0:05

Hello and welcome to the School Can't Experience Podcast. I'm Leisa Reichelt and this podcast is brought to you by the School Can't Australia Community. Caring for a young person who is struggling to attend school can be a stressful and isolating experience, but you are not alone. Thousands of parents across Australia and many more around the world face similar challenges and experiences every day. Today we're gonna hear one mother's experience with School Can't in our first of what we call our Lived Experience episodes. Jane Nicholson is joining us. She is a mom to three neurodivergent boys, one of whom is attending school, and the other two are now being home educated. Jane is going to share some of the experiences that her family has had in working with schools, with School Can't, and the journey that they've been on to find ways for the boys to learn and to thrive. Jane, thank you so much for joining us. Just give us a little bit of a overview, Who are you? Tell us a little bit about your family.

Jane 1:02

We live in regional New South Wales. We moved from Sydney when our kids were a bit younger. We have three kids, all sons, 9, 11, and 14. And all neurodivergent. We've got a mix of autism and ADHD. We have one child in high school, and our two younger ones we homeschool. I'm fortunate enough to have a husband that works from home so I can leave the kids and duck out for five minutes if I need a walk or something to recalibrate. But yeah, that's pretty much us in a nutshell.

Leisa Reichelt 1:34

And Jane, are you working as well or is homeschooling your full-time gig now?

Jane 1:38

So, I did have to give up work. I was working full-time when we were in Sydney. Then I tried to run my own business. It was actually going quite well. Because of School Can't, I was getting unpredictable phone calls all the time, which made it impossible. Even with my own business, I still had to drop everything and run. It took up a lot of headspace dealing with School Can't, so that kind of prevented me from doing what I needed to do. So, no, I'm full-time homeschooling.

Leisa Reichelt 2:09

I would love to hear your story of how you came to Home Education. How did that become a part of your life?

Jane 2:15

It was absolutely the last option on the list. It wasn't even a thought when we started out. Schools don't talk about it. Professionals don't talk about it. Our middle son was in school for three and a half years before we started homeschooling him. We did that on a short term basis while we were waiting to get into a support unit. So we tried a support unit as well. That only lasted a term. So we've been homeschooling since then. Our youngest has attachment issues, from 10 months old. When I used to drop him off at daycare, he would scream the house down for like an hour to the point where my husband actually had to start taking him for those drop offs. because if I did it, it was just too unbearable for everyone involved. He ended up doing six months in kindergarten before we pulled the plug and started homeschooling 'cause it was just too stressful. I was already homeschooling our other child. And our choice to go to homeschool, it was very much a mental health issue. Our middle child, he had major School Can't would rip all his clothes off, hide under the bed. So we physically couldn't take him to school. He's autistic and would have 45 minute meltdowns every single day. And they were horrific like we're talking... breaking things, trashing rooms. We went through, I think about six televisions. yeah, it was a lot

Leisa Reichelt 3:37

Wow.

Jane 3:38

And yeah, so it was really, really hard. The advice from school was just be consistent. Just keep coming, keep going. And the, specialists were like, yep, school's the best place. We've gotta work on the accommodations. Make it work. It was just getting worse. And he was an absconder. So he actually made it off the school premises a couple of times and was nearly hit by a car one time. So it was pretty intense. A member of the public actually grabbed him from going in front of a car. So obviously my anxiety went through the roof. We were told it was a safe school. It had lower fences, and was told that, you know, these kids, it's fine. We deal with them all the time. But clearly they hadn't deal with mine because he made it off the premises. And even during the time in the support unit, he was just absconding. He would just get running out of the classroom. Clearly did not want to be there. Took a huge toll on all of us. So with mental health and also physical safety, because I was worried if I'd be able to get my child home in one piece at the end of each day. So it was pretty horrific. And we did hesitate for ages to move to homeschooling. It's just wasn't on my radar. I don't know, anyone who did it, for me it was homeschooling was more people with more extreme views or their own personal beliefs that kept them out of mainstream school. I'm very much a mainstream person. It did take a long time to get there with our middle child and then with our youngest, after six months I went, I know where this is going, and we all need to not be here

Leisa Reichelt 5:09

Yeah.

Jane 5:10

yeah.

Leisa Reichelt 5:10

And meanwhile, you had your eldest going off to school.

Jane 5:13

He ended up going off to school. He loves school. There was a little bit in upper primary where he was struggling in class a bit and we met again, and that's when he got ADHD diagnosis. but he, he's fine. He goes to school. He loves it. He enjoys it. He's met his people. He's really happy.

Leisa Reichelt 5:31

Okay, so tried school. Advised to try to keep the middle one in school. Is that Chalk or Cheese is the middle one? Cheese

Jane 5:42

Yes, we have Cheese and Chalk, who I talk about on our blog. Cheese is autistic. We call him Cheese because he's very mature. He really loves the company of older people, whereas Chalk is colourful, messy, hectic. yeah, that's where we've got their names from.

Leisa Reichelt 6:00

Excellent pseudonyms. I love them very much. So you got to the point where school clearly wasn't working and I think you said Home Education was effectively like last resort. How did you make that transition? What was the approach?

Jane 6:15

It was done with great hesitancy. It's not something that I wanted to do. I didn't have confidence in my own abilities to do it. I'm not a teacher and you know, no one wants to spend 24 hours, seven days a week with their kids as lovely as they are. You do need a break. Basically, it got to the point where there was no other option. Everything was just too hard. So we just jumped in. I think I did the big mistake of what a lot of people do is recreate school at home. I spent quite a bit of money on off the shelf curriculums 'cause I didn't have the confidence. I was like, right, I need someone to tell me what to do. That's one of the hardest things. In that initial stages, homeschooling it is so overwhelming, because there's no one way to do it. There are no instructions of this is how you homeschool. And there's so many different forms. There's, you know, unschooling, there's varied different forms of online support services, distance education, game schooling. The choices are endless. And for a new person who didn't want to homeschool. It is extremely overwhelming. The information on the NESA website at the time, was teacher lingo. So I'm reading it and I'm, what is this that they're saying? I don't understand. So that was a really, big thing to get my head around. I was lucky enough to reach out. We have a great homeschool group, locally, and I reached out and tried to just meet with some homeschool parents one-on-one to go, look, what is this like? What is it about? I don't understand. And everyone was saying, don't worry, it's a lot simpler than you think. You're overcomplicating it. So I think a lot of it was my own anxiety about what am I doing?

Leisa Reichelt 7:59

I'd be interested to know how did Cheese react to this? At first when you were like, alright, we're not gonna do the school thing anymore, we're gonna do it at home instead, What was his journey like?

Jane 8:12

Oh, he was happy as Larry. He did have a trauma response to school, so he did have PTSD from, that's how assaulted his senses were I quickly found out that we weren't going to be able to do anything that looked like school. And from the kind of conversations and researching I did, I found out about deschooling, which is the process of doing nothing in inverted commas. It's kind of like a holiday. Don't think about school, just heal from that experience and the trauma and the stress of dealing with the school system, Letting your nervous system reset. Cheese went from, having 45 minute meltdowns a day to none, like zero. I can't tell you the last time he had one. So that in itself, I think speaks volumes. We have a therapy swing in our lounge room and he would spend hours in that every day. It gave him like a big hug, just the nice pressure. And he was happy doing that. We read books, played games. I got into video games with him. Just whatever he wanted to do and enjoyed doing, I went with, through that process, you get to forget everything you know about school. Just throw it out the window, and look at your child afresh. What are their interests? How do they learn? What do they engage with? Are they more engaged in the morning than the afternoon? Is it inside? Is it outside? Is it going out in nature? So now we have a very Unschooled approach, which is. We go with his interests when he's interested. The more effort I put into a lesson or a project, more likely he is to go, nup, not for me. It's nearly like you had a younger kid, you might rotate the toys in the baskets around that's very much what we do with him. So I've got lots of hand-on manipulatives. So geometry sets and games are amazing because they have so much learning in them, but they're covert learning. So just, yeah, going where he's at and what he wants to do. And then I kind of retrospectively look at how he's learned and what he's learning. Because if I try and go from my point of view to him, it's not gonna work, but looking at what he's doing and go, okay, he's just discovered this. So we've got some really, there's just some moments where you see things click and it is, it's magic. We take a strength-based approach. So we look at what he loves doing and work on that. So he is a history boffin. So we have got senior high school teacher who comes in and does tutoring, not with the goal of HSC or anything like that, but just someone that can engage with him on his level. So he's in the equivalent of Year Six now this woman is a senior, 11/12, getting kids ready for the HSC and he's teaching her things. The knowledge, and just the joy of him engaging what he loves. He's just, he's on cloud nine for the rest of the day because he's had all this time to speak for someone, engage with someone on a special interest level, which is fantastic for him. Yeah.

Leisa Reichelt 11:16

And how is he gathering that knowledge himself?

Jane 11:18

Um, it's, I suppose we notice a little interest in something and then we start feeding in more materials about that interest. So it started, for him it started off with dinosaurs, that moved to reptiles, that moved to dragons, that turned into mythology. And then from mythology, you get all these rich, great stories and he'd be like researching where in the world they were. And then he got into European politics for quite a while and went quite deep into that. I think just anything with good story, a bit of intrigue, a bit of drama, from an historical perspective really interests him. So yeah,

Leisa Reichelt 11:55

I would love to hear if there is such a thing, like what's a typical day in the life from Cheese's perspective, but then also from your perspective, what's your day like?

Jane 12:06

Yeah.

Leisa Reichelt 12:06

is that different to what it used to be?

Jane 12:08

Yeah. Okay. So look, they're very relaxed. Getting up in the morning is not a drama. People can get up when they're ready to get up. There's no packing lunches, there's no getting dressed in uniforms that are too itchy. It's just relaxed. And so they both get up and just read. We have a no screen time in the morning rule. So they just read, they're just hanging out, vibing. They're starting to make their own breakfast more, which is great for me. Then we might have a bit of screen time and that's free time for them to explore their interests. That's very much for Cheese. For Chalk, he's extremely ADHD, so any form of gaming, YouTube sends him off his rocker. We've had a lot of internal discussions about the different neurotypes of brains and how brains work differently. So they both understand how their individual brains work. They know that the way they use screens is different. Cheese will use screens to calm down. Chalk will it sends him crazy so he can have regular TV, but anything more interactive than that does not work for him. You kind of go with the energy of the day, and the weather as well. So we have lots of games we might play after that screen break. We might go take the dog for a walk. We tend to not try and push too much into that morning period. Then we have another break at lunchtime, and after lunch is where we might try and do, and do a science experiment or an art activity or just, I've kind of got to go with where they're at and try and help the activities. I end up doing more work with Chalk at this point in time and then Cheese will see what we're doing and get involved with it. Whereas before I'd be trying to work with Cheese and he'd be like, no, you're telling me what to do. I can't do that. So this is working really well and it gets him a lot more involved. We have homeschool catchups, so we go to, a more social Homeschool catch ups. We have tried. the more organized group ones, which are amazing, but I find they work less for neurodivergent kids. Because people homeschool for so many different reasons. These people come together and they try and recreate learning experiences as opposed to prioritizing the social aspect. So for us, they're a bit too much like school. There are organized activities, there's noisy people and places. So from a sensory perspective, those kind of groups didn't work for us. It was really hard. I felt really isolated and without being able to attend those groups locally, I had no connection with, with any other homeschoolers. And that was really, really hard. So, I ended up creating, a group for people in similar situation just using Facebook and that's been amazing. You meet all different people from all different ages. But coming from a point where we had to homeschool because we didn't have another choice, and those mainstream opportunities were so hard for our kids to access, there wasn't a lot happening, and especially in a regional area as well, so. Yeah, took a good 12 months, but now we have a lovely small group of people who are in the same situation, and we can do social opportunities out and about, which works really well.

Leisa Reichelt 15:24

Talk a little bit more about the social side of things, because it is often something that people who are considering Home Education are concerned about.

Jane 15:32

Yep,

Leisa Reichelt 15:32

What are the different kinds of social opportunities that your kids now have, you know, as part of their standard week or month?

Jane 15:42

So Cheese doesn't have any, he's very happy to be at home in his own company. He does come out if the event is something he's interested in, but if it's too social, he gets social burnout and we'll have to kind of retreat with his headphones and chill out somewhere. Chalk being the complete opposite, wants to go out and be with all the people all the time. So, we're quite lucky where we are. We have quite a range of bush schools or forest schools where you can go with another bunch of people for a day a week. So as a parent you get a bit of a break, so that's great. And they're very nature based. And also sign up for all those extracurricular activities. So like Cubs, music classes, any kind of group extracurricular activity is really good. You often get just out and about spending time, living life, you know, Chalk was, wouldn't say boo to a goose, when he first came out of school. And now he just strikes up random conversations to the person next in the, in the shopping line with us. there are those kind of, social opportunities.

Leisa Reichelt 16:48

I feel hesitant asking this question, so feel free to tell me to back off, but do the boys have friends?

Jane 16:57

They do, a small circle. I think the older you get, the harder that is because the bush schools and everything you can go to, they're more upper primary. So once you start getting to high school or if they're too young, it can be a bit lonely. I think Cheese enjoys being around people, not necessarily interacting with them. So friendship for him is a lot different than it is for Chalk, who just wants to be everywhere all the time. So look, I think Chalk has a much wider group of friends. And it is something that we're working on with Cheese, and there are a lot of great work that therapists are doing around social. So they'll do a group social activity. So he does like a gaming club that's facilitated by a speech therapist. There are ones that are facilitated by OTs and it, it's really good 'cause it helps the kids connect with other people. But also drive a lot more self-awareness of how they're feeling and if they've got an issue, how that can be discussed and the therapists that are run it are just amazing at facilitating that.

Leisa Reichelt 18:05

I know boys are young at the moment, but as parents we can't help but sort of look to the future and imagine like where things are gonna go.

Jane 18:14

Yeah.

Leisa Reichelt 18:15

What are your thoughts on that? What do you imagine for the boys as they grow up a little bit more?

Jane 18:20

Yeah, look, there's just been such a huge change over time. I try not to think too far in advance because then I start getting extremely anxious and it's just so unpredictable. So Chalk, uh, he's quite young, so. He may want to go back to school because he does want to be around all those people. I'm not sure if school will ever have the level of movement that he needs, to remain regulated. Cheese I can see absolutely doing uni degrees in his own way, in his own time. You often find from homeschool students, there's a lot of research out there that they're more likely to go to university and once they are, they're a lot more mature and stick with the courses because its of their interest and they have chosen it rather than someone coming out of traditional school going, I've no idea what I'm meant to do now with all this information. So they know themselves, a lot more as homeschoolers, which can help, you know, drive their paths.

Leisa Reichelt 19:20

I mean, it's scary for all of us, honestly, who have got School Can't kids, isn't it? So it doesn't really matter which direction you're going in. You're always kind of just hoping for the absolute best.

Jane 19:31

absolutely and something I wanted to mention on School Can't, I think throughout our education journey, that for me has been the absolute hardest part. Because you are living in limbo. You don't know if you're going to school, you don't know if you're gonna home educate. Each day is a take it and see how it comes and it's crippling from being able to hold a job, your mental health. It's a really, really hard period. And I would say definitely the 'are we?, aren't we?' School Can't experience is the hardest part we've had so far. Yeah. I feel for everyone going through it.

Leisa Reichelt 20:08

yeah, it is extremely difficult. When we were talking to Pavlina McMaster in a earlier episode, she sort of spoke to that a little bit as well and said the thing about Home Education is that your life becomes a little bit more predictable because you have a little bit more control over the shape of it, and you're not always in this, in this limbo that you talked about. Has that been your experience as well?

Jane 20:31

Absolutely. 100%. Yeah, you go with what works. I'm very much a planner person, so I had to take a lot of deep breaths and just go, no, we're going with where they're at. And, but it works, you know, and just to see the improvement in their mental health from emotionally broken children, to absolutely thriving. It's beautiful to watch. Um, the other thing, when they're at school, they are so stressed out, trying to keep it together. They're not learning anything. Whereas now they devour books and information, its definitely worth taking the plunge and it's also not forever. Homeschooling might be a choice for a couple of years until your child gets to a, a certain level, you know, maturity level or you feel it's working. What put me off making the decision was I didn't have that mentality. I was like, you either go to school or you're homeschooled. I didn't really think that, oh yeah, maybe we could do this for a little while and work with where you are at, at that moment.

Leisa Reichelt 21:25

That makes lots of sense. You said you're a planner, and that, but now you have to adapt a lot more, but it sounds to me as though you are actually doing a lot of background planning so that you are ready to be able to respond in the moment. Is that a fair assessment?

Jane 21:39

That is absolutely true. Um, and Unschooling, I think Unschooling gets a bad rap from a lot of people 'cause it's like, oh, the kids just do what they want. Which is not the case. You are a facilitator, and it's nearly like you're constantly curating materials that might engage them where they're at, what they're interested in, and then I also look at the curriculum and what they should, "should" be learning go, okay, so they're interested in that. How could I work fractions into cutting up the pizza today? Do you know what I mean? So I'm kind of tackling it from both ends. That's probably more for the way my brain works I feel like I need some kind of direction because the options are so endless. I need to feel like, right, okay. I know we are covering things because I don't have a teaching background and it, it, it is difficult. So yeah, it's a lot harder than it looks, but it's also a lot easier it looks in so many ways when it comes to the engagement of learning.

Leisa Reichelt 22:41

What about dealing with the authorities on, on this side of thing as well? I think there's a lot of kind of unknown in terms of like what you have to do to

Jane 22:49

process.

Leisa Reichelt 22:50

Yeah. You know, especially in states where some are more aggressive than others in terms of how they police these things. Like, what are you, what are you having to do to make sure that everything's kind of where it needs to be?

Jane 23:01

Look, I didn't really have an issue with the process. So we're in New South Wales, it's quite easy. You apply online, you just answer a couple of quick questions and then there's up to a 12 week period where they will contact you to make an appointment for a meeting with an AP, and they come out, they have a look at your education plan. So that, for me, the first time round was like, right. I, I'm, I need to buy these because I don't know what I'm doing. They come out. Make sure that you understand the learning, understand what you need to learn. You are judged on yourself as a facilitator, not what your child knows. So there is no failing from a child's perspective. There's no testing. And a lot of the time it is actually a welfare check as well to make sure that, you know, it's a, it's a healthy environment for your child to be in. Yeah. And I also found the APs extremely helpful. A lot of them are ex-school teachers or principals, and they see how many kids don't fit the system. So they are there not to judge you, but to support you. I think it is hard when parents get to the point, it's like, we have to start homeschooling now. We cannot keep doing this, and there's that 12 week wait period. schools don't like that. They want you to keep coming to school, so you often need to get either a doctor's certificate or a, a note from one of your specialists talking about the mental health impact. And also, the school then needs to do some paperwork for an extended leave. Um, and some of them just say, we're not doing it. It's also connected to their funding as well. So obviously if your, if your child has a diagnosis, that amount of funding that they've got is a lot more, so it's not. A process that they want to go through

Leisa Reichelt 24:43

Understandable. Okay. We've covered so much ground here today. I've really, yeah. This has been a really good chat. I'm gonna move us onto those closing questions that we talked about. if you could go back in time and tell yourself something, when would you go back to, what would you say?

Jane 25:00

I would probably go back to before they started school and say, investigate homeschool. And just do it For neurodivergent kids, from our experience. Um, yeah, don't delay. Don't hesitate making that decision.

Leisa Reichelt 25:18

so not at the last resort, but bring it much further forward.

Jane 25:23

look, knowing what I know about the school system, it is absolutely, um, a last resort, but I don't feel there's a viable other option. So if there was, I would absolutely take it.

Leisa Reichelt 25:34

Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Fair enough. What is something that you would like to say to everybody who's listening, who's on their own School Can't journey at the moment?

Jane 25:43

I would say number one, prioritise mental health over attendance. And anyone who tries to push you otherwise is not healthy. And also you have more options than you're aware of. So for me, homeschooling was never on the radar. It was never discussed. Schools won't discuss it because you have to go to school. And their job is to facilitate you going to school, so they're not gonna talk about other options. So just, yeah, mental health and research all the options out there.

Leisa Reichelt 26:12

Amazing. And if there was one resource that, that you wish everybody knew about and had access to, what would that be?

Jane 26:21

I've got three

Leisa Reichelt 26:23

I'll take three. Three's also good

Jane 26:24

It depends where you're at in your stage. So if you are at school and trying to make that work, I think Dr. Ross Greene, uh, with his CPS model, with working schools, it puts the child at the center of the process and helps them problem solve and facilitate making School Can't work. I think often its left to the adults and the child's not involved in that process. That that is, I think, a really, really good one. I didn't discover it until after we had started homeschooling, but I know about it now and if you want to go to school, I think it's a great model. If you are hesitant about homeschooling, um, there's a book by Dr. Naomi Fisher, called Changing Our Minds. Um, and that looks at how children actually learn. Because homeschooling is done in so many different ways there's not really any research into it. So you often hear about, how schools are falling behind in reading or whatever, but that doesn't, there's no comparison to homeschool. So she does a great job of explaining how kids naturally won't, you, you don't, you know, you don't get taught to walk. You learn it. Um, my kids, I didn't teach them to talk. They picked it up and that actually carries on throughout the years. So it, that's a really good one.

Leisa Reichelt 27:38

Amazing.

Jane 27:38

Yep.

Leisa Reichelt 27:39

And the third one.

Jane 27:41

I so I've started writing a blog, um, called Accidental Homeschool. And it's a what I wish I knew way back when. And I try to do it with a sense of humour because otherwise I would be in the fetal position on the floor. So, it's, it's a realistic view of what it's been like for us.

Leisa Reichelt 27:59

Starring Mr. Chalk and Mr. Cheese?

Jane 28:02

Starring Chalk and Cheese. Our neurospicy, 11 and 9 year olds,

Leisa Reichelt 28:07

Amazing. Fantastic. Well, Jane, thank you so much. It's been just wonderful to hear about the journey that you've been on, and I'm so glad that you guys are in a good place right now and the boys are all doing really well.

Jane 28:18

Yep. Thank you very much.

Leisa Reichelt 28:19

So what a privilege to hear Jane's story. And thank you again, Jane. I'm not sure about you. But my experience as a School Can't mum was a very lonely one for a long time, and it often felt like I was the only person in the world dealing with these challenges. Obviously that wasn't true, but I think we do have a tendency to feel ashamed of what's happening and to hide it. And as a result, it can be really hard to connect with other School Can't parents. We are hoping to share many more School Can't Lived Experience stories. So if you have a School Can't story that you would like to share, please email us at SchoolCantPodcast@gmail.com. That's one word schoolcantpodcast with no apostrophe, obviously. And you can send any feedback that you have to us at that email as well. So once again, that's -SchoolCantPodcast one word, no apostrophe, @gmail.com. We'll put a link to the resources Jane recommended in the episode notes and also a link to donate to School Can't Australia. Your tax deductible donations help us to raise community awareness, partner with researchers, produce resources like webinars and this very podcast, and to assist people who are supporting children and young people experiencing School Can't. If you are a parent or carer in Australia and you're feeling distressed, remember you can always call the Parent Helpline in your state. A link with the number to call is in the episode notes. Thank you again for listening, and we will talk again soon. Take care.