October 19, 2025 • 60 mins
In this episode, we talk to Emily who is a home educating mum of three with autism and adhd, whose children are all also neurodivergent. What emerges is a safeguarding issue - but no, not the usual rhetoric around home education and registers. Here school was the safeguarding issue for Emily's child and home education is the place of care and freedom.
With Emily Fae - Emily is a home educating mum of 3. As a late diagnosed neurodivergent woman parenting and educating her three neurodivergent daughters, she is passionate about sharing her experiences and supporting other mums in similar situations, helping empower them in making the right choices for both them and their children. - @Calmspace_calmmind on Instagram
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Welcome to Home EducationMatters, the weekly podcast supporting
you on your home education journey.
Hello and welcome to anotherepisode of Home Education Matters.
(00:22):
And today I'm joined by EmilyFay, who is a neurodivergent home
educating mum of three, whichI feel like should be on a badge
or something or a T shirt.
And that's nice, isn't it?
Welcome to the podcast, Emily.
Thank you so much for joining me.
Do tell our listeners a littlebit just about your home education
journey.
Yes.
So I think I often wonder whenI sort of made the actual decision
(00:47):
that we weren't going down theschool route.
And I don't know that I canspecifically say that, but I definitely
started questioning what I wasgoing to do.
I mean, I think that a lot ofpeople, you know, you have a baby
and, and you have these kindof ideas of what it's going to be
(01:08):
like and the journey thatyou're gonna take with that and,
and the, the milestones thatyou're gonna hit and you know, the
first birthday and the firstday of nursery and the, and then,
you know, the first day ofschool, that's a huge thing.
And everyone talks about it,what school they're gonna go to and
oh, you know, or they'll bestarting school soon.
(01:28):
My journey into motherhood wasslightly different because my daughter
was diagnosed with leukemia atnine months old.
It was a very rare form ofleukemia and she had a genetic condition
linked to that.
So her chance of survival waslike less than 3%.
(01:49):
And we were told, yeah, toprepare ourselves, she had to have
a stem cell transplant.
It was her only chance ofovercoming things.
She had that just before herfirst birthday and she's 11 now and
she's doing amazing.
She's a little bit of a miracle.
They, they didn't expect herto not only survive but also to do
(02:15):
as well as she is doing.
She has a lot of hurdles toovercome in the future, but she's
doing amazing.
So I didn't have some of thefirsts anyway as a mother because
we were in a hospital fromnine months until nearly 18 months.
(02:35):
And then after that, you know,I had a, had a child where I had
to be careful what she did,how she interacted.
She had delays in her physicaldevelopment and things.
And she was also a summer born baby.
So my husband and I, wediscussed home ed and we felt that
that was the way that we weregoing to go.
(02:57):
We were exploring that.
But in the first instance totalk to, you know, because it's convincing
other people around you andit's the pressure from people around
you can be really hard.
We said, we're delaying.
She was a summer born baby, wecould do that anyway.
You know, when she got to thatCSA age and you kind of feel that
pressure, you should beapplying for schools and stuff, we
(03:18):
were like, it's fine becausewe're just, we're still doing our
thing.
And it gave us a chance tokind of really get into the swing
of, of home ed.
And by then I had three.
Three under five.
I don't recommend it.
So I was balancing all of thatas well.
And I was like, do you know what?
(03:38):
Throwing a school run intothis would be easier just to have
them all at home than havingto, to kind of do that.
So we, we started, you know,joining groups and getting to know
other people and things and,and more and more I started thinking,
but this is working for us, right?
And suddenly going into schooland things.
(03:59):
And I also had a bit of atrust issue with school.
Imogen had a lot of additionalneeds and I did speak to some schools.
I did look into it.
I didn't want to make thedecision solely from looking back
at my own experiences ofschool and thinking and also wanting
(04:21):
to keep my daughter close tome because obviously I'd nearly lost
her and the thought ofsuddenly giving her away to strangers
scared the life out of me.
And I didn't want to make thedecision purely from a kind of fear
point of view.
So I wanted to make it from anempowered point of view.
So I did.
I spoke to schools and Icouldn't get any school to give me
(04:43):
any reassurance that mydaughter's needs would be met.
And I thought, well, hold on,there's no other situation that I
would put my child in if Iwasn't sure their needs were going
to be met.
Is that, you know, as a parentyou want to protect your child, right?
And then we're told to just goand put them into, into a school
(05:07):
environment, into theenvironment of other people.
And without that reassurancethat they're going to receive the
same level of care that youare giving them at home.
And that for me was thetipping point.
I was like, without thatreassurance, without that wanting
(05:30):
to understand my uniquechild's needs and being able to help
them with that, it was a nobrainer for me.
I was like, no, she stays with me.
I can, I can meet these needs.
And there was a fear, youknow, can I do it?
Am I qualified enough?
(05:51):
You know, and my father likesto tell me regularly that you know.
Yes, but when she start, youknow, once she's secondary school
age, you won't be able, youwon't, you know, you know, you don't
have the skills to, to teachher at that level and blah, blah,
blah.
And you know, you, you do,there's a lot of outside pressure.
Can you give that level ofeducation to your child?
(06:14):
And my counter argument tothat is, can you give my child the
level of care that they needto support them in that?
Because if you can't providethem with the perfect environment
for them to absorb whateverthey need to absorb, if you can't
(06:35):
do that, you can be the bestteacher in the world.
My child is not going to learn.
They're not going to make theprogress that they have the ability
to make because theenvironment around them isn't, isn't
correct.
I know because I was that child.
I was that child in that environment.
(06:57):
I was the child that was told,you have the ability to do so much
more.
Why aren't you trying harder?
You, you're an a star pupilbut you're getting B's and C's.
Why?
Why?
Why?
Because I'm in an environmentthat isn't allowing me to excel and
(07:19):
I felt that my daughters weregoing to be the same.
And as you said, I'm aneurodivergent mother.
I am diagnosed autistic, but Iwasn't diagnosed until I was in my
30s and I'm undiagnosed ADHDas well.
(07:40):
And my daughters are also neurodivergent.
Having gone through my lifefeeling misunderstood, feeling like
I was less than because Iwasn't hitting the targets that were
expected of me, that I wasn'tdoing what I was supposed to be doing.
(08:02):
And then the impact that hadon my mental and physical well being
for me, I wasn't prepared totake that risk with my daughters
of impacting their mental andphysical health.
For what?
For them to, to be like me andcome out with, you know, be the average
(08:25):
student.
You know, I was never thebottom of anything, but I was just,
I sat in the middle and I, I,I wasn't the star student of anything.
I was frequently told that Ineeded to be trying harder, trying
better, I could do.
And, and I carried thatthrough and, and I'm now as an adult,
(08:46):
I'm doing that, undoing thosebeliefs that I wasn't good enough,
that I wasn't, I was lazy,that I wasn't trying hard enough.
That, and also that I waspedantic and precocious because I
often questioned the teachersbecause my autistic brain was like,
(09:07):
hold on there.
And I realize now it was justme, you know, trying to understand.
But to them, I was being difficult.
I was a difficult child tohave in their classroom because I
wasn't just toeing the lineand doing what they wanted me to
do, and I didn't want that formy daughters.
And as scary as going againstthe grain and home educating and
(09:34):
that feeling of pressure that,you know, your children's academic
success is on your shoulders,it's so freeing.
I get to allow my children tofollow their passions.
I get to allow them to learnat their own speed.
(09:54):
And one of the.
One of the fascinating thingsI found is that I often do a lot,
a lot with my girls and feellike there's.
There's no progress being made.
And then all of a sudden,like, my middle daughter, she went
from not reading and it waslike such.
A.
Felt like such a strugglebecause she wanted to.
(10:14):
To learn, but she was just sostruggling for so long and then all
of a sudden she was reading and.
I'm really sorry about thenoise in the background.
It's cute.
What's she doing?
It's.
I've got two kittens andthey're going a bit crazy.
The kittens?
I thought it was the children.
It's the kittens.
(10:35):
It's very cute.
I'm ever so sorry about that.
I like kitten background.
Kitten.
Kitten sound.
Yeah, yeah.
They're actually destroyingone of my daughter's creations.
Are they?
Do you want to stop them?
Well, I did tell her not toleave it on the floor.
So this is a life lesson.
It's interesting, you're.
(10:55):
When you were talking there,it really reminded me of that.
Of that thing you hear bandiedaround every now and then about safeguarding
and about how home educationis a safeguarding issue.
I'm doing little invertedcommas as I say that, and how sometimes
parliamentary discussions kindof equate the two across.
(11:16):
And I was thinking as you weretalking that actually for you, school
was a safeguarding issue,wasn't it?
Both physically, emotionally.
It was.
It was a safeguarding thing,wasn't it, for you?
Yeah, absolutely.
It really was.
And as a child, it was asafeguarding issue for me.
I was.
I was that overlooked child.
(11:37):
You know, I actually.
I actually got locked in theschool once.
My friend and I got forgotten.
We were.
Well, her mum was late pickingus up.
We'd been.
We'd done a netball matchafter school and we'd gone up to
the library and we werewaiting up there and all the teachers
forgot about us and they wenthome and we went to go out of the
(11:59):
school and we couldn't get outand we were locked in.
So, yeah, school is asafeguarding issue for me.
And without reassurance that,you know, I appreciate they do safeguarding
training, I appreciate thatteachers are trained, but they also
have 30 plus children thatthey are looking after.
(12:19):
And I, I love the fact that mychildren get to interact with a really
wide range of people.
Adults, older children,younger children, you know, loads
of different people in, invarious settings, but they also have
(12:43):
me.
So my children, you know, theydo, they get into situations where
they are, you know, fallingout or, you know, having little disagreements
or maybe someone sayssomething to them or they feel hurt
and I'm there and I get tohelp them navigate through that in
(13:05):
the moment.
And for me, that is a hugeplus because one of the biggest things
that people say is what about socializing?
This, this is another hugething that gets thrown around when
you say you're home educatingabout how do they socialize?
(13:25):
Which I, which makes me laughbecause don't we all remember being
at school and being told it'snot social time, this is the time
to learn and you know, stoptalking in the back.
You're not supposed to be, youknow, socializing now.
But that, but that biggestaspect, when you say you're home
educating, another thing theysay is that, you know, children,
so sorry, children aren't.
(13:48):
I'm only imagining thedestruction going on in the background.
Oh God.
They always do this when I tryand do anything.
They're absolute menaces.
And, but that's the otherelement that you, you get to support
when you're home educating isthem learning to socialize in a really
(14:11):
positive way and them learningto navigate the intricacies of socialization
by having that security of you there.
And, and you know, we all knowthat thing of.
Unless you deal with things inthe moment with children, it's, you
(14:31):
know, it's gone.
It hasn't gone, it's there inthem, but they've moved on.
So it's.
If something happens inschool, by the time they come home,
they may not tell you aboutit, but they're still carrying it.
And for me, being able to havethose interactions in it and deal
with everything, noteverything in the moment, you know,
I'm not with my children 24, 7to get a break, but on a more frequent
(14:56):
basis, it, it fills me withconfidence as a mother that my children
are, you know, have thatsupport and that safety blanket.
But also for them, they're,they're much more confident going
into situations.
You know, I, my children are.
People always say, oh,they're, they're very quiet, they're
(15:18):
very shy.
And they are, theirneurodivergence is very similar to
my own where I was labeled asshy as a child because I, I will
always stand back in a situation.
You know, I'm not going toshout over anybody.
I'm not going to, you know,I'm a quieter version.
(15:41):
I'm not an extrovert, I'm an introvert.
And so that's playing out inmy children as well.
And I get a lot of people say,oh, your children are really placid.
They're really.
And I think until they're inthe right environment and then they're
really not and they're not placid.
I find that very.
A quite offensive term becauseI think that feels like that they're
(16:03):
kind of just trying to fit inand they're not.
Because that what I'm beingable to teach them that I didn't
have the opportunity to learnis boundaries.
So although my children maycome across as quiet, they are very
boundaries and they are notafraid to say no or no thank you,
or I don't like that, orplease don't speak to me like that.
(16:25):
And that's something that Ifelt was really, really important
to be able to teach my.
And particularly becausethey're introverted and particularly
because they've got to learnto navigate in a world where there
are a lot of extroverts and,and a lot of people who will shout
over them or who may try to do things.
You know, one of my daughtersin particular doesn't like touch.
(16:49):
So I wanted to teach her froma young age that it was okay, particularly
around adults, to say no.
I, I, that makes me feel uncomfortable.
And her saying that makesadults feel very uncomfortable.
But it's really important,it's really important for them to
learn boundaries with childrenand for her to learn that.
So that, that was another.
(17:10):
So, yeah, the safeguardingaspect, that kind of keeping the
teaching them the skills tosafeguard themselves.
I felt that I could do that ina much more effective way than I
felt that the school would,would be able to do.
Not because they're not skilled.
I'm not saying that they don'thave amazingly skilled people working
(17:33):
in those environments and thatsome of those teachers would be really
helpful and supportive.
I don't think they have thecapacity to do that.
It's interesting you weresaying about that, because I think
that school inherently erodespeople's boundaries.
And it's a controversialstatement, but I really stand by
(17:55):
it.
I did a podcast with NaomiFisher about anxiety and about supporting
your anxious child, and shesaid something very similar.
She said the school system isset up to create anxiety because
by anxiety you get motivation,you get control.
And I think as well, school isinherently designed to erode boundaries.
My daughter, who is trying outschool this week, I gave her a little
(18:18):
pep talk and I said, I, youknow, try to do what the teachers
ask you to do, unless ofcourse, you feel that it makes you
feel uncomfortable or it's notsomething that you want to do or
it goes against your values orany of that.
And she looked at me as if tosay, well, obviously I'm not going
to do that then.
And I thought, She's 17 now.
She knows that because we'vehad, you know, almost two decades
(18:39):
of homeschooling, but inactual fact, how many children go
into school, particularlyneurodivergent children who then.
Who then almost certainly suckup whatever happens?
Because the, the culture in aschool is to do what you're told.
And if you don't, it's reallyproblematic, really.
Problem, you get like yourname on the board, public shaming,
(18:59):
you know, it's terrible.
Right.
And as I would imagine that asa neurodivergent parent who had been
through that experienceyourself, and then to imagine viscerally
kind of imagine yourneurodivergent children in that kind
of experience where boundariesaren't encouraged, it would be, it,
it would be really like aconflict for you.
(19:20):
Absolutely.
That and I.
Something that I'm having toheal and unlearn now as an adult
is the fear of being wrong.
I absolutely terrified ofbreaking rules.
I'm terrified of getting in trouble.
I'm terrified of being toldI'm wrong.
And it keeps me from.
(19:43):
I'm really sorry.
He's just.
Is it the kittens?
I kind of want to see whatthey've done.
I've got a hold of mydaughter's made a bird feeder at,
at the farm the other day.
And you've just got hold ofthat and was trying to get all the
seed and everything everywhere.
(20:04):
Oh my God.
I just wanted to that beforeit was too much courage.
It's very sensible.
I did never work with childrenor animals.
Right.
So, yes, this fear of being.
Being wrong and getting introuble because you are, you know,
(20:25):
my neurodivergent brain andbeing autistic you do have this black
and white thinking.
So if I'm told I can't dosomething, I can't do it and I won't
do it.
The issue therefore in schoolis that you become, you lose a part
of yourself because there areso many rules and you're so, and
(20:47):
a lot of them contradict eachother as well.
And, and it, and it can change.
So as you go up in school, therules start to change and then, and
the expectations change.
But when you've got anautistic brain, it's like, hold on
a minute, how does this work?
A minute ago I wasn't allowedto do that or I was allowed to do
(21:08):
that and now I'm not.
And you spend your whole timejust in this, in this sort of confusion
and this feeling of alwaysbeing wrong and getting it wrong
because the boundaries arechanging all the time.
The goalposts are changing,the expectations are changing.
And it's a lot, it's a lot ona child who just wants to follow
(21:33):
the rules.
Yeah.
And do it right.
Do it right.
And I think that pressure is,is huge and, and, and is so misunderstood
within the education field.
This understanding that thelevel of wanting things to be right
(21:58):
and the same and needing that,needing that, needing things to be
the same, needing the.
You know why a lot of childrenseemingly do well in school as, as
new, neurodivergent orautistic is because.
And, and at first or theirparents feel that they don't do as
well at home.
(22:18):
Is that routine, the routineelement of school?
You know, I, I thrived in the.
Putting a uniform on every day.
I thrived on.
I had to be at certain placesat certain times and things were
on certain that that elementof it is great, but it's not enough.
It's not enough that.
And that, and that's not theeducation part of it.
(22:40):
You can create a routine at home.
You know, I've created thatwith my daughters.
My daughters we used to haveoverwhelm every morning I could.
We'd have a meltdown everymorning about getting dressed.
So in the evening they settheir clothes out for the next day.
So they just get up and theyput their clothes on.
They have that routine andthen they can just do whatever.
(23:02):
You know, they haven't.
Even if we're not going outanywhere, they still do that.
They have that familiarity ofthat routine.
There's no pressure, there'sno expectation on them.
They know that that's what's happening.
We have a loose timetable thatwe follow so that they have an expectation,
they know what's coming.
You can create that whilstalso allowing within that timetable
(23:24):
that you can throw out thewindow if someone's having a bad
day or you know you're feelingoverwhelmed or there's too much going
on.
You just, you can let go ofthat timetable.
You can do whatever is neededon that day.
But what we find helpful isthat semi structure to fall back
(23:47):
on, that kind of, it's thatfamiliarity, it's what school does
offer that is helpful, is thatkind of something to follow, something
to kind of give some sort ofstructure to your day, to your week.
And I think for us as aneurodivergent family, that works
(24:08):
really, really well.
For me as a parent, I knowwhat my expect, the expectations
are on me.
I don't have to every day bethinking, oh God, what am I going
to do today?
But for my daughters as well,they know, they know what the expectations
are and they also know thatit's okay for them to turn around
and say, I don't want to dothat today, I can't do it.
(24:29):
And that, and that's okay.
And we, we, we talk about itand we go, okay, is there anything
that we can put in place soyou can do that, so you feel able
to, or we just don't do it andthat's okay.
And there isn't a repercussionfrom that.
There's a, that's what home,home education is brilliant for,
(24:52):
is that your children get to,they get to learn the natural consequences
of things so they start tounderstand, oh, if I, if I frequently
don't do this class or Ifrequently don't go to that group,
oh, actually the naturalconsequence might be that then when
I do go, friendship groupshave changed or when I do go, I feel
(25:17):
behind or I'm not meetingthese goals that I want to meet.
So they get to learn naturalconsequences but not repercussions.
They're not punished for it,but they get to learn that, oh, actually
if I put the effort in, if Ipush myself a little bit, then I
can actually achieve more.
(25:40):
And learning that forthemselves, I mean that's, that's
a skill again that I've had tolearn that I'm learning to do things
for myself and that it, that,you know, I, I'm not going to get
in trouble if I don't do it.
But actually I want to do itbecause the natural consequences,
(26:02):
if I don't do it, then I don'tachieve or I don't, you Know, get
fitter or I don't.
Whatever the goal is.
And I, I think that's what'slacking in school is that they don't
get the opportunity to learnnatural consequences.
They're just punished.
And, and therefore, for them,it's just like, well, that's just
(26:25):
not fair then.
That's just, you know, theyjust learn life is.
Isn't fair.
And I, yeah, what I hear is.
I always say that homeeducation really is about freedom
and flexibility.
For me, that's very much whatit's been, and similar to you, that
took place for me within astructured setting.
(26:45):
So I've had, I've had the realhonor of interviewing some amazing
unschoolers who do itbrilliantly, like, brilliantly.
And every time I listen tothem, I think, oh, this is really
cool.
I really want to do this.
This is like, amazing.
And then I'd have to reinmyself back in and go, yeah, no,
no, that's not gonna work for you.
(27:06):
Because for me, structurelessin that way freaks me out.
Completely freaks me out.
And my son, I know he's.
He is also one of these peoplethat he asks me at the start of the
week, okay, what's happening?
When.
And I remember there was atime when he was about 7, and he
said, oh, you know, what havewe got on today?
And I was like, I don't know,dude, let's just see.
And he looked at me as if tosay, are you actually joking me right
(27:27):
now?
And I thought, okay, this isnot the vibe that he's looking for
here.
So do you feel that, that youhave this freedom of flexibility
within the boundaries and thestructure that you put in place?
How do you feel that thatsettles within the home educating
community?
Do you feel that you aredoing, like, one thing or another?
(27:48):
Do you feel that you're justdoing your thing?
Like, how does that work for you?
You know, I, I find myselfalways being like, you know, I, I
want to be this unschoolingparent and I want to just let them
do whatever.
But.
And actually with theneurodivergence, for my daughters,
(28:09):
that doesn't work.
They need a semi structure.
And I found that when I wasjust, let's breeze through this for
us as a family, that didn't work.
But where I have to get thebalance is the minute that I step
into structure, you startgetting into like, oh, we've got
to be doing this and we've gotto be doing that.
(28:31):
So I've managed to, I like tocall it semi structure in this kind
of a flexible routine, becausethe routine element of it, I think
for our brains really helps.
And one of my daughters inparticular, she, she needs to know
what's happening.
(28:52):
She needs what's happening thenext day in the week.
She needs to have that.
You know, we have set dayswhere she washes her hair, otherwise
there's no way you're gettingher anywhere near a bathroom.
But if she know, she knows onthat day is happening, she can handle
it.
So I have to do that with herlearning as well.
So.
And, and it's quiteinteresting in the home ed community
(29:16):
because there's kind of thissort of purist kind of stuff that
goes on, you know, that's kindof like, oh, yeah, but if you're,
if you're not unschooling andletting your child just do whatever,
then you're, you're not homeedding, right?
And I think there's no rightor wrong way.
(29:37):
There's the way for your childand your family and what works best
for you.
And I think there's.
You get sucked into both sidesof it.
You get sucked into the.
Oh, you've got to be doingGCSEs and you've got to be doing
so much maths in English each week.
And if you're having toproduce reports for the la, you also
(29:57):
have that pressure of, youknow, proving that you're, you're
giving enough to each of thosecore subjects.
But then you also have thispressure from a lot of other people
within the community whereit's like, no, you need to be letting
your children run free and youneed to be just integrating learning
into every day, which isobviously brilliant and is what everyone
(30:23):
is doing anyway without even trying.
But I, I've done both.
And at each ends of thespectrum, Hannah, they both were
really stressful for me.
And so I've kind of found thismiddle ground and I think there,
when people are coming in newto home ed as well, there's this
(30:45):
kind of pressure to go one.
Choose a camp.
Yeah, choose a camp.
Are you unschooling or are youbeing really militant?
And you've got, you know,these really crazy timetables.
And so like you were saying at11, 12.
So my 11 year old suddenly waslike, I want to do all these things.
(31:06):
And so she's booked on allthese online classes, she's got this
crazy timetable.
And I'm like, okay, you do you.
Let's see how it goes.
It's like, and, and she, sheloves it and she hasn't done all
of the classes yet, but she'sreally excited about it.
She wants to do all these things.
And I'm like, okay, well,let's see how it goes.
(31:26):
Let's see how you can manage,you know, all these different things.
And I think that's the beautyof home ed is you get to give them
those opportunities.
Like you're saying with yourdaughter, giving her the opportunity
to go and experience schooland experience that.
You get to let them find theirway and find what works for them.
(31:49):
And then you've got twochildren having three.
They're so different.
And that's what's fascinatedme the most, because I have to.
They have to have completelydifferent timetables, completely
different styles of learning passions.
My middle daughter is verymuch like, unless it's about animals,
(32:13):
she's not interested.
So I have to make every, everybit of learning has to be related
to an animal or that.
But there's a bit.
That's great, that's fine.
I can do that.
You know, there, there'smillions of ways she, you know, she
manages to.
(32:35):
I found some amazing online classes.
She's found this, this tutorthat who does these, these online
classes.
And she's just taken to herand she does drawing classes with
her and science classes andzoology and stuff, and they're all
based around animals.
But she's learning differentskills with each of them.
(32:56):
And she, she's into it.
When we first, when I firststarted trying to get her to do anything,
she wasn't interested in.
If she thinks that it'slearning or we're sitting down to
do a workbook or something,nah, she's not interested.
But these, she gets so excited.
She's, you know, writing herown books about these animals and,
(33:18):
and this was the child whowouldn't pick up a pencil or do anything.
And it's so beautiful to beable to offer those opportunities
for your children.
And I'm so grateful for allthe people out there who are also
offering things so I don'thave to sit and do it all myself.
But my eldest, she's really.
(33:43):
She loves reading all the classics.
She's very like.
She's, she's my mother and sheloves really structured classes and
really what I would call sortof traditional learning styles.
And potentially in a schoolenvironment, she would quite like
(34:06):
the class teaching element of it.
But the rest of it would be wait.
She's so sensitive and she'djust be completely.
And she'd be so distracted.
She gets distracted so easily.
She wouldn't learn as much asshe, she does in her lessons but
she, she needs those type of lessons.
Completely different to mymiddle daughter and then my youngest,
(34:28):
the whirlwind, she's justlike, that's a whole other ball game.
And we're still fight, youknow, she's just coming up to seven.
We're still finding our feet,you know, in other countries they
don't even start school untilthen, so we haven't, you know, she's
just dipping her toe in thewater, she tries out little bits
(34:50):
here and there and she'strying out some of her sisters things
and stuff and we're still, I'mstill learning her style.
I'm still sort of discoveringwhat it is that is going to click
into place for her.
That's going to be, you know,sort of accelerate her learning.
It's made me realize it'slike, how can you make a national
(35:13):
curriculum?
And how can you make, youknow, I'm quite, my mum, you know,
taught teachers to be teachers.
So I, I have sort of aninsight, you know, I know how that's
taught and it's so simplistic,it's for one style of learning.
(35:37):
How can you, when everyone'sso different, have a school where
you go in and they're expectedto all do the same thing?
And it's.
My autistic brain goes, pardon?
That doesn't compute for me.
And it fascinates me that it'snot wildly understood and I hear
(35:59):
it so much from people like, Icould never do it, I don't know how
you do it.
And my brain goes, I don'tknow how you do the school run.
Thank you.
To you know, trying to getthem to do homework.
I don't know how you do themeltdowns after school, I don't know
how you do the managing all ofthe things that they have to take
(36:21):
to school and you know, theparent teacher evenings and the off
the trips and all of thosethings because I, I don't have to
do any of that.
And yeah, there are days whenhome educating is hard.
There are days when I think,well, wouldn't it be nice just to
(36:46):
send them off somewhere elsefor the day?
Do you ever get a clash ofbrains, if you know what I mean,
in your household.
You're laughing as if it'slike, oh.
Yeah, oh yes, yes.
And I have, I'm very lucky to,to have a best friend who is also
(37:09):
autistic and ADHD like myselfand will often text and she also
home educates and we'll oftentext and Be like, oh, my autistic
brain is switched on today.
Or I'm really ADHD today.
And, and I do say sometimesmy, my autistic brain is there and
we are on point.
Everything is to the letter,and we're, we're doing this, this,
(37:34):
this, this.
And then other times, my ADHDbrain and I am jumping from one thing
to another, or I start 10things and we don't complete any
of them.
And so, and sometimes that'sokay because my daughters are in
sync with that part of mybrain being in gear.
(37:55):
So, like when my autisticbrain is on fire and, and they're
in, in that kind of space aswell, we're like the dream team and
we're, you know, completingstuff left, right and center is,
Is brilliant.
If we're all firing from anADHD perspective, there's fireworks
and it can be absolute carnage.
(38:17):
And again, you know, when itcan be really hard.
Because my, My eldest is herADHD brain is on pretty much all
the time and she starts 10projects at once.
I spend a lot of my timemanaging her.
And I have to say, she, she.
(38:37):
I don't know how she does it,but she reads like 10 books at once
and she has them all startedand she knows exactly what's going
on in all these books.
This blows my mind because Ican, I, I like to read a book at
a time.
I like to finish it and thenstart another one.
And.
But I also am trying to teachher how to manage that because she
(38:59):
does it with.
She, she, she crochets and sheknits as well.
But she'll start hundreds of projects.
And I've had to be quitestrict with her.
And I've, I've got a. Icreated her a little box and I'm
like, you have to finish theprojects in this box before you start
another one, because otherwisewe just have these unfinished projects
everywhere.
(39:20):
So that can be really hardbecause it's, it's probably hard
for her that my autistic brainexplodes because she's got 20 million
things on the go and she.
Love, you know, she explodesthat I can only do one thing at a
time, a lot of the time.
(39:40):
So, yes, it does.
It does clash.
And those are the days when wethrow the timetable out, because
those are the days it tends toclash when we're dysregulated.
So my, My biggest thing is, isteaching my children about dysregulation.
(40:01):
And I think this is anotherthing that schools are only, I mean,
just in general, society isonly just Starting to understand
more and more aboutdysregulation, about how just regulating
a child can stop violentoutbursts, can stop, you know, meltdowns,
(40:25):
can aid concentration.
And so what we tend to find asa family that those times when there
are clashes, when there's.
What's actually going on, is dysregulation.
So we like to talk about it asa family in terms of dysregulation,
(40:46):
because what I found is thatthat's quite a neutral term that
allows us to offer support toeach other rather than she's being
really annoying or she'stelling me what to do or whatever.
Right?
Can we look at what's going onfor that person, that maybe they're
(41:07):
being really irritating todayor they're snappy or whatever?
And that's when we would havethat freedom and flexibility to go,
okay, so what do we need?
Do we need to throw everythingout the window?
Do we need to find somethingthat's going to regulate us?
Do we need to get outside?
Do we need to go to the farmfor my daughter so she can go and
(41:27):
go and see the horses, whichreally regulates her?
Do we need to go and, youknow, hug a tree?
Do we need to go to the seaand breathe the sea air in?
Do we need to.
What do we need to do?
Do we need to just switch acomputer on and, you know, watch
something or.
Or do a game or somethingthat's going to just bring that.
(41:50):
Bring our minds back in and,and focus and.
And so, yeah, it all comesback to that, that freedom and flexibility
to be able to do that to.
You know, when you've got.
When a teacher's got aclassroom of, of 30 kids, they might
be able to identify that thischild is dysregulated and they need
something, but they can't giveit to them.
(42:10):
They can't provide that.
And so I think, gosh, forthose teachers who are really switched
on and really get it, thatmust be so frustrating because no
one wants to see a childstruggling in that way when they
know what they need and to notbe able to give that to them.
That's what I love about home educating.
(42:32):
I can.
I. I mean, I can't all the time.
There are moments when Ican't, obviously, you know, when
you've got three kids,sometimes I have to say, well, or
I just.
That capacity.
Sometimes I'm like, I'm done.
I. I can't support you right now.
But because I can do it, themajority of the time, it's okay.
(42:53):
And I Think it's reallyimportant that for me as a mother,
for them to learn that, forthem to see me being dysregulated
and me sometimes saying, time out.
Yeah, you've got to leave mealone for a second.
I don't have capacity for thisright now.
I put my boundaries in andthat's really important for them
to see me do that because Ihad parents that didn't do that or
(43:17):
that did it too much.
And I think because they werejust, you know, my mum worked long
hours and then she'd come homeand be like, I'm done.
Don't speak to me.
And I'd be like, I've been onmy own all this time.
And, you know, so it can.
You know, it is difficult, butI think having that freedom and flexibility
(43:38):
to be able to listen toeveryone's needs, not always be able
to, you know, we're not aperfect family.
We.
I. I definitely need.
Do not meet my children'sneeds every minute of the day, but
I sure as hell get theopportunity to do it the majority
of the time.
And that's for me.
(43:58):
I wouldn't change that for theworld, for all the hard moments of
home education, because there are.
I wouldn't change it for theworld just for that.
I think what you say thereabout emotional regulation is so
key.
My daughter, who, as I say, istrying out school, she came back
from school last weekend, shehad computer studies.
And I said, what did you do incomputer studies?
(44:19):
She said, oh, we learned howto open Microsoft, send an email
and copy somebody into an email.
And I looked at her and Isaid, well, it's lucky that you didn't
miss out on the last 15 yearsof institutionalized learning, isn't
it?
Because you wouldn't have beenable to answer an email.
But.
But one thing she has learnedis emotional regulation, which they
do not teach in school.
And in actual fact, it's.
It's almost discouraged, almost.
(44:40):
And as you were talking thereabout neurodivergence and.
And talking about regulationand emotional regulation as being
so key, it reminded me of thework that I do because I actually
work with clients who haveautism and ADHD who have these kind
of brains working together.
And one of the things I offeris screening.
(45:01):
I do ADHD screening and it'snot a diagnosis, but it's a very
good test.
It's called the Connorssomething or other.
And it's like the gold standard.
They use it in a lot of therest of the world.
We'd barely use it in the uk,I have no idea why, but we use, like,
much weirder, much, muchvaguer stuff.
But anyway, as part of thistest, you get screened for the five
(45:23):
elements of adhd.
And I always say to myclients, they often come to me with
a diagnosis, and I say, okay,could you let me know, like, how
you scored on these differentfive elements?
They're like five elements.
And I'm like, you know, likethe five elements of adhd.
And I kind of reel them offand they're like, I mean, time management.
And I'm like, yeah, but that'slike executive functioning.
That's just the first one.
And then I said, what about,for example, the.
(45:44):
The final two elements ofadhd, which is.
Which are emotionaldysregulation and negative self concept.
And they look at me like, noone told me that this was a thing,
that this was actually an ADHD thing.
And it's.
And it.
It just drives me mad becausepeople think that ADHD is, you know,
being able to focus or beingfidgety or, you know, being crap
(46:06):
at going places on time, butactually, two fifths of the diagnosis
are about how you feel aboutyourself and how you can hold those
emotions.
And one thing that homeeducation allows us to do, as you
say in real time, is help ourchildren navigate through those dysregulating
moments.
Yeah, yeah.
And I think, as you say in.
(46:28):
In real time as well, I thinkthat's what's so important.
Because what.
What I get to see is why mychild's maybe having a meltdown,
or when you get your childback from school and they're having
(46:49):
a meltdown, you have no idea where.
Where that.
You've got a whole journey togo through to unpack, where that's
actually come from, whatactually is happening.
Because when they're having ameltdown because you've maybe, I
don't know, cut their apple upthe wrong way or done whatever, and,
you know, it's not about that.
(47:11):
But how do you find out whatit is about?
How do you get to that?
Whereas, as I say, I'm not.
I'm not with my children 24 7,but I have much more of an idea of
where that's come from.
My.
My middle daughter, my.
My husband laughs about itbecause I'm so in tune with her that
(47:35):
I can.
I can catch her meltdownsbefore they happen.
I already know what she needsbefore she knows what she needs.
And that has saved my life.
Because she.
She was in school, she would be.
(47:56):
Well, yeah, I mean, she wouldBe, I don't know, diagnosed with
a whole host of things and,and labeled with, with all sorts
of things and she would havebeen causing a whole multitude of,
of issues.
And these days she's, she'squite calm.
(48:16):
But that's because I know, Iknow what she needs and I'm teaching
her what she needs.
And she's, she's now from.
She was very non verbal withanything to do.
Not non verbal, she couldspeak but anytime she was disregulated
she was completely non verbaland she still at, you know, she,
(48:43):
she threw tantrums like a 2year old when she was like 6, 7.
And it was, you know, whenyou've got, and she's quite, she's
very tall.
So you know you've got a sixor seven year old kicking and punching
you and things, it's, it'squite difficult.
And when you're out and aboutand you're trying to manhandle them
and things, it was really challenging.
(49:03):
But she's now, we've got sucha, an understanding that she's now
starting to be able toverbalize to me what she needs in
those moments.
And for me that's my biggestachievement as a parent because for.
To be able to do that as anadult is hard to verbalize what you
(49:27):
need or what's going on foryou particularly because none of
us are taught how to do that.
And, and these, these are thethings that, it frustrates me that
these are the things thatshould be being taught.
Without those it's just, justyou can go and be the top in your
field of whatever, you know,chosen profession, but if you can't
(49:52):
regulate yourself and youcan't, you know, that's why you see
people having breakdowns whoare, you know, really, really successful
in the eyes of society, butthey have breakdowns because they
still don't know how to managetheir emotions, to verbalize their
needs, to put boundaries in to.
(50:14):
And I just think, wow, how arewe still not seeing that this is
an issue, that this is animportant part of, of life.
So yeah, and, and like you saythat, that people don't understand
that that part of thediagnosis, a huge part of it is that
understanding of self, thatemotional regulation, it's, it's
(50:40):
not something that comeseasily when particularly have an
ADHD brain and learning waysto do that, not just learning ways
to do that, but also having alife that allows you to do that because
(51:01):
we can know what those things are.
But without having theopportunity, you know, in school
you can't even necessarily goto the toilet.
When you need to go to thetoilet, you have to do it at certain
times to train yourself to do,to go to the toilet at certain times.
And, and even just that.
(51:23):
So just that I have, you know,and I know a lot of, a lot of neurodivergent
people have an issue withusing public toilets and with going
to the toilet in general.
I will put it off and put itoff and put it off.
And it's another thing thatblows my husband's mind because I'll
be absolutely, absolutelydesperate and then I'll get distracted
doing something and I won't gofor like to the toilet for like another
(51:44):
couple of hours or something.
And, and he.
This blows his mind.
And so to have thisexpectation to do it at a certain
time within a, a certainframework that.
That was already putting apressure on, on a child.
And there are so manysituations like that within a school
(52:07):
environment.
And I appreciate that theyhave to have those rules in place
when you are managing hugenumbers of children.
And, you know, there has to bean element of that.
But that's, that's not what Iwant for my children.
I don't want them to, youknow, people say, oh, you've got
to learn that.
Because then when you go intothe work environment and things,
(52:28):
it's like, what the most jobsI've had, I could go to the loo and
I wanted to go to the loo.
Like, you know, I appreciateas a teacher, you can't.
My mum had to let you know.
My mum used to go on aboutthat as a teacher, she was like,
you have to learn to have areally strong bladder because you
can't leave the classroom.
You know, maybe as a doctor ora nurse, if you're in the middle
(52:49):
of doing something, you know,they can't just go.
There are certain professionswhere, yeah, maybe you can't, you
know, if you're performing onstage, you can't run off and go to
the toilet.
Yes, but in most jobs or mostsituations you can go to the toilet
when you want to go to the toilet.
(53:10):
It's interesting as well,isn't it, that when we as adults,
when people tell us about jobsthat they do, you know, like, for
example, you know, the famous.
There was a documentary aboutif you work for Amazon or whoever
it was and you have to pickcertain things off the shelves in
a certain time limit.
And I know that I had a jobwhere I was doing telesales or something
and we couldn't go to thetoilet when we wanted, we were only
(53:33):
allowed certain specific.
You can only take like threeminutes every four hours or whatever
ridiculous thing it was.
And I would, even back in theday, this was in the like noughties.
I would tell my friends andthey'd be like, that's crazy.
Like that, you know, youshould be allowed to go to the toilet
when you want.
And you know, people watchdocumentaries about, about jobs that
are really make you do thingson at certain times.
(53:56):
And we, and we're up in armsabout it with our children in school,
we're just like, yeah, no,this is good preparation for life.
And yet what.
It's a life we don't actuallywant to live and we don't like it
when other people live it.
It's crazy.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It's.
It's this weird kind ofuniverse where it's okay for our
little children, littlepeople, but not for big people.
(54:17):
And you know, the scary thingis the amount of people who said
to me that experiencingbullying in school sets you up for
life.
Your children need toexperience that.
And that scares the life outof me because no amount I was bullied
(54:38):
all through school and I stillnow as an adult, that the resilience
I've built up has been,despite that, not because of it.
I don't have a resilience to,you know, I wouldn't put up with
bullying now, but because I'velearned to put boundaries in and
(55:02):
I've learnt myself worth.
But that's only been in thelast few years.
I, I then did experiencebullying within the workplace as
an adult.
I had.
That still had the same effecton me as it did as a child.
The, the thought that that'slike, I don't know, saying that,
(55:26):
you know, if you allowyourself to be hit by a car, you'll
build up resilience so thatthen when you're hit by a car again,
it won't feel as painful.
I mean, it's ridiculous.
Yeah.
No one should experiencebullying, full stop, end of sentence.
The thought that being in anenvironment where your needs aren't
(55:47):
met and you're potentiallybullied or you're overlooked and
things builds up resilience.
No, I think that that argumentthat you hear is the most unpleasant
one and it's also one of themost common.
And I always say, luckily I'mable to like, say, say this as a
therapist, I feel like I'vegot like some, some like actual qualifications
(56:10):
to say this.
But I always say, like, ifyou're bullied at school, you don't
grow up resilient.
You grow.
You grow up traumatized.
That's what happens.
You don't gain anything.
It's just that you have stuffthat you need to work through, usually
at a very expensive hourlyrate with somebody when you're like
40 years old.
So.
Which is good for me.
But, you know.
Anyway, so before we finish, Ijust, I just want to ask you very
quickly, what would be thesingle biggest piece of advice you
(56:33):
would give to a neurodivergentparent home?
Educating neurodivergent child children.
Be kind to yourself and takeyour time.
The biggest thing is, isthere's no, there's no perfect.
And just try everything outand keep revising it.
(56:57):
Because that, that's been thething for me is that, you know, what's
working right now might notwork in a month's time, a year's
time, three years time.
We might be doing somethingcompletely different and go with
it and don't put pressure on yourself.
Create a little bit of structure.
I do think that that isbeneficial for everybody, but what
(57:21):
that looks like for you iscompletely personal to you.
And if that's getting up atmidday and going to bed at midnight
for your family and thatworks, then brilliant.
If it's getting up at five inthe morning and going to bed early,
whatever.
But get yourself some structure.
But structure that allows youto do what you want to throw out
(57:42):
the window when you need to,to have those days when you just
need to throw your arms up inthe air and all just lie in a dark
room.
That's okay.
And shut out the noise as, as.
Your cat, as your cat meows inthat very moment.
Yeah.
(58:03):
As I'm trying to do right now,shut out the noise.
You know, allow people to, to,to give you advice and, and find
your people.
Find your people.
Because having that villagearound you, having those people that
get it.
You know, I've.
(58:23):
The friends of mine who arealso neurodivergent who also have
neurodivergent children.
They're the ones, they're theones I gravitate towards.
They're the ones that keep me sane.
You know, having.
Finding the people who.
And you will find them.
And you may have to go toseveral groups, you may have to try
lots of different things out,but keep trying and you will find
(58:44):
those people and you will find.
And it doesn't have to behundreds of people.
It can be one person, oneperson for your child or one person
for you.
That, that, that brings thatconnection gets it.
And, and, and they they willbe there.
And just, yeah, just, justtrust in yourself.
You, you are the expert inyour child, and you are the expert
(59:07):
in you.
And just remember that becausewe are frequently told that everyone,
you know, society knows bestabout what our children need.
And no one can be more of anexpert on your child than you.
So trust in yourself and keepadvocating for your child.
(59:31):
Lovely.
Good advice.
I love that.
Okay.
Emily, thank you so much forcoming on the podcast today.
It's been really a pleasure tohave you on.
Thank you so much.
Enjoyed it.
Thank you.
Thank you so much for joiningus for today's Home Education Matters
podcast.
See you at the next one.
Have a lovely day.
Welcome to Home EducationMatters, the weekly podcast supporting
you on your home education journey.
Hello and welcome to anotherepisode of Home Education Matters.
(00:22):
And today I'm joined by EmilyFay, who is a neurodivergent home
educating mum of three, whichI feel like should be on a badge
or something or a T shirt.
And that's nice, isn't it?
Welcome to the podcast, Emily.
Thank you so much for joining me.
Do tell our listeners a littlebit just about your home education
journey.
Yes.
So I think I often wonder whenI sort of made the actual decision
(00:47):
that we weren't going down theschool route.
And I don't know that I canspecifically say that, but I definitely
started questioning what I wasgoing to do.
I mean, I think that a lot ofpeople, you know, you have a baby
and, and you have these kindof ideas of what it's going to be
(01:08):
like and the journey thatyou're gonna take with that and,
and the, the milestones thatyou're gonna hit and you know, the
first birthday and the firstday of nursery and the, and then,
you know, the first day ofschool, that's a huge thing.
And everyone talks about it,what school they're gonna go to and
oh, you know, or they'll bestarting school soon.
(01:28):
My journey into motherhood wasslightly different because my daughter
was diagnosed with leukemia atnine months old.
It was a very rare form ofleukemia and she had a genetic condition
linked to that.
So her chance of survival waslike less than 3%.
(01:49):
And we were told, yeah, toprepare ourselves, she had to have
a stem cell transplant.
It was her only chance ofovercoming things.
She had that just before herfirst birthday and she's 11 now and
she's doing amazing.
She's a little bit of a miracle.
They, they didn't expect herto not only survive but also to do
(02:15):
as well as she is doing.
She has a lot of hurdles toovercome in the future, but she's
doing amazing.
So I didn't have some of thefirsts anyway as a mother because
we were in a hospital fromnine months until nearly 18 months.
(02:35):
And then after that, you know,I had a, had a child where I had
to be careful what she did,how she interacted.
She had delays in her physicaldevelopment and things.
And she was also a summer born baby.
So my husband and I, wediscussed home ed and we felt that
that was the way that we weregoing to go.
(02:57):
We were exploring that.
But in the first instance totalk to, you know, because it's convincing
other people around you andit's the pressure from people around
you can be really hard.
We said, we're delaying.
She was a summer born baby, wecould do that anyway.
You know, when she got to thatCSA age and you kind of feel that
pressure, you should beapplying for schools and stuff, we
(03:18):
were like, it's fine becausewe're just, we're still doing our
thing.
And it gave us a chance tokind of really get into the swing
of, of home ed.
And by then I had three.
Three under five.
I don't recommend it.
So I was balancing all of thatas well.
And I was like, do you know what?
(03:38):
Throwing a school run intothis would be easier just to have
them all at home than havingto, to kind of do that.
So we, we started, you know,joining groups and getting to know
other people and things and,and more and more I started thinking,
but this is working for us, right?
And suddenly going into schooland things.
(03:59):
And I also had a bit of atrust issue with school.
Imogen had a lot of additionalneeds and I did speak to some schools.
I did look into it.
I didn't want to make thedecision solely from looking back
at my own experiences ofschool and thinking and also wanting
(04:21):
to keep my daughter close tome because obviously I'd nearly lost
her and the thought ofsuddenly giving her away to strangers
scared the life out of me.
And I didn't want to make thedecision purely from a kind of fear
point of view.
So I wanted to make it from anempowered point of view.
So I did.
I spoke to schools and Icouldn't get any school to give me
(04:43):
any reassurance that mydaughter's needs would be met.
And I thought, well, hold on,there's no other situation that I
would put my child in if Iwasn't sure their needs were going
to be met.
Is that, you know, as a parentyou want to protect your child, right?
And then we're told to just goand put them into, into a school
(05:07):
environment, into theenvironment of other people.
And without that reassurancethat they're going to receive the
same level of care that youare giving them at home.
And that for me was thetipping point.
I was like, without thatreassurance, without that wanting
(05:30):
to understand my uniquechild's needs and being able to help
them with that, it was a nobrainer for me.
I was like, no, she stays with me.
I can, I can meet these needs.
And there was a fear, youknow, can I do it?
Am I qualified enough?
(05:51):
You know, and my father likesto tell me regularly that you know.
Yes, but when she start, youknow, once she's secondary school
age, you won't be able, youwon't, you know, you know, you don't
have the skills to, to teachher at that level and blah, blah,
blah.
And you know, you, you do,there's a lot of outside pressure.
Can you give that level ofeducation to your child?
(06:14):
And my counter argument tothat is, can you give my child the
level of care that they needto support them in that?
Because if you can't providethem with the perfect environment
for them to absorb whateverthey need to absorb, if you can't
(06:35):
do that, you can be the bestteacher in the world.
My child is not going to learn.
They're not going to make theprogress that they have the ability
to make because theenvironment around them isn't, isn't
correct.
I know because I was that child.
I was that child in that environment.
(06:57):
I was the child that was told,you have the ability to do so much
more.
Why aren't you trying harder?
You, you're an a star pupilbut you're getting B's and C's.
Why?
Why?
Why?
Because I'm in an environmentthat isn't allowing me to excel and
(07:19):
I felt that my daughters weregoing to be the same.
And as you said, I'm aneurodivergent mother.
I am diagnosed autistic, but Iwasn't diagnosed until I was in my
30s and I'm undiagnosed ADHDas well.
(07:40):
And my daughters are also neurodivergent.
Having gone through my lifefeeling misunderstood, feeling like
I was less than because Iwasn't hitting the targets that were
expected of me, that I wasn'tdoing what I was supposed to be doing.
(08:02):
And then the impact that hadon my mental and physical well being
for me, I wasn't prepared totake that risk with my daughters
of impacting their mental andphysical health.
For what?
For them to, to be like me andcome out with, you know, be the average
(08:25):
student.
You know, I was never thebottom of anything, but I was just,
I sat in the middle and I, I,I wasn't the star student of anything.
I was frequently told that Ineeded to be trying harder, trying
better, I could do.
And, and I carried thatthrough and, and I'm now as an adult,
(08:46):
I'm doing that, undoing thosebeliefs that I wasn't good enough,
that I wasn't, I was lazy,that I wasn't trying hard enough.
That, and also that I waspedantic and precocious because I
often questioned the teachersbecause my autistic brain was like,
(09:07):
hold on there.
And I realize now it was justme, you know, trying to understand.
But to them, I was being difficult.
I was a difficult child tohave in their classroom because I
wasn't just toeing the lineand doing what they wanted me to
do, and I didn't want that formy daughters.
And as scary as going againstthe grain and home educating and
(09:34):
that feeling of pressure that,you know, your children's academic
success is on your shoulders,it's so freeing.
I get to allow my children tofollow their passions.
I get to allow them to learnat their own speed.
(09:54):
And one of the.
One of the fascinating thingsI found is that I often do a lot,
a lot with my girls and feellike there's.
There's no progress being made.
And then all of a sudden,like, my middle daughter, she went
from not reading and it waslike such.
A.
Felt like such a strugglebecause she wanted to.
(10:14):
To learn, but she was just sostruggling for so long and then all
of a sudden she was reading and.
I'm really sorry about thenoise in the background.
It's cute.
What's she doing?
It's.
I've got two kittens andthey're going a bit crazy.
The kittens?
I thought it was the children.
It's the kittens.
(10:35):
It's very cute.
I'm ever so sorry about that.
I like kitten background.
Kitten.
Kitten sound.
Yeah, yeah.
They're actually destroyingone of my daughter's creations.
Are they?
Do you want to stop them?
Well, I did tell her not toleave it on the floor.
So this is a life lesson.
It's interesting, you're.
(10:55):
When you were talking there,it really reminded me of that.
Of that thing you hear bandiedaround every now and then about safeguarding
and about how home educationis a safeguarding issue.
I'm doing little invertedcommas as I say that, and how sometimes
parliamentary discussions kindof equate the two across.
(11:16):
And I was thinking as you weretalking that actually for you, school
was a safeguarding issue,wasn't it?
Both physically, emotionally.
It was.
It was a safeguarding thing,wasn't it, for you?
Yeah, absolutely.
It really was.
And as a child, it was asafeguarding issue for me.
I was.
I was that overlooked child.
(11:37):
You know, I actually.
I actually got locked in theschool once.
My friend and I got forgotten.
We were.
Well, her mum was late pickingus up.
We'd been.
We'd done a netball matchafter school and we'd gone up to
the library and we werewaiting up there and all the teachers
forgot about us and they wenthome and we went to go out of the
(11:59):
school and we couldn't get outand we were locked in.
So, yeah, school is asafeguarding issue for me.
And without reassurance that,you know, I appreciate they do safeguarding
training, I appreciate thatteachers are trained, but they also
have 30 plus children thatthey are looking after.
(12:19):
And I, I love the fact that mychildren get to interact with a really
wide range of people.
Adults, older children,younger children, you know, loads
of different people in, invarious settings, but they also have
(12:43):
me.
So my children, you know, theydo, they get into situations where
they are, you know, fallingout or, you know, having little disagreements
or maybe someone sayssomething to them or they feel hurt
and I'm there and I get tohelp them navigate through that in
(13:05):
the moment.
And for me, that is a hugeplus because one of the biggest things
that people say is what about socializing?
This, this is another hugething that gets thrown around when
you say you're home educatingabout how do they socialize?
(13:25):
Which I, which makes me laughbecause don't we all remember being
at school and being told it'snot social time, this is the time
to learn and you know, stoptalking in the back.
You're not supposed to be, youknow, socializing now.
But that, but that biggestaspect, when you say you're home
educating, another thing theysay is that, you know, children,
so sorry, children aren't.
(13:48):
I'm only imagining thedestruction going on in the background.
Oh God.
They always do this when I tryand do anything.
They're absolute menaces.
And, but that's the otherelement that you, you get to support
when you're home educating isthem learning to socialize in a really
(14:11):
positive way and them learningto navigate the intricacies of socialization
by having that security of you there.
And, and you know, we all knowthat thing of.
Unless you deal with things inthe moment with children, it's, you
(14:31):
know, it's gone.
It hasn't gone, it's there inthem, but they've moved on.
So it's.
If something happens inschool, by the time they come home,
they may not tell you aboutit, but they're still carrying it.
And for me, being able to havethose interactions in it and deal
with everything, noteverything in the moment, you know,
I'm not with my children 24, 7to get a break, but on a more frequent
(14:56):
basis, it, it fills me withconfidence as a mother that my children
are, you know, have thatsupport and that safety blanket.
But also for them, they're,they're much more confident going
into situations.
You know, I, my children are.
People always say, oh,they're, they're very quiet, they're
(15:18):
very shy.
And they are, theirneurodivergence is very similar to
my own where I was labeled asshy as a child because I, I will
always stand back in a situation.
You know, I'm not going toshout over anybody.
I'm not going to, you know,I'm a quieter version.
(15:41):
I'm not an extrovert, I'm an introvert.
And so that's playing out inmy children as well.
And I get a lot of people say,oh, your children are really placid.
They're really.
And I think until they're inthe right environment and then they're
really not and they're not placid.
I find that very.
A quite offensive term becauseI think that feels like that they're
(16:03):
kind of just trying to fit inand they're not.
Because that what I'm beingable to teach them that I didn't
have the opportunity to learnis boundaries.
So although my children maycome across as quiet, they are very
boundaries and they are notafraid to say no or no thank you,
or I don't like that, orplease don't speak to me like that.
(16:25):
And that's something that Ifelt was really, really important
to be able to teach my.
And particularly becausethey're introverted and particularly
because they've got to learnto navigate in a world where there
are a lot of extroverts and,and a lot of people who will shout
over them or who may try to do things.
You know, one of my daughtersin particular doesn't like touch.
(16:49):
So I wanted to teach her froma young age that it was okay, particularly
around adults, to say no.
I, I, that makes me feel uncomfortable.
And her saying that makesadults feel very uncomfortable.
But it's really important,it's really important for them to
learn boundaries with childrenand for her to learn that.
So that, that was another.
(17:10):
So, yeah, the safeguardingaspect, that kind of keeping the
teaching them the skills tosafeguard themselves.
I felt that I could do that ina much more effective way than I
felt that the school would,would be able to do.
Not because they're not skilled.
I'm not saying that they don'thave amazingly skilled people working
(17:33):
in those environments and thatsome of those teachers would be really
helpful and supportive.
I don't think they have thecapacity to do that.
It's interesting you weresaying about that, because I think
that school inherently erodespeople's boundaries.
And it's a controversialstatement, but I really stand by
(17:55):
it.
I did a podcast with NaomiFisher about anxiety and about supporting
your anxious child, and shesaid something very similar.
She said the school system isset up to create anxiety because
by anxiety you get motivation,you get control.
And I think as well, school isinherently designed to erode boundaries.
My daughter, who is trying outschool this week, I gave her a little
(18:18):
pep talk and I said, I, youknow, try to do what the teachers
ask you to do, unless ofcourse, you feel that it makes you
feel uncomfortable or it's notsomething that you want to do or
it goes against your values orany of that.
And she looked at me as if tosay, well, obviously I'm not going
to do that then.
And I thought, She's 17 now.
She knows that because we'vehad, you know, almost two decades
(18:39):
of homeschooling, but inactual fact, how many children go
into school, particularlyneurodivergent children who then.
Who then almost certainly suckup whatever happens?
Because the, the culture in aschool is to do what you're told.
And if you don't, it's reallyproblematic, really.
Problem, you get like yourname on the board, public shaming,
(18:59):
you know, it's terrible.
Right.
And as I would imagine that asa neurodivergent parent who had been
through that experienceyourself, and then to imagine viscerally
kind of imagine yourneurodivergent children in that kind
of experience where boundariesaren't encouraged, it would be, it,
it would be really like aconflict for you.
(19:20):
Absolutely.
That and I.
Something that I'm having toheal and unlearn now as an adult
is the fear of being wrong.
I absolutely terrified ofbreaking rules.
I'm terrified of getting in trouble.
I'm terrified of being toldI'm wrong.
And it keeps me from.
(19:43):
I'm really sorry.
He's just.
Is it the kittens?
I kind of want to see whatthey've done.
I've got a hold of mydaughter's made a bird feeder at,
at the farm the other day.
And you've just got hold ofthat and was trying to get all the
seed and everything everywhere.
(20:04):
Oh my God.
I just wanted to that beforeit was too much courage.
It's very sensible.
I did never work with childrenor animals.
Right.
So, yes, this fear of being.
Being wrong and getting introuble because you are, you know,
(20:25):
my neurodivergent brain andbeing autistic you do have this black
and white thinking.
So if I'm told I can't dosomething, I can't do it and I won't
do it.
The issue therefore in schoolis that you become, you lose a part
of yourself because there areso many rules and you're so, and
(20:47):
a lot of them contradict eachother as well.
And, and it, and it can change.
So as you go up in school, therules start to change and then, and
the expectations change.
But when you've got anautistic brain, it's like, hold on
a minute, how does this work?
A minute ago I wasn't allowedto do that or I was allowed to do
(21:08):
that and now I'm not.
And you spend your whole timejust in this, in this sort of confusion
and this feeling of alwaysbeing wrong and getting it wrong
because the boundaries arechanging all the time.
The goalposts are changing,the expectations are changing.
And it's a lot, it's a lot ona child who just wants to follow
(21:33):
the rules.
Yeah.
And do it right.
Do it right.
And I think that pressure is,is huge and, and, and is so misunderstood
within the education field.
This understanding that thelevel of wanting things to be right
(21:58):
and the same and needing that,needing that, needing things to be
the same, needing the.
You know why a lot of childrenseemingly do well in school as, as
new, neurodivergent orautistic is because.
And, and at first or theirparents feel that they don't do as
well at home.
(22:18):
Is that routine, the routineelement of school?
You know, I, I thrived in the.
Putting a uniform on every day.
I thrived on.
I had to be at certain placesat certain times and things were
on certain that that elementof it is great, but it's not enough.
It's not enough that.
And that, and that's not theeducation part of it.
(22:40):
You can create a routine at home.
You know, I've created thatwith my daughters.
My daughters we used to haveoverwhelm every morning I could.
We'd have a meltdown everymorning about getting dressed.
So in the evening they settheir clothes out for the next day.
So they just get up and theyput their clothes on.
They have that routine andthen they can just do whatever.
(23:02):
You know, they haven't.
Even if we're not going outanywhere, they still do that.
They have that familiarity ofthat routine.
There's no pressure, there'sno expectation on them.
They know that that's what's happening.
We have a loose timetable thatwe follow so that they have an expectation,
they know what's coming.
You can create that whilstalso allowing within that timetable
(23:24):
that you can throw out thewindow if someone's having a bad
day or you know you're feelingoverwhelmed or there's too much going
on.
You just, you can let go ofthat timetable.
You can do whatever is neededon that day.
But what we find helpful isthat semi structure to fall back
(23:47):
on, that kind of, it's thatfamiliarity, it's what school does
offer that is helpful, is thatkind of something to follow, something
to kind of give some sort ofstructure to your day, to your week.
And I think for us as aneurodivergent family, that works
(24:08):
really, really well.
For me as a parent, I knowwhat my expect, the expectations
are on me.
I don't have to every day bethinking, oh God, what am I going
to do today?
But for my daughters as well,they know, they know what the expectations
are and they also know thatit's okay for them to turn around
and say, I don't want to dothat today, I can't do it.
(24:29):
And that, and that's okay.
And we, we, we talk about itand we go, okay, is there anything
that we can put in place soyou can do that, so you feel able
to, or we just don't do it andthat's okay.
And there isn't a repercussionfrom that.
There's a, that's what home,home education is brilliant for,
(24:52):
is that your children get to,they get to learn the natural consequences
of things so they start tounderstand, oh, if I, if I frequently
don't do this class or Ifrequently don't go to that group,
oh, actually the naturalconsequence might be that then when
I do go, friendship groupshave changed or when I do go, I feel
(25:17):
behind or I'm not meetingthese goals that I want to meet.
So they get to learn naturalconsequences but not repercussions.
They're not punished for it,but they get to learn that, oh, actually
if I put the effort in, if Ipush myself a little bit, then I
can actually achieve more.
(25:40):
And learning that forthemselves, I mean that's, that's
a skill again that I've had tolearn that I'm learning to do things
for myself and that it, that,you know, I, I'm not going to get
in trouble if I don't do it.
But actually I want to do itbecause the natural consequences,
(26:02):
if I don't do it, then I don'tachieve or I don't, you Know, get
fitter or I don't.
Whatever the goal is.
And I, I think that's what'slacking in school is that they don't
get the opportunity to learnnatural consequences.
They're just punished.
And, and therefore, for them,it's just like, well, that's just
(26:25):
not fair then.
That's just, you know, theyjust learn life is.
Isn't fair.
And I, yeah, what I hear is.
I always say that homeeducation really is about freedom
and flexibility.
For me, that's very much whatit's been, and similar to you, that
took place for me within astructured setting.
(26:45):
So I've had, I've had the realhonor of interviewing some amazing
unschoolers who do itbrilliantly, like, brilliantly.
And every time I listen tothem, I think, oh, this is really
cool.
I really want to do this.
This is like, amazing.
And then I'd have to reinmyself back in and go, yeah, no,
no, that's not gonna work for you.
(27:06):
Because for me, structurelessin that way freaks me out.
Completely freaks me out.
And my son, I know he's.
He is also one of these peoplethat he asks me at the start of the
week, okay, what's happening?
When.
And I remember there was atime when he was about 7, and he
said, oh, you know, what havewe got on today?
And I was like, I don't know,dude, let's just see.
And he looked at me as if tosay, are you actually joking me right
(27:27):
now?
And I thought, okay, this isnot the vibe that he's looking for
here.
So do you feel that, that youhave this freedom of flexibility
within the boundaries and thestructure that you put in place?
How do you feel that thatsettles within the home educating
community?
Do you feel that you aredoing, like, one thing or another?
(27:48):
Do you feel that you're justdoing your thing?
Like, how does that work for you?
You know, I, I find myselfalways being like, you know, I, I
want to be this unschoolingparent and I want to just let them
do whatever.
But.
And actually with theneurodivergence, for my daughters,
(28:09):
that doesn't work.
They need a semi structure.
And I found that when I wasjust, let's breeze through this for
us as a family, that didn't work.
But where I have to get thebalance is the minute that I step
into structure, you startgetting into like, oh, we've got
to be doing this and we've gotto be doing that.
(28:31):
So I've managed to, I like tocall it semi structure in this kind
of a flexible routine, becausethe routine element of it, I think
for our brains really helps.
And one of my daughters inparticular, she, she needs to know
what's happening.
(28:52):
She needs what's happening thenext day in the week.
She needs to have that.
You know, we have set dayswhere she washes her hair, otherwise
there's no way you're gettingher anywhere near a bathroom.
But if she know, she knows onthat day is happening, she can handle
it.
So I have to do that with herlearning as well.
So.
And, and it's quiteinteresting in the home ed community
(29:16):
because there's kind of thissort of purist kind of stuff that
goes on, you know, that's kindof like, oh, yeah, but if you're,
if you're not unschooling andletting your child just do whatever,
then you're, you're not homeedding, right?
And I think there's no rightor wrong way.
(29:37):
There's the way for your childand your family and what works best
for you.
And I think there's.
You get sucked into both sidesof it.
You get sucked into the.
Oh, you've got to be doingGCSEs and you've got to be doing
so much maths in English each week.
And if you're having toproduce reports for the la, you also
(29:57):
have that pressure of, youknow, proving that you're, you're
giving enough to each of thosecore subjects.
But then you also have thispressure from a lot of other people
within the community whereit's like, no, you need to be letting
your children run free and youneed to be just integrating learning
into every day, which isobviously brilliant and is what everyone
(30:23):
is doing anyway without even trying.
But I, I've done both.
And at each ends of thespectrum, Hannah, they both were
really stressful for me.
And so I've kind of found thismiddle ground and I think there,
when people are coming in newto home ed as well, there's this
(30:45):
kind of pressure to go one.
Choose a camp.
Yeah, choose a camp.
Are you unschooling or are youbeing really militant?
And you've got, you know,these really crazy timetables.
And so like you were saying at11, 12.
So my 11 year old suddenly waslike, I want to do all these things.
(31:06):
And so she's booked on allthese online classes, she's got this
crazy timetable.
And I'm like, okay, you do you.
Let's see how it goes.
It's like, and, and she, sheloves it and she hasn't done all
of the classes yet, but she'sreally excited about it.
She wants to do all these things.
And I'm like, okay, well,let's see how it goes.
(31:26):
Let's see how you can manage,you know, all these different things.
And I think that's the beautyof home ed is you get to give them
those opportunities.
Like you're saying with yourdaughter, giving her the opportunity
to go and experience schooland experience that.
You get to let them find theirway and find what works for them.
(31:49):
And then you've got twochildren having three.
They're so different.
And that's what's fascinatedme the most, because I have to.
They have to have completelydifferent timetables, completely
different styles of learning passions.
My middle daughter is verymuch like, unless it's about animals,
(32:13):
she's not interested.
So I have to make every, everybit of learning has to be related
to an animal or that.
But there's a bit.
That's great, that's fine.
I can do that.
You know, there, there'smillions of ways she, you know, she
manages to.
(32:35):
I found some amazing online classes.
She's found this, this tutorthat who does these, these online
classes.
And she's just taken to herand she does drawing classes with
her and science classes andzoology and stuff, and they're all
based around animals.
But she's learning differentskills with each of them.
(32:56):
And she, she's into it.
When we first, when I firststarted trying to get her to do anything,
she wasn't interested in.
If she thinks that it'slearning or we're sitting down to
do a workbook or something,nah, she's not interested.
But these, she gets so excited.
She's, you know, writing herown books about these animals and,
(33:18):
and this was the child whowouldn't pick up a pencil or do anything.
And it's so beautiful to beable to offer those opportunities
for your children.
And I'm so grateful for allthe people out there who are also
offering things so I don'thave to sit and do it all myself.
But my eldest, she's really.
(33:43):
She loves reading all the classics.
She's very like.
She's, she's my mother and sheloves really structured classes and
really what I would call sortof traditional learning styles.
And potentially in a schoolenvironment, she would quite like
(34:06):
the class teaching element of it.
But the rest of it would be wait.
She's so sensitive and she'djust be completely.
And she'd be so distracted.
She gets distracted so easily.
She wouldn't learn as much asshe, she does in her lessons but
she, she needs those type of lessons.
Completely different to mymiddle daughter and then my youngest,
(34:28):
the whirlwind, she's justlike, that's a whole other ball game.
And we're still fight, youknow, she's just coming up to seven.
We're still finding our feet,you know, in other countries they
don't even start school untilthen, so we haven't, you know, she's
just dipping her toe in thewater, she tries out little bits
(34:50):
here and there and she'strying out some of her sisters things
and stuff and we're still, I'mstill learning her style.
I'm still sort of discoveringwhat it is that is going to click
into place for her.
That's going to be, you know,sort of accelerate her learning.
It's made me realize it'slike, how can you make a national
(35:13):
curriculum?
And how can you make, youknow, I'm quite, my mum, you know,
taught teachers to be teachers.
So I, I have sort of aninsight, you know, I know how that's
taught and it's so simplistic,it's for one style of learning.
(35:37):
How can you, when everyone'sso different, have a school where
you go in and they're expectedto all do the same thing?
And it's.
My autistic brain goes, pardon?
That doesn't compute for me.
And it fascinates me that it'snot wildly understood and I hear
(35:59):
it so much from people like, Icould never do it, I don't know how
you do it.
And my brain goes, I don'tknow how you do the school run.
Thank you.
To you know, trying to getthem to do homework.
I don't know how you do themeltdowns after school, I don't know
how you do the managing all ofthe things that they have to take
(36:21):
to school and you know, theparent teacher evenings and the off
the trips and all of thosethings because I, I don't have to
do any of that.
And yeah, there are days whenhome educating is hard.
There are days when I think,well, wouldn't it be nice just to
(36:46):
send them off somewhere elsefor the day?
Do you ever get a clash ofbrains, if you know what I mean,
in your household.
You're laughing as if it'slike, oh.
Yeah, oh yes, yes.
And I have, I'm very lucky to,to have a best friend who is also
(37:09):
autistic and ADHD like myselfand will often text and she also
home educates and we'll oftentext and Be like, oh, my autistic
brain is switched on today.
Or I'm really ADHD today.
And, and I do say sometimesmy, my autistic brain is there and
we are on point.
Everything is to the letter,and we're, we're doing this, this,
(37:34):
this, this.
And then other times, my ADHDbrain and I am jumping from one thing
to another, or I start 10things and we don't complete any
of them.
And so, and sometimes that'sokay because my daughters are in
sync with that part of mybrain being in gear.
(37:55):
So, like when my autisticbrain is on fire and, and they're
in, in that kind of space aswell, we're like the dream team and
we're, you know, completingstuff left, right and center is,
Is brilliant.
If we're all firing from anADHD perspective, there's fireworks
and it can be absolute carnage.
(38:17):
And again, you know, when itcan be really hard.
Because my, My eldest is herADHD brain is on pretty much all
the time and she starts 10projects at once.
I spend a lot of my timemanaging her.
And I have to say, she, she.
(38:37):
I don't know how she does it,but she reads like 10 books at once
and she has them all startedand she knows exactly what's going
on in all these books.
This blows my mind because Ican, I, I like to read a book at
a time.
I like to finish it and thenstart another one.
And.
But I also am trying to teachher how to manage that because she
(38:59):
does it with.
She, she, she crochets and sheknits as well.
But she'll start hundreds of projects.
And I've had to be quitestrict with her.
And I've, I've got a. Icreated her a little box and I'm
like, you have to finish theprojects in this box before you start
another one, because otherwisewe just have these unfinished projects
everywhere.
(39:20):
So that can be really hardbecause it's, it's probably hard
for her that my autistic brainexplodes because she's got 20 million
things on the go and she.
Love, you know, she explodesthat I can only do one thing at a
time, a lot of the time.
(39:40):
So, yes, it does.
It does clash.
And those are the days when wethrow the timetable out, because
those are the days it tends toclash when we're dysregulated.
So my, My biggest thing is, isteaching my children about dysregulation.
(40:01):
And I think this is anotherthing that schools are only, I mean,
just in general, society isonly just Starting to understand
more and more aboutdysregulation, about how just regulating
a child can stop violentoutbursts, can stop, you know, meltdowns,
(40:25):
can aid concentration.
And so what we tend to find asa family that those times when there
are clashes, when there's.
What's actually going on, is dysregulation.
So we like to talk about it asa family in terms of dysregulation,
(40:46):
because what I found is thatthat's quite a neutral term that
allows us to offer support toeach other rather than she's being
really annoying or she'stelling me what to do or whatever.
Right?
Can we look at what's going onfor that person, that maybe they're
(41:07):
being really irritating todayor they're snappy or whatever?
And that's when we would havethat freedom and flexibility to go,
okay, so what do we need?
Do we need to throw everythingout the window?
Do we need to find somethingthat's going to regulate us?
Do we need to get outside?
Do we need to go to the farmfor my daughter so she can go and
(41:27):
go and see the horses, whichreally regulates her?
Do we need to go and, youknow, hug a tree?
Do we need to go to the seaand breathe the sea air in?
Do we need to.
What do we need to do?
Do we need to just switch acomputer on and, you know, watch
something or.
Or do a game or somethingthat's going to just bring that.
(41:50):
Bring our minds back in and,and focus and.
And so, yeah, it all comesback to that, that freedom and flexibility
to be able to do that to.
You know, when you've got.
When a teacher's got aclassroom of, of 30 kids, they might
be able to identify that thischild is dysregulated and they need
something, but they can't giveit to them.
(42:10):
They can't provide that.
And so I think, gosh, forthose teachers who are really switched
on and really get it, thatmust be so frustrating because no
one wants to see a childstruggling in that way when they
know what they need and to notbe able to give that to them.
That's what I love about home educating.
(42:32):
I can.
I. I mean, I can't all the time.
There are moments when Ican't, obviously, you know, when
you've got three kids,sometimes I have to say, well, or
I just.
That capacity.
Sometimes I'm like, I'm done.
I. I can't support you right now.
But because I can do it, themajority of the time, it's okay.
(42:53):
And I Think it's reallyimportant that for me as a mother,
for them to learn that, forthem to see me being dysregulated
and me sometimes saying, time out.
Yeah, you've got to leave mealone for a second.
I don't have capacity for thisright now.
I put my boundaries in andthat's really important for them
to see me do that because Ihad parents that didn't do that or
(43:17):
that did it too much.
And I think because they werejust, you know, my mum worked long
hours and then she'd come homeand be like, I'm done.
Don't speak to me.
And I'd be like, I've been onmy own all this time.
And, you know, so it can.
You know, it is difficult, butI think having that freedom and flexibility
(43:38):
to be able to listen toeveryone's needs, not always be able
to, you know, we're not aperfect family.
We.
I. I definitely need.
Do not meet my children'sneeds every minute of the day, but
I sure as hell get theopportunity to do it the majority
of the time.
And that's for me.
(43:58):
I wouldn't change that for theworld, for all the hard moments of
home education, because there are.
I wouldn't change it for theworld just for that.
I think what you say thereabout emotional regulation is so
key.
My daughter, who, as I say, istrying out school, she came back
from school last weekend, shehad computer studies.
And I said, what did you do incomputer studies?
(44:19):
She said, oh, we learned howto open Microsoft, send an email
and copy somebody into an email.
And I looked at her and Isaid, well, it's lucky that you didn't
miss out on the last 15 yearsof institutionalized learning, isn't
it?
Because you wouldn't have beenable to answer an email.
But.
But one thing she has learnedis emotional regulation, which they
do not teach in school.
And in actual fact, it's.
It's almost discouraged, almost.
(44:40):
And as you were talking thereabout neurodivergence and.
And talking about regulationand emotional regulation as being
so key, it reminded me of thework that I do because I actually
work with clients who haveautism and ADHD who have these kind
of brains working together.
And one of the things I offeris screening.
(45:01):
I do ADHD screening and it'snot a diagnosis, but it's a very
good test.
It's called the Connorssomething or other.
And it's like the gold standard.
They use it in a lot of therest of the world.
We'd barely use it in the uk,I have no idea why, but we use, like,
much weirder, much, muchvaguer stuff.
But anyway, as part of thistest, you get screened for the five
(45:23):
elements of adhd.
And I always say to myclients, they often come to me with
a diagnosis, and I say, okay,could you let me know, like, how
you scored on these differentfive elements?
They're like five elements.
And I'm like, you know, likethe five elements of adhd.
And I kind of reel them offand they're like, I mean, time management.
And I'm like, yeah, but that'slike executive functioning.
That's just the first one.
And then I said, what about,for example, the.
(45:44):
The final two elements ofadhd, which is.
Which are emotionaldysregulation and negative self concept.
And they look at me like, noone told me that this was a thing,
that this was actually an ADHD thing.
And it's.
And it.
It just drives me mad becausepeople think that ADHD is, you know,
being able to focus or beingfidgety or, you know, being crap
(46:06):
at going places on time, butactually, two fifths of the diagnosis
are about how you feel aboutyourself and how you can hold those
emotions.
And one thing that homeeducation allows us to do, as you
say in real time, is help ourchildren navigate through those dysregulating
moments.
Yeah, yeah.
And I think, as you say in.
(46:28):
In real time as well, I thinkthat's what's so important.
Because what.
What I get to see is why mychild's maybe having a meltdown,
or when you get your childback from school and they're having
(46:49):
a meltdown, you have no idea where.
Where that.
You've got a whole journey togo through to unpack, where that's
actually come from, whatactually is happening.
Because when they're having ameltdown because you've maybe, I
don't know, cut their apple upthe wrong way or done whatever, and,
you know, it's not about that.
(47:11):
But how do you find out whatit is about?
How do you get to that?
Whereas, as I say, I'm not.
I'm not with my children 24 7,but I have much more of an idea of
where that's come from.
My.
My middle daughter, my.
My husband laughs about itbecause I'm so in tune with her that
(47:35):
I can.
I can catch her meltdownsbefore they happen.
I already know what she needsbefore she knows what she needs.
And that has saved my life.
Because she.
She was in school, she would be.
(47:56):
Well, yeah, I mean, she wouldBe, I don't know, diagnosed with
a whole host of things and,and labeled with, with all sorts
of things and she would havebeen causing a whole multitude of,
of issues.
And these days she's, she'squite calm.
(48:16):
But that's because I know, Iknow what she needs and I'm teaching
her what she needs.
And she's, she's now from.
She was very non verbal withanything to do.
Not non verbal, she couldspeak but anytime she was disregulated
she was completely non verbaland she still at, you know, she,
(48:43):
she threw tantrums like a 2year old when she was like 6, 7.
And it was, you know, whenyou've got, and she's quite, she's
very tall.
So you know you've got a sixor seven year old kicking and punching
you and things, it's, it'squite difficult.
And when you're out and aboutand you're trying to manhandle them
and things, it was really challenging.
(49:03):
But she's now, we've got sucha, an understanding that she's now
starting to be able toverbalize to me what she needs in
those moments.
And for me that's my biggestachievement as a parent because for.
To be able to do that as anadult is hard to verbalize what you
(49:27):
need or what's going on foryou particularly because none of
us are taught how to do that.
And, and these, these are thethings that, it frustrates me that
these are the things thatshould be being taught.
Without those it's just, justyou can go and be the top in your
field of whatever, you know,chosen profession, but if you can't
(49:52):
regulate yourself and youcan't, you know, that's why you see
people having breakdowns whoare, you know, really, really successful
in the eyes of society, butthey have breakdowns because they
still don't know how to managetheir emotions, to verbalize their
needs, to put boundaries in to.
(50:14):
And I just think, wow, how arewe still not seeing that this is
an issue, that this is animportant part of, of life.
So yeah, and, and like you saythat, that people don't understand
that that part of thediagnosis, a huge part of it is that
understanding of self, thatemotional regulation, it's, it's
(50:40):
not something that comeseasily when particularly have an
ADHD brain and learning waysto do that, not just learning ways
to do that, but also having alife that allows you to do that because
(51:01):
we can know what those things are.
But without having theopportunity, you know, in school
you can't even necessarily goto the toilet.
When you need to go to thetoilet, you have to do it at certain
times to train yourself to do,to go to the toilet at certain times.
And, and even just that.
(51:23):
So just that I have, you know,and I know a lot of, a lot of neurodivergent
people have an issue withusing public toilets and with going
to the toilet in general.
I will put it off and put itoff and put it off.
And it's another thing thatblows my husband's mind because I'll
be absolutely, absolutelydesperate and then I'll get distracted
doing something and I won't gofor like to the toilet for like another
(51:44):
couple of hours or something.
And, and he.
This blows his mind.
And so to have thisexpectation to do it at a certain
time within a, a certainframework that.
That was already putting apressure on, on a child.
And there are so manysituations like that within a school
(52:07):
environment.
And I appreciate that theyhave to have those rules in place
when you are managing hugenumbers of children.
And, you know, there has to bean element of that.
But that's, that's not what Iwant for my children.
I don't want them to, youknow, people say, oh, you've got
to learn that.
Because then when you go intothe work environment and things,
(52:28):
it's like, what the most jobsI've had, I could go to the loo and
I wanted to go to the loo.
Like, you know, I appreciateas a teacher, you can't.
My mum had to let you know.
My mum used to go on aboutthat as a teacher, she was like,
you have to learn to have areally strong bladder because you
can't leave the classroom.
You know, maybe as a doctor ora nurse, if you're in the middle
(52:49):
of doing something, you know,they can't just go.
There are certain professionswhere, yeah, maybe you can't, you
know, if you're performing onstage, you can't run off and go to
the toilet.
Yes, but in most jobs or mostsituations you can go to the toilet
when you want to go to the toilet.
(53:10):
It's interesting as well,isn't it, that when we as adults,
when people tell us about jobsthat they do, you know, like, for
example, you know, the famous.
There was a documentary aboutif you work for Amazon or whoever
it was and you have to pickcertain things off the shelves in
a certain time limit.
And I know that I had a jobwhere I was doing telesales or something
and we couldn't go to thetoilet when we wanted, we were only
(53:33):
allowed certain specific.
You can only take like threeminutes every four hours or whatever
ridiculous thing it was.
And I would, even back in theday, this was in the like noughties.
I would tell my friends andthey'd be like, that's crazy.
Like that, you know, youshould be allowed to go to the toilet
when you want.
And you know, people watchdocumentaries about, about jobs that
are really make you do thingson at certain times.
(53:56):
And we, and we're up in armsabout it with our children in school,
we're just like, yeah, no,this is good preparation for life.
And yet what.
It's a life we don't actuallywant to live and we don't like it
when other people live it.
It's crazy.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It's.
It's this weird kind ofuniverse where it's okay for our
little children, littlepeople, but not for big people.
(54:17):
And you know, the scary thingis the amount of people who said
to me that experiencingbullying in school sets you up for
life.
Your children need toexperience that.
And that scares the life outof me because no amount I was bullied
(54:38):
all through school and I stillnow as an adult, that the resilience
I've built up has been,despite that, not because of it.
I don't have a resilience to,you know, I wouldn't put up with
bullying now, but because I'velearned to put boundaries in and
(55:02):
I've learnt myself worth.
But that's only been in thelast few years.
I, I then did experiencebullying within the workplace as
an adult.
I had.
That still had the same effecton me as it did as a child.
The, the thought that that'slike, I don't know, saying that,
(55:26):
you know, if you allowyourself to be hit by a car, you'll
build up resilience so thatthen when you're hit by a car again,
it won't feel as painful.
I mean, it's ridiculous.
Yeah.
No one should experiencebullying, full stop, end of sentence.
The thought that being in anenvironment where your needs aren't
(55:47):
met and you're potentiallybullied or you're overlooked and
things builds up resilience.
No, I think that that argumentthat you hear is the most unpleasant
one and it's also one of themost common.
And I always say, luckily I'mable to like, say, say this as a
therapist, I feel like I'vegot like some, some like actual qualifications
(56:10):
to say this.
But I always say, like, ifyou're bullied at school, you don't
grow up resilient.
You grow.
You grow up traumatized.
That's what happens.
You don't gain anything.
It's just that you have stuffthat you need to work through, usually
at a very expensive hourlyrate with somebody when you're like
40 years old.
So.
Which is good for me.
But, you know.
Anyway, so before we finish, Ijust, I just want to ask you very
quickly, what would be thesingle biggest piece of advice you
(56:33):
would give to a neurodivergentparent home?
Educating neurodivergent child children.
Be kind to yourself and takeyour time.
The biggest thing is, isthere's no, there's no perfect.
And just try everything outand keep revising it.
(56:57):
Because that, that's been thething for me is that, you know, what's
working right now might notwork in a month's time, a year's
time, three years time.
We might be doing somethingcompletely different and go with
it and don't put pressure on yourself.
Create a little bit of structure.
I do think that that isbeneficial for everybody, but what
(57:21):
that looks like for you iscompletely personal to you.
And if that's getting up atmidday and going to bed at midnight
for your family and thatworks, then brilliant.
If it's getting up at five inthe morning and going to bed early,
whatever.
But get yourself some structure.
But structure that allows youto do what you want to throw out
(57:42):
the window when you need to,to have those days when you just
need to throw your arms up inthe air and all just lie in a dark
room.
That's okay.
And shut out the noise as, as.
Your cat, as your cat meows inthat very moment.
Yeah.
(58:03):
As I'm trying to do right now,shut out the noise.
You know, allow people to, to,to give you advice and, and find
your people.
Find your people.
Because having that villagearound you, having those people that
get it.
You know, I've.
(58:23):
The friends of mine who arealso neurodivergent who also have
neurodivergent children.
They're the ones, they're theones I gravitate towards.
They're the ones that keep me sane.
You know, having.
Finding the people who.
And you will find them.
And you may have to go toseveral groups, you may have to try
lots of different things out,but keep trying and you will find
(58:44):
those people and you will find.
And it doesn't have to behundreds of people.
It can be one person, oneperson for your child or one person
for you.
That, that, that brings thatconnection gets it.
And, and, and they they willbe there.
And just, yeah, just, justtrust in yourself.
You, you are the expert inyour child, and you are the expert
(59:07):
in you.
And just remember that becausewe are frequently told that everyone,
you know, society knows bestabout what our children need.
And no one can be more of anexpert on your child than you.
So trust in yourself and keepadvocating for your child.
(59:31):
Lovely.
Good advice.
I love that.
Okay.
Emily, thank you so much forcoming on the podcast today.
It's been really a pleasure tohave you on.
Thank you so much.
Enjoyed it.
Thank you.
Thank you so much for joiningus for today's Home Education Matters
podcast.
See you at the next one.
Have a lovely day.
Popular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.