Choosing Life Without School

Despite my husband's career in academia, and my own background as a teacher, our kids have led us towards a life without school. I don't know this life. It is terrifying. As a person who thrives with community and structure, I feel adrift. I feel like by opting out of the system I am severing myself from the rest of society. I do not do well with isolation.

And yet, we are opting out. This is a choice. True, the alternative is so awful it feels almost unfathomable - physically force my children every day to go to a place where they feel unsafe and leave them screaming and thrashing in a staff members' arms while I walk away to the sounds of their cries, leaving everyone traumatized in the process - but it is an option, nonetheless. One that I know we are privileged not to have to be forced into. So, in order to feel some sense of agency over my life, I need to own this choice.

We are choosing a life without school. We will find our way.

Although we have been home educating my eldest for the last four years, this total shift in thinking is new for me.

Until recently, part of me had been holding on to hope that school would work for my youngest, and our realization in the last few weeks that she, too, cannot thrive in that environment signaled a change in my perspective. Yes, there was a new wave of grief over seeing the life I had imagined slip further and further away, a life where I drop happy kids off to sunny classrooms and eventually go back to work when they were both in school full-time. But the grief passed. And in its wake there was a sense of calm. A sense of peace. This is the right choice for our family.

We withdrew B from her beautiful and supportive Reggio-inspired preschool where, at the tender age of three, her instincts were already telling her to mask her differences and fawn in order to feel safe. I sat outside the glass door of her classroom for three days in the hopes of easing her anxiety. I watched her sing every song, participate in every activity, follow every instruction, but I never once saw her smile. The only time I observed any semblance of her inner light was during playtime, but it was fleeting. She was clearly the kind of child who would be a "pleasure to teach" because she was quiet and compliant, but having learned more about the nervous system over the last few years, I know that those behaviours are actually coping mechanisms, very adaptive ones, yes, but coping mechanisms nonetheless.

Attending preschool activated B's nervous system to such an extent that, while she was able to override her threat response while in the classroom (with a later start, a shorter day, me in the hallway, and the knowledge that attending or not that day was her choice), at home the dysregulation spilled forth into chaos. By monitoring her access to basic needs, I know that school was too hard for her sensitive nervous system; her sleep was erratic, she refused baths and teeth brushing and other daily hygiene, she was rigid about her favourite activities, she couldn't tolerate clothing, the foods she could eat became more limited, she spent more time alone in her room, and, when she was around us, there was near constant equalizing behaviour like incessantly being in her brother's space, climbing on high counters, drawing on cabinets and walls, dumping out yogurt, upending drinks, throwing my phone, needing to be carried, speaking in baby talk, etc. So many people normalize the idea of the after school restraint collapse, but if B was restraining herself at preschool to such an extent that her access to basic needs was affected at home, that is not worthwhile in my cost-benefit analysis. B knew it wasn't worth it either; after one week of giving school our best shot, the next Monday she announced, "I'm done trying school. It's not for me." So here we are.

We are a family choosing life without school.