Does Home-Schooling Really Make Better Sense for A Child on The Autism Spectrum?

 The COVID-19 pandemic made home-schooling a reality. Children began to study online from the comforts of their homes. Two years later, I see parents more than willing to send their kids back to school. Six months ago, when there were talks of schools re-opening, I had seen parents opposing the idea as their children were not vaccinated. Even today, children below 15 years are yet to be vaccinated. But parents are more than willing to take the risk and send their children to school. I guess they are fed up with online schooling and so are the kids.

Online schooling can obviously never substitute classroom learning. Not only has learning got impacted in the past couple of years, the children have been unable to socialise with their peer group and that has impacted their emotional well-being in many respects. However, what came to me as a surprise was parents of children with special needs telling me that they would prefer home-schooling as opposed to sending their children to a physical classroom. “Through the lockdown I have been able to sit with my child through his online classes. I have been able to put across to my son what the teacher taught in the online class in a better way. My son’s performance has improved. Moreover, I won’t be allowed to sit with him in a physical classroom,” a mother of a child on the autism spectrum told me.

I completely agree that no one can be a better teacher than the mother herself. The mother also told me that if her son studied at home, he would have time to pursue other interests, such as playing the piano or going for a game of tennis. “Academics may not be his forte, it could be music or tennis and since he is different, it becomes more important for me to figure out what he could do for a living going forward.” Of course, it’s absolutely critical to figure out what your differently-abled child is good at, and train him/her in that.

I agree with the mother of this differently-abled child on many accounts, however, what makes me wonder – wont absence from school, lack of interaction with peers not impact the child’s emotional well-being and more importantly his/her social skills? Lack of social skills in any case is a challenge for most kids on the spectrum. Going to school teaches a child basic skill like making friends, sharing, participating in group activities and so on. A child on the spectrum needs to acquire those skills much more than a stereotypical child as it doesn’t come naturally to him/her. By putting the child through a home-schooling curriculum aren’t we further alienating him/her?

We have mainstreamed our son throughout. He goes to a regular school, participates in sports and cultural events at school (over there he certainly looks and behaves differently but it has become a way of life for him and his peers also try to accept him the way he is.) and also goes for school trips outside of Mumbai. I don’t think he would have been able to do any of these had he not been a part of a regular school. His 12^th boards are round the corner and after that we are confident that he would go to college too. I am hoping that would be able to go to college just as he went to school all these years.

He does get bullied at school by his peers, there are only a handful of children who he could refer to as friends, choicest of slangs have made way into his vocabulary, he is often lost in the class, needs individual attention – however, I still feel going to a regular classroom, has helped him immensely as an individual. I am not trying to put down any parent who believes in home-schooling. I look forward to your views!