With 2 parents working in-office, we've been pretty reluctant to consider homeschooling. But as our kiddo approaches middle school, he's struggling more as opposed to getting better. It's getting to the point where we feel we must consider it, can see the benefits, but still can't quite figure out if it's feasible. Does anyone have a suggestion for first steps? Each resource I find tends to be geared toward some student who is reluctant to learn and who will need a lot of direct instruction and micromanagement from the parents. Our son is very self-directed with most learning (aside from being a reluctant writer) and micromanagement would be a nightmare for all of us.

Apologies for the ignorance, but is there some type of homeschool setup that is basically like an online school? The other resources I'm finding caution over and over "homeschool is NOT handing a curriculum to a child to self-instruct!!!", and yet my kiddo seems to be able to learn anything as long as it is self-instructed. He's oddly resistant to teaching, to the point of being a big annoyance in the classroom and getting defensive if he is ever taught something he didn't already know. It's unhealthy and isn't winning him any friends or fans at school (and ruining his love of school and his self-esteem).

He's immature, socially awkward, and working hard enough to understand his lagging social skills that he's now aware of the fact that all the kids think he's a loud, annoying dork (he was happily oblivious until 4th grade). He also has a very fresh "level 1 autism" diagnosis to layer onto his ADHD and general anxiety diagnoses that we're not sure what to do with, but we assume dumping him into Ligon is not the solution (especially after a deep dive with a Mom who has a neurotypical kid at Ligon and an autistic kid she doesn't plan to send there, and I trust her experience and knowledge). My husband and I have an agreement to not even think about this or discuss it until after an event next weekend and after we finish our son's current medication transition. Life is overwhelming at the moment, and this is year 3 where our son's mental health and school situation seems to blow up right as February/ March hits. I'd greatly appreciate any thoughts. Please go easy on me, because I already got a pretty severe smackdown in a group where I asked about virtual online schools and made it clear I didn't plan to be sitting next to my kid "teaching" him much of anything. I'm not intending on shirking any duties, it's more than I know that's not how he learns and I'd also be miserable. Thank you for any ideas or resources. (I'll dig into them April 14!)