I let my son slide under the radar and 'unschool.' He is now a very respected IT Regional Support Technician in the Education Department as well as being a gifted programmer. My daughter is still finding her way. We decided to let her drop out of Year 11 just towards the end of this year because she was becoming dangerously depressed. She could handle the work, but she couldn't handle the rigidity and the soul-numbing uncreativity of the assignments. She was also coming home with Autistic burnout every afternoon and sleeping for hours.

We are currently negotiating her feelings of failure and trying to find the next step for her to take. I know she is incredibly capable, and she is an absolute sizzling, sarcastically-funny joy with a very strong logical mind, but because she didn't think and perform the way the school system said she should, she feels like a failure. It makes me so angry!