adventures in homeschooling
Find a Conversation
| Wed, 11-22-2006 - 12:56pm |
We're new to homeschooling. I feel like I'm learning so much about my son and what it takes for him to learn. I finally understand what his previous teacher meant when he would write on the daily behavior sheet: "Very silly" and "Rough afternoon."
I can also see why he was too much work for the public school system. To them, he was like a hot potato. Pass him off to another classroom as fast you can.
He is completing work at home, which is something he wasn't doing at school. I feel guilty that I didn't catch on sooner to the fact that he wasn't learning one darn thing in the public school setting.
His anxiety and obsessive tendencies have greatly subsided, which convinces me that the problems at school were disturbing him and spilling over to other areas of his life.

We also love the kid we have now that we are homeschooling. Of course, our ds never was in public school, but still the placements were not working for him and we do understand that he is just an unusual child and our educational system is not set up to work for him. We may need to actually have a school created for him!!!
And we haven't quite yet given up on looking for a new school, in fact we have an offering from an immensely expensive private school and interest from 2 other funded private schools, but figuring out which way we want to go will take some time. Therefore it has been most important to first make sure that homeschooling is working well and can be done indefinitely for ds so we do not feel under too much pressure about when to find a school during this process.
But we knew that Malcolm's "behavioral problems" were being caused by school, because we were watching them come on before our eyes as the school personnel changed and the support program fell apart. Our boy was always able to learn, but increasingly was not able to keep his temper during school. Now that he is NOT in school, we have our even-tempered, problem solving, funny sweet ever-learning boy again.
So - we know he needs a school with strong academics, very small classes of calm and well-behaved children, amazing teachers, LOTS of OT to help him regulate, and a willingness to understand what sets him off and how to help him 1) avoid the triggers and 2) learn how to cope when stressed. And for now, that's at home!
Sara
ilovemalcolm
It's funny. I was beginning to think that my son was defiant by nature. Working with him at home, without the whole public school drama, I'm realizing he's mostly COMPLIANT. He wants to follow the rules, but was not able to do so at school. School, for him, was like throwing a non-swimmer into 10 ft of water.
I was also considering medication because the school was pressuring me so much to do so. I mean, they brought it up at every IEP meeting. He can have education without medication at home. I haven't felt this positive about things in a long time.
I am so excited this is going so well for you.
That's great news. I'm glad to hear that he is learning and completing his work.
But atleast you have him home now. He will continue to grow and learn. Does he like being home? We have been homeschooling my daughter since school started and she is doing well. I see her in school like settings at church and she seems so overwhelmed so I can see we are doing the right thing with our DD and she struggles at times so the one on one is a big plus.
Good luck with it as you continue.
Debbie
The school characterized him as defiant. I would have called him resistant to change and difficult to make transitions. Attending school disturbed him and it spilled over to home, it even messed up his weekend behavior.
He's doing a lot more self-correcting these days and the only really difficult transition is in the morning at the start of our school day. It's a weak fight on his part. He'll shake his head no-no and make declarations that he's not going to do the work, but then he'll go ahead and do it anyway.
My son did "okay" in kindergarten. I would have to say that things really only felt apart towards the end of first grade and definitely things got worse in second grade. I blame that on his placement and the school's refusal to give him a one-to-one aide. My county is wealthy, but backwards when it comes to autism spectrum disorders.
Yes, he likes the homeschooling and doesn't miss public school. I joined a homeschooling network in my area and the majority of the members are people who got fed up with the special education system in our county. Hopefully, DS can make some friends through this group. People plan field trips together, etc... A lot of spectrum kids are homeschooled, it seems :)
That's very interesting.
>>> I had assumed that an ASD kid would "need" to be around NT kids, or at least greatly benefit from being in school. >>>
I thought this was true too, but that's not the case with my son. It might have benefited him to be around NT kids and receive autism services at the same time, but our school didn't give him autism services (in the proposed IEP where I broke with the school, they were only offering autism services 9% of the time, no 1:1 aide, and a placement at a place that is a little better than an institution.....they can't even call it a school).
He was not capable of mixing in with the NT kids. He had kindergarten, first grade, and some of second grade, and he didn't pick up any social skills by being around those NT kids.
This year is when the teasing started and he really shut down at school, which made the teasing worse.