homeschooling advice

Post Reply New Topic

i know how that feels, paterfamilias...
ok, an update on how things are going: the whole world seems hell bent on telling me socialisation is more important than grades or having a job in the future. I know i'm going to come off as an annoying aspie but jeeesus, sometimes i wish i never had to speak to an NT ever again. why do they go on and on about this?? he WILL socialize, we don't live in a cave or something!!
we live in a small village where all the kids are neighbours for heaven's sake.....
every time someone new comes up with the socialisation line, i just really want to sigh, get up and leave. I know i'm not supposed to, but i get so tired of explaining again and again and again the same things....
tonight at 5 i have an appointment with the GP. She wants to see him, and apparently decide if he has AS or not lol....she's not even qualified, but she can refer me to a neurologist, as i stated i have an appointment with a psychiatrist, and she totally surprised me by saying she thinks he should have a neurological evaluation instead. god bless the woman ( says the atheist...)
finally someone who at least has the right idea. let's see how it goes tonight.... she is very opposed to the idea of homeschooling though. for the same reason as the others. i just don't get why it is such an obsession of them. He is not good at socializing so he should learn by socializing. huh, ok, can we instead try TEACHING him?
it's so tiring.....

Unfortunately, it seems like the socializing question is one you never really get rid of. I think this is especially true when people know you have a child with social issues. It sounds like you are dealing with someone who is adamantly against homeschooling. Some people are just very closed-minded like that. They can't see that this option is probably better for your child. You are his mother and you know what's best for him, so stand your ground and don't give into whatever pressure the district is putting on you. As for the appointment with the psychiatrist, it will be nice if your son is officially diagnosed, but it doesn't change him. He will be the same child with that piece of paper that he was the day before he got it. The school might try to pressure you into doing what they want once he is diagnosed. Good luck at your meeting tonight. I hope it goes well for you.

The "needs socialization" is school's way of saying "we want the extra money we get for the special needs kids"...it's really as far as I'm concerned BS...My son is very social, is normally great with both adults and kids...I have a nephew who is very anti-social and he's in school...so, no, I don't buy it. I would try to find a homeschool group in your area...there are many "unschoolers" who have ASD kids in the group...try to get him involved so that he can feel the difference in how the kids treat him...and try to pull him out and homeschool.

I moved to Texas almost 3 years ago...gave up alot to do so because I was told that the services in the area I would be in were great for ASD kids...The first doctor specialized in ASD that I saw within a few weeks of arriving told me "if you work, stop working and homeschool...ASD kids are some of the most abused kids in the schools...by both other kids AND teachers..."

I'd keep him in public school for as long as possible so he'll get the social interaction and street smarts he needs instead of being sheltered and lazy. That's sorta what happened to me. That's why I can't wait till college.

They say that the grass is always greener on the other side. I wonder if you would say the same thing if you actually experienced the public education that many of the forum posters have experienced. In truth, I do caution operating on the idea that school will provide the correct social interaction that is useful in developing good relational skills. Schools will certainly provide social interaction, but it is often not the 'constructive' variety. While you may interact with other people, there is a decent probability that interaction will simply lead to social anxiety, depression, and have very little positive impact. This is especially true if a child has a history of being repeatedly harassed and bullied.

There are, of course, exceptions. I personally enjoyed my 11th and 12th grade year, but that was mostly due to my new tech school, and my new 'not taking any more of your crap' attitude. And just because I happened to have a semi-successful last 2 years in high school doesn't mean that schooling in general was very helpful for me. 2 good years out of 12 does not make for a good average. So, saying that public school provides social interaction is true. But saying that the social interaction provided is a good thing.... not so much. I personally think that interaction with siblings, and selected after school activities provide sufficient social interaction, and greatly reduces the negative problems associated with it. You will of course get less social interaction. But lower quantity, and high quality, is usually better than a high quantity of very low quality.

As far as school making the child 'street smart', I would admit that there is some value to this statement. Being taken advantage of, bullied, and harassed constantly teaches you to be defensive and paranoid about the intentions of other very effectively. But I personally think that there are better ways to teach your child about the dangers in life without putting them through hell.

So, i am doing it the head of school let him out on the last day before the christmas holiday; she is also his teacher and recognised there is not much she could do to help him , so she told me i could give it a try... thanks for your honesty i guess?
So the first 3 days of christmas holidays i didnt see the kid at all, he locked himself in his room with DS and laptop, and basically only came out to eat, never spoke to me the whole time, slept 11 hours a night. Then he started getting better, we didn't work at all during the holidays, i let him recover, now the holidays are over and he is back to normal almost, speaks, laughs and i get hugs again even with the hours of work we do during the day, he is still a lot more happy and relaxed than i've seen him in years. He told a boy from his old class who was asking if he was coming back to school what was happening, he sounded so happy that it was true, i think he is still unsure it is all for real.
We're doing a lot of geometry and maths, i think we already figured out what his favourite subjects are , this and history it seems, he's far from the " doesn't grasp the concept of learning" boy his teacher was describing to me....
I hope it all continues to go well but i feel i've made the right decision for him. thanks for your input, i think i needed the nudge to be brave about it. If i do one thing right in my life, it will be raising my children, it's my job and nobody else's

Kudos to you for having the courage to stand up to ignorance and peer pressure. Frankly, I think a lot of NTs see surviving the schoolyard as some sort of "rite of passage", an attitude which makes me literally want to take them to the zoo, throw them into the gorilla enclosure, and see how well they fare.

My post is probably just going to turn into a rant, but anyways. Maybe something helpful will be thrown in here.

I was homeschooled. I started at a "real" school in ninth grade and switched schools about four times until senior year. When I was a young kid, I had countless friends, I had people to hang out with several times a week, and I certainly knew how to behave in public and get along with people/friends (which is what I guess would be what school's expect as far as social skills). I felt weird at times, but it comes with the aspie territory, right? In ninth grade, I had meltdowns in class and people stared at me. On my first day I tried to talk to a girl and she simply refused to talk back (some social skills huh?). I started rigid routines once I started going to school. When I started going to school is when I felt like my social skills diminished. School is the last thing to teach you social skills. It's a place where they have tons of rules and people are taught to follow them and not ask any questions. Wear your uniform, eat at this time, use the restroom at this time, interact at these times with these people. That isn't a good social environment. You need to be in a relaxed environment, preferably with people that enjoy the same things as you, to learn real life social skills.

You have to be in a comfortable environment to be able to relax and think about things like social cues. If he's constantly worried about being bullied, how is he going to relax and think about social cues?

Yes, i remember this time too, before i started school i was such a relaxed little girl, i think the thing that went down pretty fast after i started school was my self esteem. suddently i didn't know anymore what was expected of me, everyone seemed illogical and what was good to one person appeared wrong to the next,or even to the same person the next day, there was no pattern to be made out of it. It felt unsafe. It only got worse as the years went by, i was lost but i remained silent through primary, so i guess i coped, but from age 12 on it became apparent that i had learnt nothing as far as social skills go. Either that or the teenage social skills are so different from the children's that i had to relearn everything. This is a very depressing thought. Start over, erase 6 years of hard work, and start over. It's just too hard. My grades became terrible because it was more important for me to fit in than succeed at that time, and there was no way i could be at the head of the class and be accepted. And still i was not accepted. I Also had to be homeschooled for a year until i felt better, because it was becoming dangerous, for me mainly , but also possibly for the bullies because the hatred had risen to a degree i haven't experienced since. I'm pretty sure school is a dangerous environment for aspies. During my homeschooling year, i made friends. Lots of them. The pressure and "popularity contest" was out of the equation, and i didn't stand out as odd so much in a smaller group of people, where the "natural predators", the ones that can single you out in a flash, were not present, because i was actually allowed to choose who i interacted with, and it did wonders for my sanity
What Zur-darkstar said about being thrown into the gorilla enclosure is perfectly fitting to me. That's how school felt like. Although i have no doubt i could make friends with gorillas easier than with some of the schoolyard bullies..
Anyway my son is getting better day after day, the transformation is amazing. He's sweeter with his sister , nicer to me, and laughing again. Just yesterday he ran into the living room to share something exciting with me , and i went to see it, he's now creating huge 3d environments on the computer very nice! still no creature in it, but i guess he has now time to learn that... I think it might be why he is more relaxed now. He actually has time to learn in the field that interrests him, since he wants to be a video game designer later

When people say that conventional schooling is needed for socialization, I just want to scream. I went through multiple schools when I was growing up, both public and private, and the socialization I got in them wasn't much better than the gorilla cage at the zoo.

I got tormented for such thing as having no interest in and being no good at sports, even getting called gay when I was 11 years old because of it. I also got bullied for having a deep voice, for actually wanting to earn good grades, for not having been kicked out of somewhere else, for not wanting to get into fights, for not wanting to go to school dances, it was just crazy. Every school it was something different, and none of it ever made sense.

I also remember a time this girl passed me a sexually explicit note in class and the teacher saw and took it and told me to keep it out of her classroom. I told her who wrote it, but nothing was said to that girl. In addition, everyone made fun of ME for it. I don't understand why some 14 year old future prostitute in 9th grade can write that kind of trash in a Christian school and get away with it, while the recipient of it gets picked on for receiving it. I guess I don't understand socialization.

Homeschooling in some form would have been nice so I wouldn't have had to deal with this nonsense. One thing about non-school socialization is it is completely in the control of the parent and the child. If the child gets involved in an activity and this sort of thing goes on, a complaint to those in charge might get a response and if if it doesn't you are free to walk out and never return, and find something more acceptable. In school if the child is bullied, the child can't get up and leave without suffering some sort of consequence. The bullies walk away free and the victim is the one who suffers the consequences.

Homeschooling wasn't big when I was growing up, but it has gotten popular in recent years. There are a lot of resources available online, and there are now many companies selling homeschool study materials, and there are online programs for homeschoolers. I think if you want to homeschool your kids, you should go for it since so much is available now for those who want to do it.