Home Schooling / AS Parent

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I'm looking for some advice from any parents, with AS, who've home-schooled their own AS child(ren). My daughter is 5yrs old, close to finishing her first year at school and soon to be assessed for ASD. She's generally a very happy, social and confident little girl. But, school appears to be making her unhappy and unsociable and I'm worried about her confidence taking a knock.

When I took her there on Monday, I walked her to the line and she said that she wanted to be alone to have time to think (she's happy to be with me, just no other kids). She's never said anything like this before. She has no friends there, but has played with some on occasion. Kids usually just stare at her when she says 'Hello' and I think she's given up trying to be friendly now. When I collected her on Monday, she said she'd received a verbal warning for putting her skip cap on before leaving the building, even though the bell had gone and they were leaving. This is the same punishment that others get for hitting, etc - seems extreme. She finds the cloakroom stressful (calls it a beehive) and had been getting herself organised. She was really sad about it and I think it put her off her sleep that night. However, she's coping well with the work (she's highly intelligent) even though she struggles to concentrate. But, given her high intelligence, I feel she should be doing even better than she is. There are 32 in her class and 2 teachers and within the next few years, she'll be moving into an open-plan area. Noise is an issue, especially for her.

As you can tell, I'm really concerned about her. I just want her to be happy. I'm looking at home-schooling as an option. She has a few friends out of school (gentle boy with dyspraxia/ social phobia next door and lovely girl round corner, sho accepts her) and goes to after school classes, so I wouldn't worry about her socialising with others. She's not socialising at school anyway. But, I have a couple of concerns. The first one would be trying to convince my husband. Although he's not cruel, he thinks school is a necessary part of growing up, whether the child enjoys it or not. The way I see it, school is not like real life. Where else would you be punished for putting a cap on just before going outdoors?

My other problem is that I'm not sure about my own abilities to educate my daughter. I know loads about loads and, if I don't know, I know how to find out, so I've no worries about that. But, my daughter is a handful, to say the least. She's not bad, but seldom does as she's told. For example, 'Sit down' or 'Put your shoes on' usually gets no response. Would I be able to get her to knuckle down, or can I educate her without her knowing she's learning (by making it fun). Also, I'm quite disorganised. I'm worried that the day will pass and I'll wonder what we've done. As an example of what I'm like - I'm a full-time Mum and struggle to get the housework done just now, even though my daughter's at school most days. Is it possible for me to be able to just get on with it?

Does anyone have any encouraging experiences to tell? I'd especially like to hear from Aspie parents, with 'disorganised' thinking, like me.

Thanks

I homeschooled my Aspie daughter (and my older son) until she was 9 years old. I didn't know what Asperger's was until recently (she's going to be 13 this year)

At the time, I wanted to homeschool because I had bad experiences in the early grades, and hadn't yet found a good fit--a school that I would trust to take care of them all day.

I'm not officially diagnosed but am pretty sure I'm on the spectrum as well. I have ZERO organisational skills. Housework gets attended to when I notice things are messy, which isn't often.

The type of homeschooling that was a good fit for us is called "un-schooling." We followed the lead of the kids and studied whatever they were interested in. As she tended to obsess over one subject (like dinosaurs) for WEEKS at a time, I had to be creative in how I covered math, etc. too. She loves to read and talk about what she's learned so I would keep a very informal journal of what we did from day to day. I kept the slips from the library of what books she checked out. I kept leaflets and ticket stubs from events that we attended.

The most important thing that made it work was looking at everything we did as a learning opportunity. She liked more "official" workbooks, but my son didn't. I had to come up with more hands-on projects for him (he really took to kitchen-science and electronics)

A good place to start would be to find out the legal requirements for where you live. It varies widely from state to state. Where I live, I could turn in a portfolio of work with a narrative explaining how what they did covered all the required subjects.
If your spouse needs convincing, he might like to read about kids on the spectrum and how they cope with school--especially the teen years.

Being at "regular" school now isn't without it's problems, but I believe that my kids have a much more solid sense of self than many of their peers. They had the space and time to figure out what they liked and how they learned best, without the added stress of teacher and peer expectations.

Good luck

The reprimand for the cap does seem a bit heavy-handed. I know for some kids, it's hard to release something like that and just move on; it can put a cloud of negativity over the rest of their day, and that could effect her ability to focus on her classwork.

I can kind of see your husband's viewpoint, as school is a society in itself, but if she's got opportunities for socializing outside of the school, this may not even be an issue. Socializing is important, but not to the detriment of her education, and if it's hindering her education, then home-schooling may be the best option.

And I can completely sympathize with you about the household duties, and wondering where your day went. My son(5 yrs.) is only in school for three hours a day, and I find myself wrestling with what I will use that 3 hours for. Sometimes I take it for myself to do with as I please because parents need that from time to time..
I make a list every morning of what I'd LIKE to get done that day and what I NEED to get done that day. I label the important things with an A. An A indicates things that need to get done or something bad might happen. If I get all of my A list items done, then the rest is just a boost to my productivity ego.

Hi Georgia

Thanks very much for responding. I'm glad home-schooling worked out well for you. It's good to hear a positive story. Can I ask how your daughter coped with the transition from home-schooling to regular school? Was she reluctant to go?

Thanks again

Actually I wanted to keep going with homeschooling. She and her brother decided that they were ready to go out into the world.

I've never been a part of mommy groups etc. so I never saw a need for seeking out social time. They started to get curious about other kids and wanted to make friends. I think they both wanted more structure too, and that isn't one of my strong points

It was a rough start. They went for a few months. Came home for the rest of the year. Then tried again the following year.
For those months in-between we had a lot of time to process about the school environment and how things worked.
They are gentle souls, so the agression that they saw between kids and from the adults was confusing and unsettling.

Now we talk quite openly about the "meerkat" behavior that people tend to exhibit when in large groups. We've never told them that school is the real world. No adult would force themselves to be around people they didn't like all day... would we?

Their two younger siblings are in pre-school now. They also like the structure of school but have very outgoing personalities for the most part. They would be bored silly at home with me and their dad.

I home schooled my ASD kids for a number of years, unfortunately CAMHS referred me to social services for home educating and social services made it clear they did not want me home educating and after a couple of years of harassment I gave in and sent them to school. They said they thought because the children had ASD they needed more social interaction and help than home ed could give them, they also thought me having aspergers would negatively impact on them and make their ASD worse. I know its bull but its hard to fight them and defend yourself when you have aspergers and I think I would have needed NT social skills to win them over, I tended to make every interaction with them worse as I got so nervous and stressed.

Sorry thats a bit of a downer reply but it is best to know about bad experiences as well as good.

I think its getting harder to home educate as social services are clamping down after baby P, and Victoria Climbie and the laws on home ed are changing too.

That does sound hard, Raven. I'm so sorry that you had to experience that.

I do feel lucky that my family was able to go about our business without outside interference for as long as we did. Unfortunately homeschooling and child abuse are sometimes linked together in the public consciousness. We did have instances where other parents would say very judgemental things to us, as if we were depriving our kids of something they needed. I don't think public school in its current incarnation-- in a lot of places here in the US anyway--are very good for kids at all. Not all certified teachers know how to teach in a respectful wholistic way.

Not all social service agencies take the time to understand the nuances of different parenting styles. I don't think they all agree with each other much of the time. And an individual worker's interpretation of a parent being nervous when they are being questioned like this could vary widely from another. If I were that worker, I would take into account how intimidating those situations can be. I myself have felt very paranoid anytime I am in a position where this other person has so much power over what happens to my family.

All that said, if one could somehow get the support of one or more local advocacy groups, that might help with going into homeschooling prepared for those times when people in authority could give you a hard time.

Un-schooling sounds perfect. It sounds like what we are doing now with our 3 year old and the school and teachers have commented yesterday and today about how much she already knows. How much time each day is spent sitting at a table doing structured school work?