To home-school or not to home-school.

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My oldest daughter turned 7 recently and was diagnosed Aspergers/ADHD at age 6. She is about to complete the 1st grade but may not pass. I'm not entirely sure if the school is willing to do anything for her, as we were already told once that she was just too high functioning. Now they say she is in danger of being held back and this will devastate her. She is trying the best she can, but being in a regular class is hard enough. I even quit my job to be home and help in the learning process. I'm on the borderline about just bringing her home for a few years to help her get up to speed. On the one hand, the only person she will interrupt is me. I can give her lots of one on one time and structure her learning around her needs. We are an agnostic family in a very Christian town. There don't seem to be a lot of meet up groups for non-Christian homeschoolers. I worry about her socialization. Worse yet is that I'm an Aspie and I HATE socializing with new people. Or even people I know, for the most part. The search for socialization on her behalf will be a huge challenge for me.

And my youngest, who will be in Kindergarten next year is NT. I won't be able to home-school them both so she'd have to stay in public school.

The elementary school is an A school and so far, it's been good. It's her deficit in learning that is the problem.

Any thoughts?

Once the NT kids home in on her differentness, they will prey upon her, and torment her. If you leave her in school her life will be hell. I'm surprised that you, a fellow Aspie, don't remember this. No one should have to go to hell every week day until they are legally old enough to refuse schooling. If I had kids I would NEVER, EVER put them through the hell I went through. And by the way, it's awfully hard to do a good job learning stuff when you are serving time in hell every day.

I wouldn't worry too much about socializing your daughter. First, we aspies aren't good at that at any age, and no matter how much time we've spent trying to learn this skill. Second, it's better to have kids learn social skills from adults, as what you want is for them to learn how to be a functioning adult, not an immature, spoiled, tantrum throwing, brat.

Anyway, there are other options for kid on kid socializing besides school. Have your kid join clubs and community activities, and sports leagues, etc. Here are some examples:

- Music ativities
- Sports & the local recreation center--if there is one.
- Martial arts
- Dancing lessons
- Theater groups
- Hobby clubs
- Community events
- Library sponsored events
- Art ativities
- Chess club
- Sewing/knitting club
- Go to museums, zoos, science fairs, flea markets, farmer's markets.
- American Heritage Girls/Girl guides/Campfire girls--Stay away from the Girl Scouts, they have become somewhat anti American, pro socialist, and anti family. Because of this they are no longer considered the female version of Boy Scouts, but American Heritage Girls are now affiliated with the Boy Scouts.

I'm sure you can come up with still other locally available social situations for your girl.

I am very disappointed that your school is denying your daughter services. That is not normally the right answer for Aspie kids, who usually have pinpoint weak areas but overall strong academic potential. If you can't get an IEP and don't feel you have a team that is really working in your daughter's best interests, then you are right to question the placement.

So ... if you feel homeschooling is the right answer for her, given the choices in your community, I would swallow your worries and just do it. We have many parents here who have successfully home-schooled even though they were sure they could never do it.

It does take preparation, research, and determination, but it is amazing what parents can do when their children's best interests are involved.

Just for background, I do not and have not home schooled myself, but I've been around the boards for a while, and know how well it has worked for many Aspie kids that just were not thriving in a traditional school setting.

I'd have to say it depends on the child and the parent. For us, at this moment, I'dv say 'no'. Whenever my son is at home, it is INCREDIBLY difficult to get him to want to do anything but be in his room with his precious Legos. I have tried to do structured learning time at home and it is agonizingly difficult to get him to focus, to have desire, to cooperate.
However, when he is at school, he has no choice but to follow the structure that everyone else is following . . . AND no Legos there.

So, I'd say it depends on how well your daughter follows instructions and how cooperative she is. My son just isn't there yet, and I don't think I can get him there (yet) without help.

It's ridiculous that the school thinks she is too high functioning to deserve services and yet needs to be held back a year. What the heck? What is wrong with these schools? Can you use that information now to demand services and fight for them?

I think that she would do better at home, in all honesty. I can devote my time to just one student, whereas her teacher has 17 other kids to tend to. I can better control the distractions in the environment. I'm worried about cost of home schooling and how to manage the education given I'm not terribly organized as a person. But, a long time friend of mine (since high school) has a ADHD daughter she is homeschooling and it's working out really well for them. She ran me through the process and how it works. For my county it's basically the same curriculum, just done at home. All the lessons are sent to me or I can print out. The more I look into it the better I like the idea.

I do have an NT daughter going into Kindergarten in the fall. When it's time for homework at home, she is one of the larger distractions so I may let her enter the public school for that 1st year and see how she does. I'm worried she will intentionally do bad just so I bring her home. She's a smart kid. She has agendas and implements them at age 5. I may have to home school her just to keep her away from the potentially 'bad' influences in the school.

We have a couple more meetings with the teacher and the school coming up, my husband is getting involved now and he's the 'heavy'. If anyone can get the school to budge, it's probably him.

Then there is the problem of home schooling where I have zero time to myself. I'm an Aspie...I need my alone time and he works 60+ hours a week and volunteers his time for Kiwanis and other things. I guess I'll just have to DEMAND he be home more and give me some free time.

It would seem to me that if you feel your child's needs would best be supported in a homeschool environment, then go for it.

If you are doing it because the school is not doing their job as required by law, the I would say fight for your child's rights for a free and appropriate education.

Are you in the USA? If so, then you have rights for services protected by law. You can hire a special education services advocate or lawyer to help you. You can contact the Region Center (I am not sure what they are called in your state). You can call the governing body who evaluates schools and determines if they are meeting state regulations (In Texas, that is TEA) Take a look at this website. - www.wrightslaw.com Sometimes all it takes is printing off a copy of the law and letting the school administration know that you know your rights.

A child who is not succeeding due to deficits associated with having AS is not "too high functioning" and may qualify to receive special education or 504 services under another umbrella "other health concerns."

This is a very personal decision, but I would like to add what I can from my own experiences growing up.

Your daughter may find it difficult to focus with all the sensory stimuli and so much going on in a classroom, which could easily affect her school work. There may be ways to deal with that however. If she can't focus, she will start to fall behind. I know when I was about her age, it was extremely difficult for me to focus in a classroom and it did lead to poor academic performance even though I was more than capable.

Although it may be easier (and in some ways, kinder) to pull her out of school, you also have to think about this long term. School provides a chance to learn social skills and coping abilities that will be necessary for her to learn for later in life, particularly if you want her to be able to get and keep a job throughout her adult life. That constant interaction in school prepares us for how to deal with people in our work life later on. Even if you engaged her in extra curricular activities, it wouldn't allow her form those skills to the same extent that school will, and as an aspie she needs all the help and coping mechanisms she can get if you want her to be successful.

If you do choose to keep her in school, you may find that you need to spend time with her outside of school, teaching her academic things that they would not normally cover in school in order to keep her interested in learning. If you can include parts of her special interests in this then it will work better. Sometimes this step can be the difference in between choosing to stay in school later on and/or going to college, or them dropping out. For me personally, this gave me something to focus on when I absolutely hated school (which was most of high school).