First Grade

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I note that DH is a professional engineer, while BuyerBeware is a SAHM who fantasizes about becoming a self-reliant survival farmer and recluse. All those As and that four-year full scholarship really did me a lot of good-- NOT!!


Love that part, because I relate. My husband had to go to a special school in high school for the 'bad kids', and I was honors all the way through college.

Guess who is now the programmer for a payroll company? Not me.
I stay at home after working for at total 10 years in two different places, neither of which ended well. The thought of getting a job again, as much as I love working, is terrifying. I can't imagine dealing with office politics or the social aspect again.

Anyway.

I wish I could help. i'm in the same boat, though. My son is just like me and it breaks my heart because unlike me, he can't sit still. He chews his little fingers raw and I don't know how to curb it.

Best of luck and know you're not alone.

As for your husband, he's just got to take a chill pill. As long as your son is learning and is happy and well adjusted enough that he can be in school without issues, you are doing great. It's hard for me not to get anxious about grades because it mattered so much to me while I was in school, but perfect grades in elementary school does not equal a job and an independent life.

As long as he's smart and learning the oh so important social skills that REALLY matter, then good for him. Be proud, be happy, and tell your husband that a kid who sucks his toes doesn't need anything else to worry about.

First of all, I am not going to gave you new phrases to castigate yourself with, Are you crazy? You are doing great. For realsy, as the kids supposedly say.

From one reforming tiger-mom to another---you are doing the right thing. I am homeschooling now, and I can see where the weaknesses are and it takes everything I have to chill out about them, especially when he loses focus and I know that he would get it if he would just slow his brain down enough to pay attention. I am the one who has to adapt. Things go better when I am not appearing(being) critical.

Your husband needs to get that, too. He is going to have to just deal with the fact that your son's grade trajectory may be all over the place, and his academic path may look like yours, or his, or somewhere in the middle. It is not uncommon for boys in particular to get better grade-wise when it counts more in high school once the executive function hell that is middle school is better adapted for. If your husband is having issues now, wait until those middle school/junior high years pop up, and your son may need all sorts of organizational help. He is only in first grade, now, he needs to give him a break.

How you persuade him, I don't know, other than to say that it is FIRST GRADE. Maybe assure him that you will go over the material with him after tests come back, and you see what he needs help on. Mastery of foundational skills and how to learn is more important at this point anyway. Colleges do not care about first grade GPAs.

I can totally relate to the bursting with information thing going on, too. I am that way, my husband is that way, and my son is that way. It is a combination hyperfocus/impulse control thing. The fact that you son can actually wait while waving his hand is a massive accomplishment. For real. My son just starts, keeps going and then grunts at me until I respond as expected and he is 2 yrs older than your kid. I think you are making excellent progress on this. Given that we are behind you on this, my only suggestion is to occasionally, gently tell him that it is not a big deal if he is not called on and reinforce what you are already doing with telling him you are a better candidate for these brain dumps. You might also maybe think of a game that somehow rewards him for waiting,, maybe giving points based on how long he is quiet or something. But I would make it a real game, with a board or cards or something where the objective is to give the answer last rather than first. I would not do it for day to day stuff during the school year, so you do not contaminate your message about always being available for brain dumps.

The hair-pulling thing has a name for it, although I cannot remember what it is, for the life of me. I would guess that this would be a candidate for OT assistance if he is getting any, at school. I would be careful about trying to extinguish it without having something better as he could do something worse. It is interesting that he subs it for toe sucking so maybe if he had something on the tip of his pencil at school, and a chewy to suck on at home?

I have Aspergers and a 6 year old son with Aspergers also. I am the mom. Hi!

On the stories thing...

This is how I was imagining it also:

My son and my father (my father is not formally diagnosed, but I strongly suspect he has Aspergers) do this. Does your son also get mad at other people for "interrupting" him when he wasn't even speaking yet? My son and father do. I'm determined to help my son combat this because I find it annoying in my dad (and do does he, except he thinks everyone else is being mean to him).

I think, at least for us, working memory is also involved in the mix for needing to share "right now". But I absolutely agree with the idea that it is a combination of perseveration and impulsivity.

I have been working with my son to write or draw his idea when he cannot speak it so that he can move forward. I've had limited success, but I think it will be helpful in the long run. In addition, I am trying to help him determine when the appropriate times for sharing his thoughts are (my son does not generally tell stories, but regurgitates facts).

Trichotillomania

Well, while I'm digging around in the boneyard, I'm dragging my own thread back from the dead.

Mister Edison (what I'm thinking of dubbing DS6, in homage to the somewhat irritating but nonetheless inspiring practice of posthumously diagnosing famous people with various "disorders" beginning with A) continues having issues.

Mostly with having to say what's on his mind whether it's appropriate or acceptable or not. Also some with personal space-- I'm sure mine is not the first ASD kid to decide that his body is his own personal space and so are his books, his cubby, his desk, and the space immediately surrounding it, or to cry, whine, and/or bodily remove other children from said space.

OK-- been there, done that, got the t-shirt. In a classroom with 24 other children, many of whom are equally if otherwise disordered and some of whom have, you know, real actual profound special needs, it needs to STOP. Posthaste.

The issues with emotional regulation are coming back again as well-- guess it wasn't entirely my fault last year when he fell apart crying every time he was corrected. I figure this is a "pile of chips" thing-- you know, everyone starts the day out with so many "chips" that represent their focus and energy, and when they're gone they're gone and you either recharge or fall apart.

As those issues at school come back, I'm having to fight with him being silly and inappropriately comical and hyperactive and annoyingly cute (as in, "Look, I'm so cute you don't REALLY want to lecture/scold/punish/make me do my homework..."). I love puppy dog eyes and hugs and kisses as much as the next mom, but I'm not so doggone autistic that I can't see when they're a blatant attempt to distract/manipulate.

I'm smart, but not smart enough to deal with this on my own. WE NEED HELP. And for help, we need diagnosis. I think I've got a place in mind-- the folks down at Allegheny General who were so good with me also have a peditric neurology department right down the hall. I have a call in to Dr. Kennedy, who is in charge of the program I was in, shopping for a reference, but I don't really expect a call back. She's a busy woman, and two years ago is a long time.

All of this leaves me with a problem. DH is NOT, underline NOT, on board with seeking diagnosis or therapy. The list of reasons is long-- stigma, shame, expense, lack of knowledge and disliking feeling out of his depth, but mostly the lingering trauma from my nightmare. I understand his reluctance-- I don't want my Precious Little Snowflake to suffer the Hell I did, and although I'm getting more confident in my ability to recognize and call out BS, I'm not there yet. So it's not exactly like I can, you know, make a compelling case out of my own experience or something.

Then there's the bad experience we had with me going over his head and getting an opinion from an idiot last year. Did NOT help the situation at all. I'm not going to be forgiven going over his head again...

...so I have to figure out how to get him on board.

Suggestions?????

First, is your DH pretty NT, or do you suspect AS traits in him as well? Not sure why I want to know but thought I'd ask anyway.

If you suspect ADHD is in the mix, there is an excellent video on youtube by Russell Barkley, one of the top ADHD researchers, called Essential Ideas for Parents. It's 3 hours long and covers everything from fMRI evidence that ADHD exists, to untreated outcome stats, to meds, to discipline. Well worth watching, and if your DH was on-board with evaluating for ADHD, you could make sure your son is seen by someone who is knowledgeable about ASD as well.

DH is so doggone NT I sometimes wonder why he married me or how he stands living with me. I won't say he's your typical neurotypical, but it's never crossed my mind to wonder if he's anything other than NT. Poor thing.

I've watched the Barkley video (a couple of times, I think). I'm a pretty big believer in meds for ADHD, because I've seen a lot of evidence to demonstrate that they work (with the caveat being that they're well-tolerated). Mm, need time to think.

Anyway...

A lot of evidence that they work. A lot of evidence that they prevent kids from later ending up abusing meth (homemade Ritalin-- we don't really need to discuss the chemical similarities between methylphenidate and methamphetamine). I've read the statistics at length; the consensus seems to be that with ADHD you get the best results-- really the only good outcome-- with medication and therapy.

No-brainer, right?? You can't LEARN BETTER if your brain just doesn't have the equipment right now-- and regardless of what he's "got," at 6, his brain doesn't have the equipment and he's several years yet from growing into the equipment. Hell, NT 6-year-olds don't quite "have the equipment." They're just unequipped in ways everyone can understand.

You can't learn better if you don't have the equipment...

...and medicating a chemical issue is only part of the equation. You can't change behaviors if you don't know how-- why they're wrong, what to change them to, and how to think about doing that. Whether it's an ASD kid or and ADHD kid or both, learning not to act like a little spaz means knowing what's spaz behavior, what to do instead, and how to monitor yourself to make the change.

If you don't have that, all medication is going to get you is a strung-out, drug-dependent kid who's either still screwing up or now equipped with enough impulse control to remember that they're "broken, frigged-up, and bad" and be silent. The whole point of worrying about this is for Mister Edison to fare better than his mother, not to better push, bully, and belittle him into the same experience.

Ugh-- I'll save myself a lot of typing and go back and dig up my posts from last year.

Because I'm banging my head against the same old wall. Same behavior, same people who don't see it (friends, my therapist, relatives-- people who see him infrequently, for short periods of time) telling me I'm hypervigilant. NO, I'M NOT. Do I need a signed, sealed, certified letter from his teacher?? I KNOW WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT, DAMMIT!! !! I'm with him every day, I read the notes and field the phone calls, I talk to the sullen little boy who says to me, "Mommy, they're staring at me and whispering, and I know they're talking about me." I know what questions to ask to find out if this is typical kid s**t or atypical kid s**t. I've asked those questions. This is atypical kid s**t.

It's not terribly atypical-- we did, indeed, land in Holland, even if right now it bears more resemblance to the Holland of 1943 (Nazi invasion, for those of us who didn't have an Aspie obsession with WWII-- bomb craters, rationing, shortages, people disappearing) than a peaceful country with lovely tulips, cannabis bars, picturesque windmills, and certified disease-free unionized "ladies of the evening." There may be armed soldiers on every corner and people may be scared-- but it's Amsterdam, not Aleppo.

Yes, the bottom line IS that we are in "His brain works well enough and he needs to suck it up and learn to deal with it" country. Yes. True. Actually true. But what Senor Typicale doesn't get-- what Wonderful Teacher and I DO get, and Young Mister Edison is going to get all too soon-- is that "suck it up and learn to deal with it" comes harder and with more effort to some kids than others. Regardless of how "smart" they are. When you are one of those kids, it doesn't take long for "I'm broken, I'm bad" to settle in-- even if you have a parent who knows how to, somehow, make criticism sound like a compliment and still leave you shaking in your shoes terrified of making a mistake (which I don't-- passive-aggression was Grandma's gift; she elevated it to an art form, but I didn't get her skill).

"I'm broken, I'm bad" is exactly what we're trying to AVOID. ASD?? ADHD?? ABCD?? At this point, I don't care-- my first goal is to do something effective BEFORE we start having to fight "I'm broken, I'm bad." Been there, done that, it's worse than the disease.

Ugh-- Epic fail yesterday. Here comes Another Long Post.

In Young Mister Edison's class, there is at least one young lady with moderate to profound special needs. No-debate-about-it special needs.

So yesterday, Young Lady had run out of The Best She Could Do. Young Lady was out of her seat, pestering other kids, bugging the teacher.

And Young Mister Edison thinks it would be a good idea to pop out with, "SHE IS SO ANNOYING!! !"



YME ended up in the hall getting lectured on Why This Is Bad Behavior. YME got a call to Mommy. Wonderful Teacher agrees with Mommy that, however tempted Mommy may be to drive down to the school and publically shame Young Mister Edison, that would be inappropriate and ineffective.

Young Mister Edison knew he was in DEEP DOGGIE DOO-DOO before he ever got home.

"How was your day, Bub?"

"I don't want to talk about it."

"Heard from Wonderful Teacher."

"I said I don't want to talk about it."

"Yeah, well, we're gonna talk about it. You can have a snack and chill out, but we're gonna talk about it."

**mommy will not melt down**mommy will not melt down**mommy will not melt down**mommy will not melt down**

((This would be a really good time to tell Mommy that your Little Alien did the same thing once, and everybody lived, and they did not grow up to be Jack the Ripper...))

So we talk about it. We talk about what happened, how it happened, why it happened, and why it was completely, totally, and utterly inappropriate.

We do homework.

We talk about how he'd feel if someone said that about him in front of the class. We talk about how Young Lady probably felt. We create a nice strong image of Young Lady standing there with her mouth clenched in a straight line and big old tears standing in her eyes. Young Mister Edison is reduced to tears.

"Do you like yourself right now, Son?"

*sniffle* "No."

Et cetera.

"Are you ever going to do that again????"

*sob* "No."

Hug crying child. Reassure crying child that he is loved. Reassure crying child that Wonderful Teacher swears the comment went right over Young Lady's head, and she'll be fine.

Take Sister to soccer practice.

Discuss what The Other Children probably think of the comment he made.

Hug crying child. Reassure crying child that he is loved.

Come home, eat dinner, get ready for bed.

Get in bed.

"Mommy, can you read Magic School Bus: Journey to the Center of the Earth tonight?"

"Again?? Really?? We just read it the night before last."

"Yes!! ! I LOVE that book!!"

"Okay. Journey to the Center of the Earth."

"Yeah!! *sings* Ride on The Magic School Bus..."

This would probably be a good time to mention that:

1) Inappropriate Honesty, and the fact that it is often perceived as Deliberate Malice, was one of the lessons that Mommy didn't get until she was old enough to drive. Inappropriate Honesty is still an issue that Mommy struggles with, and

2) Mommy is a former bullied kid. So, while Mommy understands that this was Inappropriate Honesty and not Deliberate Malice, anything that even resembles Deliberate Malice tends to push a Big Red Button with Mommy.

We read about three pages, and Mommy lays the book aside. "Honey, Mommy's too upset to read tonight. I think we should just turn out the light and cuddle."

Little Sister pipes up: "My story!! Read The Bery Bad Bunny!!"

"Argh!! Something else!! PLEASE!!"

"ButIwannaweadTheBeryBadBunny! PJ Funnybunny did not mean to be bad..."

We proceed to read "The Very Bad Bunny." (At this point I'm wondering if it's coincidence, or God whacking me over the head.)With time out to discuss how, sometimes even when you don't mean to be bad, you end up doing bad things. And how being more careful and thinking about an action before you do it can prevent this. "How could PJ have managed not to get in trouble for..." And how, even though you don't mean to be bad, people will think you did anyway. And not like you very much.

We turn out the light. Half an hour later, after many hugs and a couple renditions of "Danny Boy" and many reassurances, Young Mister Edison finally falls asleep.

Mommy sneaks out of the bed. Mommy plunks herself down on the couch with a nice dessert. Mommy gets on WP to attempt to discuss the situation with some other knowledgable people.

Daddy walks in. It is now 11:00 at night, and Daddy is finally home from work.

Daddy: "How was your day??"

"Oh, OK. Yours??"

Daddy: "Sucked. How'd the kids do today??"

"Oh, OK."

Daddy: "Really?? Any notes home??"

"Can we talk about it tomorrow??"

Daddy: "What happened??"

Ninety-minute argument about What To Do With Young Mister Edison ensues.

And this morning starts off with, guess what, Young Mister Edison getting chewed out until he is, once again, crying. A Very Sullen Little Boy misses the bus and has to get a ride to school. A Very Sullen Little Boy oozes out of the van and stomps off, without responding to, "I love you, Bub. Do your best."

Young Mister Edison, having recovered his usual sunny equilibrium-- he can ALWAYS be relied on to cheer right up-- has walked in the door, had a snack, and is laying on the floor with his toes under his chin watching How To Train Your Dragon for the two-hundred-and-fifty-seventh time. Playing very nicely with Little Sister and Littler Sister while Mommy finishes typing what she started.

And Daddy calls, and wants to know how his day was, and the grilling starts again...

I do not want to minimize a problem. Ignoring it, or brushing it and moving on in order to avoid meltdowns, will NOT solve the problem. Ever. But this isn't attention to the problem. I find this excessive; in fact, if you want my opinion, I find this torture. I'd be insensible if I'd been in the kid's shoes when I was six.

He can't take this. I can't take this. This is how, last year, our domicile turned into a miserable place where Mommy was always on edge and angry, Daddy was frustrated to the point of logging on and checking out, and every time Young Mister Edison's name was mentioned, he asked if he was going to be punished. That didn't get us anywhere-- or anyway, not anywhere good. Don't want to go back there.

NOW WHAT????

Re the Barkley video -- I just wanted to make clear that I didn't suggest it because of the pro-med stance of the video. It was actually because watching it was a big turning point for MY husband. It really helped him to see that this was a brain issue, and that discipline needed to happen as close as possible to when the problem occurred, not hours later.

My DH also felt like he needed to come down hard whenever DS did something wrong at school. And there were a LOT of somethings wrong that year! It really hurt their relationship. The best thing we ever did was pulling DS out of public school and placing him in a school designed for kids with AS. Once there was no longer this daily stress of "what happened at school today", our whole family life improved. No more evening lectures, no more fights between us parents about what to do.

Maybe one alternative would be to look into what schooling options you might be able to consider even without a diagnosis -- homeschool, Montessori, small private school (if you can afford it), etc.

It's not available. There is homeschool, or public school-- because driving him over an hour each way into Pittsburgh every day is not sustainable. Would I do it for him?? If I could-- but it's not sustainable. It doesn't leave enough DAY for the other kids. If I give up, with traffic, an hour and a half each way, that's 15 hours a week. Even if I gave up canning, and the garden, and reading anything that was just for fun, and both my message boards, I wouldn't get 15 hours a week back. There are three other kids here, who are no less important for being suspected NT. It's not good for them-- or him, in the long run-- to make their lives and their needs secondary to his.

Hubby works in Pittsburgh, and we've already discussed the possibility of him driving the boy to a private school there. "My hours are too erratic, I can't guarantee that I'll be available if he gets sick or in trouble, he CANNOT come to the office after school, and I can't even guarantee that I'll be leaving at 5:00." In other words, "Nope, not me." I don't blame him-- those things are all true. His hours are erratic, he's all over several counties on job sites (and I'd be over an hour away), he really CANNOT come to the office (it's a fast-paced, high-stress, open office-- I wouldn't want him there anyway), and he can't guarantee that he'd be leaving at five o'clock. There are runs of weeks when he's home by six, and there are runs of weeks when he tries not to wake me up when he comes in at midnight (or goes back at 4 in the morning).

There are two private schools here-- a very small, extremely conservative Christian school that I have already looked into and rejected (it's the kind of place where they expel you if your hair touches your ears three times in a school year and students are encouraged to "Glorify God through athletic competition"-- I wouln't consider that a good environment for an NT kid, let alone an ASD kid, since these are the kind of people who either think it's "an excuse" or worse). Been there, done that, spent a lot of time in the Independent Fundamental Baptist church when I was a kid. NO THANKS.

And the local Catholic school. I'm going to call, but I really don't have much higher hopes.

The public school really isn't that bad. I have few complaints. I haven't heard of kids being tasered, or locked in the seclusion room for hours (I haven't even heard that they have a seclusion room). I was neither here nor there about the teacher last year-- she was very young and for all she was very nice she very did not get it; she was 25 and fresh out of school and she could have recognized a kid with "real, actual" special needs, but not one that's "just a little bit, erm, off." The teacher we have THIS year is AWESOME. I LOVE her.

It's going to depend on a teacher that "gets it." Wonderful Teacher knows it, and I know it too. She "gets it." She has warned me-- as if I needed it-- that there are plenty who DON'T.

I'd love to homeschool. Except that we've talked about it for years, and every single member of my family is dead-set against it, convinced I'll ruin the kid, leave him fit to be nothing but a self-reliant survival farmer, let him fall behind, every other argument against homeschooling you have ever heard. I don't believe them, at least not about anything other than the "fall behind" part-- my executive functioning gets the homework done and the house clean and the family fed and the kids washed and to bed, but that's pretty much its limit; if I were giving it a grade, it would be a "C+".

I'm desperately searching for other homeschoolers around here. Because everything I read on the subject-- quite a lot, I've been considering it about as long as I've had kids, probably because I would have LOVED to have had that choice when I was a kid-- says that the worst mistake you can make is to attempt to go it all alone, without the support of friends, family, or other homeschoolers. Makes sense to me.

I'm sort of afraid to do it, and sort of leery. Not because of the executive functioning issue and not even because I'm afraid to aggravate conflicts in the family-- those are real problems, but.

Crucify me if y'all want to, BUT.

Believe me, I GET that this is an issue in his brain. IN SPADES. ASD Mommy, remember???

I had to fight this battle. For thirteen miserable years. Bullies, teachers who didn't get it, friends who turned on me, rape threats from older boys, scary rumors, all of it. The only two things I had going for me were that, where Young Mister Edison is still outgoing and confident, I either never was or it was broken out of me-- I was quiet and withdrawn already where he's still trying to participate and help. And I went to school before diagnosis, before zero tolerance, before Columbine, before Adam Lanza, before before before. Before people were so completely reactionary and paranoid.

It sucked. But-- I learned. I DID learn. I learned that I was messed-up and broken and undesirable, but I learned. When I left high school, at 18, I had enough skills to survive, if not enjoy, a year in a dorm. By the next year, I had enough skills to go out looking for companionship. By the next year, enough to make friends.

The bullies and the BS and all the things that tore me to pieces-- those were also the things that gave me the skills to build the life I have today. I've got a kid with some kind of D, and I'm scared, and right now I'm fighting the urge to see us both as broken people who shouldn't exist and praying my friends get out of bed and call/text/come to the rescue because I'm losing the fight...

...but that's fear talking. I have built a pretty good life for myself. Other than a job (I'll find one someday), I have achieved the Best Possible Outcome.

I truly believe that the beating I got for being "a freak" all the way through public school made that possible. It hurt, but I learned. I don't think I would have learned if I had been sheltered, and I don't think Young Mister Edison will either.

Still not sure I was clear -- it's your *DH* who needs to see that there is a problem beyond "misbehaving" that is brain based and is not going to be fixed by endless lectures. I'm trying to think how else to get him there. Another thing that was a lightbulb moment for my DH was that he started taking DS (who was 5 at the time), on a weekly Daddy and son excursion. They ended up riding a local commuter train quite often, and DH noticed how the other kids were able to have actual conversations with their dads, where ours was jumping from topic to topic.

So you're in a fairly rural community? How old are the 3 NT kids? If it gets bad enough in public school, your DH may come around to homeschooling -- especially if you start out with one of those "online schools", where he's getting an at-home version of public school without the other kids around. Mine really pushed for me to pull DS out and homeschool, and still thinks in the end it is going to be the best option -- but he was not the one who had to deal with the reality of what it is like to homeschool a very intense kid with younger children in the house. It's really hard to balance the needs of the other kids and yourself with what your DS needs. I'm struggling with that, too.

I think he's starting to get that it's a brain issue-- at least with me, he's finally starting to understand that it's not a choice and not a lack of effort. Or, more appropriately, that while I COULD make those choices and I COULD put in that effort, I run up against the law of diminishing returns before I reach completion. In my terminology, "It does not pass the old cost-benefit analysis." Might send off for Barkley On DVD.

If public school gets bad enough, he will come around to homeschool. He's an engineer. Convenience, ease, and practicality are his favorite things. Probably why he's able to put up with being married to me. I talk a lot, but I'm low maintainence and very practical; these things counterbalance the lack of ease in communication (ironically, I think that bothers me more than him).

DS said something today that has me leaning HARD toward ASD over ADHD. I asked him HOW (not "IF" or "WHY" but HOW). He said, "It makes my head feel all buzzy. My eyes feel like not wearing glasses looks. My hands feel buzzy, too." This is EXACTLY how I feel in the same situation-- it's even the same words I use.

THEN he said, "I learned to do my Not Hear It Trick."

"What's that, Buddy?"

"First I take a big breath. Then I hold my nose and blow it out. Then my ears stop up. Then I just make myself just look at what I'm doing and it kind of fills everything up."

I'm not completely sure, but that sounds like a pretty good description of hyperfocus to me. Not just having it happen, but learning to induce or force it-- which is pretty much how I got through school and how I keep my ASD sane in a house with four kids. I know ADHD hyperfocuses too, and from that I inference that ADHDers can induce hyperfocus too-- I figure anyone with an organic predispostion to it can induce hyperfocus...

...but, again, it's SO SIMILAR to my own experience that I was dumbfounded.

Can anybody comment on this theory that I have about suffering the slings and arrows of life-- with very little accomodation, if any-- being essential to developing the skills necessary to function in a "normal" world and have as good a chance as a neurotypical of being able to build for oneself the life one wishes to live???? I think I'm on to something here...

...and I'm also almost perfectly certain that it would be very, very, very easy to run waaaaaay to far with it very quickly.

As for a rural area...

Yes and no. If you go ten miles north, you're up to your elbows in cows and cornfields. If you keep going thataway, you'll start running into Amish.

If you go ten miles south, you're up to your knees in derelict row houses and gang graffitti; if a teenager asks you for a cigarette, you give them the whole pack and offer them your lighter to go with it (because it's just not worth the risk of getting shot over $7) and then you tell them to have a great day.

I have an acre back yard and I can drive to a dairy store where the cows are out back in 20 minutes. At the same time, I can see no less than six neighbors from my front porch, there are close to 200 students in every grade (there were less than 500 in my whole high school, and about 150 in our last elementary school-- THAT'S rural) and twenty minutes in the other direction, things happen on a regular basis that really, really, really make me want to own a gun.

It's not rural, it's not urban, and you can't really call it suburban either. It's that godawful monster called the exurbs, or "a small town within the gravity of a big city," or whatever-- and right now it's the best we can do. If I thought we'd be safe, I'd have found us a place in the city just for the options, but-- No offense to Pittsburgh, it's really a very nice city as cities go (and it's much cleaner and less violent than it was when I was a girl), but it's still not safe if you're not savvy (and I'm so completely unsavvy that other crazy people feel the need to look out for me).

My girls are 12, 4, and 17 months (and the very nice OB assures me I now have a less than 1 in 5000 chance of having another one ). Technically, I guess you could say they're all BAP-- they've got a few traits (the 12-year-old takes criticism poorly, is fairly literal, and has really terrible organizational skills, the 4-year-old has a tendency to monologue and a godawful, and I do mean having-a-meltdown-for-no-reason-godawful-even-by-4-year-old standards, temper) but they're not sufficient to warrant considering diagnosis and I'm pretty sure it makes sense to just consider then NT (though it's really too young to tell with the baby). I have wondered about the boy since he was about 9 months old; it's crossed my mind with the girls but it seems far-fetched. I might believe ODD of DD4 if this is still going on in another year or two, but AS/ADHD already seems like a stretch.

It's ridiculous to say that I think we'd be OK homeschooling with a 4-year-old and a toddler running around...

...but that part doesn't bother me. He's actually pretty self-contained (you just have to check to make sure he's following directions instead of doing his own thing), not terribly distractible (at least here), and fairly compliant (at least for me). I'm ASD and I "get it," so his monologues and non sequiturs and et cetera don't upset me (about the only Alphabet Soup trait he has that really bugs me is VOLUME CONTROL (or lack thereof)).

Hey-- Michelle Duggar does it with 19 kids, right?? Yeah-- Half of them are old enough to be really useful. I wanna see the home videos from when the FIRST nine were little, and Michelle called Grandma up on the phone and then locked herself in the bathroom and cried.

I could get over the family objections. Find an expert to recommend it, make it really sail for six months or so and prove it can work-- Heck, Hubby was talking about K12 today, because the prospect of *gasp* diagnosis and *hiss* IEP just scares him that much. The thing that scares me most about homeschool is, like I said, my inadequate executive function and my belief-- make that certainty-- that oversheltering and unconditional postive regard are two really dangerous things for an Aspie kid.

Cyberschool might be a way around the XF issues, but what am I going to do about the fact that, to be quite frank, my natural tendency is to create our own satellite colony of the Wonderful Kingdom of Aspergia???? Overdiscipline and "tiger mom" behavior are things I feel compelled to do to help them/him survive The System. If I take away that threat, the Hippie ASD Hillbilly will, I think, get a free rein. The kid will love it. We'll have some great years. He'll learn a lot of academic stuff and be real smart...

...and he'll end up like this kid Hubby knew in engineering school. He was REALLY smart. REALLY REALLY smart. He Knew Better Than The Tenured PhD Professor Smart. And he had absolutely no future at all, because he carried around a jar of peanut butter and a box of crackers that he munched on all the way through class, talked to himself out loud, blurted out objections and comments whenever they crossed his mind, and argued with his professors in the classroom setting.

Tell me THAT wasn't an ASD kid, homeschooled by an ASD parent, in an excessively ASD-kid-friendly environment. The Wonderful Land of Aspergia's great-- when it's your bedroom, or the home you crawl back to at the end of the day. But-- look, Saint Alan was a great guy. A perfect parent for an ASD kid. But what if he'd tried to raise me in a vacuum?? No one can learn social skills in a vacuum. It makes about as much sense as discrete-trial ABA.

A completely Aspie-friendly environment is a vacuum, at least as far as learning to get along with the NT world on the NT world's terms goes (and, yes, Out There they DO get to set the terms-- they've got the numbers and that's how it goes). With external stressors removed, my natural inclination would be to set up that kind of environment. We'd be one of Jennifer McIlwe Myer's cautionary tales.

Jeez. Monologuing again, Princess?? Sheesh. If I want anyone to listen, I really need to start typing shorter posts. You folks and my probable schizoid non-parent friend seem to be the only ones who get it.

BuyerBeware,


It depends on the kid you got, you know? My son could very easily end up like the peanut butter carrying person you describe. I can see the similarities. The thing is,my son was in public school, and the "crushing who you are to civilize you" thing does not work on everyone. My son is so stubborn and resistant to it, that it would turn him into constantly defiant, co-morbid having mess, before it ever "civilized" him.

I saw it starting to happen.

We now have our little Aspergia, Paradise but yeah, I supplement it with a little bit of Tiger Mom when I need to. At least in Aspergia, I can do that, and he (mostly) listens. After his daily stint in NT purgatory (We didn't quite reach hell, b/c his teacher was good) he would curl up into a little dysfunctional ball, and all I could do was pet him, like he was a wounded kitten. I couldn't get harsh/honest too often b/c it would have crushed him, entirely. The few times I tried it b/c they -insisted- it went horribly wrong and backfired miserably. Not that I would have wanted it to work full-hog anyway.

I was more of a dangerously compliant child. He is mixed. He complies sometimes when you want, sometimes when he shouldn't, and he can put up a good fight when he feels backed into a corner (Which was what was going on.) I wasn't happy with his behavior, don't get me wrong, but there was a part of me that was a little proud that he could fight the more egregious stuff, if that makes sense.