School placement?

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My child is bright and seems to be a average child in many ways, but he likes to shy away at times, My child has severe anxiety and every day complains of belly aches, headaches..etc at school. The staff feels they do fine but they do feel my child doesnt understand them at times. He is verbal though likes to be non verbal as much as possible.The doctors feel he needs to be moved out of a reg class with 28 children and placed in one where there is no more then 10 kids in the class, The school feels this may hurt his learning experince since he is able to work at a normal pace and the only classes avaliable with less children are for kids that have learning disabilties.The doctors feel though the opposite that the placement is hendering my childs experince. My child is severly struggling socially and emotionally and doesnt quite understand the reg group of kids and it causes severe melt downs before school and after school. What do I do to help him? Do smaller classrooms help ?

People I've known in similar situations have ended up either in a small private special needs school we have here (which we are super lucky to have), or homeschooling. Homeschooling is the more common choice of the two, because few areas have the right private schools.

The 28 kids is an issue, but so is being in a small class with kids who have more issues.

You would have to visit the special needs class multiple times to see if there was any chance of it working. I can note that it is not a choice many parents who post here end up favoring, and some who have chosen it ended up regretted it. But it really depends, and you would have to see for yourself. If it looks like our private special needs school, with one well tuned in teacher for every three kids, then it could be worth a shot.

Most of our kids stay mainstreamed, with the more severely affected ones having a personal aid. The personal aid can pull your child from the classroom when build up is noticed, etc. There are also things you can put in the IEP to mitigate the sensory issues, like sensory breaks to another room, special seating, and so on, but for some kids it still isn't enough. Unless you are enamored of the idea of homeschooling, you will probably want to try everything you can with the mainstream situation. Every child is different, and every school is different.

Some families choose a half and half approach, with the child in mainstream school for a limited number of hours, what seems to be his limit, with the rest home schooled. Don't be afraid to think outside of the box.

Do start considering the possibility of homeschooling, however.

What the school and doctor are trying to do is to fit your triangle child into either the square hole or the round hole. While the law technically says they have to create a triangle hole for your child, the school (and even the doctor) will fight you every step of the way.

I know this because I myself am like that triangle peg never really fitting into any of the holes. I ended up learning how to teach myself for the most part (with support from my mother) and it has served me well in life. As the previous poster stated though, you may be stuck with a private option or homeschooling.

I have set a many of hours and cried over all this, The school did move my child from a reg bus to a SN bus which only has 4 kids on it, My child loves this bus and it has helped some of the morning meltdowns. My child cries everyday and begs not to go back to school. I did ask them to try doc recommendations and we are going to try 4 weeks in a smaller class 50% of the time to see if it helps , My child will have a one on one para working on lessons the school will not give us a para for the intergrated room because they dont have enough staff to provide this . I feel confused and uncomfortable with intergrated and with resource rooms. I have thought about homeschooling ,and am still considering it if we dont find a happy medium.

Thanks everyone.

Homeschooling can be fun and exciting and perfect for an AS child. You may have unnecessary concerns. You could always try it for 6 months and return to school next year. A motivated AS child often teaches himself.

My son just turned 9, and has struggled socially at school since Kindergarten. He is very capable of doing the work, but refuses, causing the teachers to have major frustration. He is viewed as a behavior problem, instead of trying to figure out how to work with him. I put a lot of time and energy into getting him a designation so he could have an aide, and it is not working. We finally got confirmation (from my daughter) that he is being bullied on the playground, and being provoked into physical reactions, then getting in trouble. There are a whole lot of things going on that are very frustrating to me - lack of communication being a big one - and I have finally decided to pull him and home school. I know it's a big committment, but I cannot keep him in this environment any longer. I am really worried about my ability to do the homeschooling, but I figure if it is the option we need to try right now.

Sorry your going through the bullying, We deal with the same thing with my child. My only concern with homeschooling is that they need socialization and are they going to get enough ?

I have not heard that our kids get a ton of POSITIVE socialization at school. With homeschooling, you have to make an effort to get it for your child, but it is more likely to be positive and conducive to your child's personality.

Leaving my child in public school was not helping in the social aspect. the longer we stayed, the "weirder" he was to the other kids. In a great program this can be avoided, but we haven't been lucky enough to find a great program.

I agree with Kailuamom about the socialization. At this point, my son is not getting a lot of positive socialization, or if he is I'm certainly not hearing about it. What stands out for me is the attitudes of the other children towards him. His teacher even commented that maybe the other kids don't view my son as their equal ... wow. That is a pretty powerful thing to have to overcome. I think the smaller the group of kids, the more successful the interaction, and you have the ability to monitor and encourage positive interactions. He went swimming on the weekend with a friend, and did so well with this. However, send him swimming with his entire class and he will shut down and draw more negative attention to himself.

I remember in grade 2 I was really wanting to bring him home for lunch daily, so that he would have a "break" from the demands of the day. This was discouraged, because he "needs to practice his social skills". However, their idea of practicing was to send him out onto the playground with the other kids and encourage the other kids to "tell" when my son did something wrong. He made several trips to the office, so what was he really learning from this social skills practice sessions? And, more importantly, what were the other kids learning?

My plan is to encourage play with peers one on one, community based (not home based), but also to broaden his friendship group - there is a very strong homeschool community where I live, so this shouldn't be too difficult. I do think it will lead to much more positive interactions and hopefully some confidence building as well. Anything has to be better than dealing with being regularly excluded, being taunted and hearing snide remarks on a daily basis.

Unless you live in a remote area, there should be plenty of social opportunities for homeschoolers. We have a tough time deciding what we will or wont participate in each year. There's a bumper sticker that says, "If this is homeschooling, how come I'm never home!" Don't forget the usual after-school activities - scouts, chorus, baseball, 4H, etc.

Coop classes tend to be much smaller than school classes, and you have much more flexibility. Kids are kids, so you might come across homeschooler that won't like your child, but you have a great possibility of being able to work things out with the moms, or simply leave and join another group. There are several kids on the spectrum in our local Classical Conversations classes. Works out well because we meet only once a week, the classes are highly structured, and there is just enough social time for aspies. I invite kids over for one-on-one time to foster good relationships for class.