Hello everyone,
First off i want to apologize for this being so long. Words cannot describe how grateful I am to have found this forum. I am a mother of 7 beautiful children. We have a very unique family in that all of us including my husband and I are all somewhere on the Autism spectrum. It is a very long story that I actually have a blog about so I do not intend to go into it now. I will say this, that most of my kids and my husband and I both are extremely high functioning but I do have 2 of my youngest kiddos that are more moderately affected. I home schooled my older kids up until my oldest was in 7th grade when we put them into public school due to the many therapies we were taking the little ones to. We also put our little ones in school as soon as they were old enough because I did not think I could home school a special needs child. My other kids didn't require modification to their curriculum. However, I pulled my little girl out last year and my son out just about a month ago after the school told me that my expectations were too high for him. I am currently in the process of going back to school to get my bachelor degree in special education and I had to do some observations for a class. I was deeply discouraged by my experience. One class I observed only had 5th and 6th grade students in a special needs class watch starfall videos for 1.5 hours. A non-verbal child didn't even have a rudimentary system to say yes or no. It was in this moment I realized that my son's future was this classroom. So when I read my son's report wanting to change his IEP to basically let the teacher off the hook on working towards his goals I knew I had no choice. However, my husband and I literally have no support. We had to recently break off from their therapy due to the director undermining my decision. She kept telling me they need to remain in school. Telling me I cannot handle this. She treats me differently than other families because I have Aspergers. She is pro-home school just not for us. I looked into a special needs school that she has sent other kids to and she was against that too. I'm not sure why but she has left me with major feelings of inadequacy and discouragement. I know I can do this as I have always been one to be just stubborn enough to walk a less traveled path and not only make it but succeed. So, imagine my surprise when my daughters speech teacher told me she thinks I should put my daughter back in school and that she is willing to go talk to the principal on our behalf. Huh? I am amazed by this. What do they think is going to happen? Do they think that my children will receive a stellar education here. That somehow by just being in the building my daughter will miraculously be made whole and that I'm denying her a bright future. I'm so sorry for venting but I am so tired of people telling me I can't do it. Praying to God I asked Him to help me find the right choices for my kids and I was at Mardel's and in the miscellaneous section of homeschooling books I saw the Simply Classical level 3 book. In that moment I knew I had found something. I wrote down the name of the company so I could look if up because I felt level 3 was too easy. They would pass that checklist with flying colors and I was so happy to see that level 1 would be a good fit for them..with this big long story comes a few preliminary questions. As I am sure many of you can relate my kids have some behavior issues that we need to work on. Would it be best to work on getting some of the behaviors under control before starting the curriculum. To give you an idea as to where they are my a son and daughter can speak full sentences. They, however, tend to compete for my attention and will bite, pinch, kick, or generally annoy each other a lot of the time. This does tend to get very much on my nerves and I get short with them. My son has a low tolerance for working and he asks me everyday when are we doing school because I've been doing Explode the Code and Math u See with them but after a small amount of work he starts whining and complaining.He does know how to read on a 1st grade level. He can write his letters although it needs work. He also has adhd and so he often gets distracted. My daughter also has adhd although not diagnosed along with her autism. She is extremely distractable. She can count to 10. Knows her letters and sounds. Cannot rhyme. I'm pretty sure she has auditory processing disorder. Her fine motor skills are behind. Teaching her to write is not coming well at all. Also, if you have two special needs children on the same level do you work on their lessons together? I also have a kindergartner which will be joining us and she would start the kinder curriculum. Any suggestions on how this might work together? My husband and I both want our other children to come home too. The kids complain daily of the new fangled math they try to teach them and they are not challenged at all. They are older though so they will be more independent in their work. My husband works from home so we together are very supportive together. We are planning on taking this summer to becoming minimalist (not crazy minimalist or anything but we have a house full of clutter and would like to bring in things that will surround us and our kids with beauty. We have decided our TV will take a limited place in our life. We have 6 acres and would like to start homesteading. My daughter has a unique way with animals and my son has a love for music. I would love to develop these things. I'm so sorry for rattling on. I know I will have more questions later. I know this is what I've been looking for in a curriculum. My husband is teasing me because he says my aspie traits are showing because I'm obsessing over it, lol. I probably am. But I feel hope right now that I have found what I am looking for and once again despite the odds I'm going to move forward for my kids. P.S. I know this won't be an easy path and there will be many frustrating moments. We all are still growing in the Lord. I have learned to set goals in very small bite sized chunks because if I don't I am a lot like my children. I get frustrated and want to quit. I use to set steep impossible goals but read a book about my own adhd and learned that small achievable goals are the way to go.
First off i want to apologize for this being so long. Words cannot describe how grateful I am to have found this forum. I am a mother of 7 beautiful children. We have a very unique family in that all of us including my husband and I are all somewhere on the Autism spectrum. It is a very long story that I actually have a blog about so I do not intend to go into it now. I will say this, that most of my kids and my husband and I both are extremely high functioning but I do have 2 of my youngest kiddos that are more moderately affected. I home schooled my older kids up until my oldest was in 7th grade when we put them into public school due to the many therapies we were taking the little ones to. We also put our little ones in school as soon as they were old enough because I did not think I could home school a special needs child. My other kids didn't require modification to their curriculum. However, I pulled my little girl out last year and my son out just about a month ago after the school told me that my expectations were too high for him. I am currently in the process of going back to school to get my bachelor degree in special education and I had to do some observations for a class. I was deeply discouraged by my experience. One class I observed only had 5th and 6th grade students in a special needs class watch starfall videos for 1.5 hours. A non-verbal child didn't even have a rudimentary system to say yes or no. It was in this moment I realized that my son's future was this classroom. So when I read my son's report wanting to change his IEP to basically let the teacher off the hook on working towards his goals I knew I had no choice. However, my husband and I literally have no support. We had to recently break off from their therapy due to the director undermining my decision. She kept telling me they need to remain in school. Telling me I cannot handle this. She treats me differently than other families because I have Aspergers. She is pro-home school just not for us. I looked into a special needs school that she has sent other kids to and she was against that too. I'm not sure why but she has left me with major feelings of inadequacy and discouragement. I know I can do this as I have always been one to be just stubborn enough to walk a less traveled path and not only make it but succeed. So, imagine my surprise when my daughters speech teacher told me she thinks I should put my daughter back in school and that she is willing to go talk to the principal on our behalf. Huh? I am amazed by this. What do they think is going to happen? Do they think that my children will receive a stellar education here. That somehow by just being in the building my daughter will miraculously be made whole and that I'm denying her a bright future. I'm so sorry for venting but I am so tired of people telling me I can't do it. Praying to God I asked Him to help me find the right choices for my kids and I was at Mardel's and in the miscellaneous section of homeschooling books I saw the Simply Classical level 3 book. In that moment I knew I had found something. I wrote down the name of the company so I could look if up because I felt level 3 was too easy. They would pass that checklist with flying colors and I was so happy to see that level 1 would be a good fit for them..with this big long story comes a few preliminary questions. As I am sure many of you can relate my kids have some behavior issues that we need to work on. Would it be best to work on getting some of the behaviors under control before starting the curriculum. To give you an idea as to where they are my a son and daughter can speak full sentences. They, however, tend to compete for my attention and will bite, pinch, kick, or generally annoy each other a lot of the time. This does tend to get very much on my nerves and I get short with them. My son has a low tolerance for working and he asks me everyday when are we doing school because I've been doing Explode the Code and Math u See with them but after a small amount of work he starts whining and complaining.He does know how to read on a 1st grade level. He can write his letters although it needs work. He also has adhd and so he often gets distracted. My daughter also has adhd although not diagnosed along with her autism. She is extremely distractable. She can count to 10. Knows her letters and sounds. Cannot rhyme. I'm pretty sure she has auditory processing disorder. Her fine motor skills are behind. Teaching her to write is not coming well at all. Also, if you have two special needs children on the same level do you work on their lessons together? I also have a kindergartner which will be joining us and she would start the kinder curriculum. Any suggestions on how this might work together? My husband and I both want our other children to come home too. The kids complain daily of the new fangled math they try to teach them and they are not challenged at all. They are older though so they will be more independent in their work. My husband works from home so we together are very supportive together. We are planning on taking this summer to becoming minimalist (not crazy minimalist or anything but we have a house full of clutter and would like to bring in things that will surround us and our kids with beauty. We have decided our TV will take a limited place in our life. We have 6 acres and would like to start homesteading. My daughter has a unique way with animals and my son has a love for music. I would love to develop these things. I'm so sorry for rattling on. I know I will have more questions later. I know this is what I've been looking for in a curriculum. My husband is teasing me because he says my aspie traits are showing because I'm obsessing over it, lol. I probably am. But I feel hope right now that I have found what I am looking for and once again despite the odds I'm going to move forward for my kids. P.S. I know this won't be an easy path and there will be many frustrating moments. We all are still growing in the Lord. I have learned to set goals in very small bite sized chunks because if I don't I am a lot like my children. I get frustrated and want to quit. I use to set steep impossible goals but read a book about my own adhd and learned that small achievable goals are the way to go.
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