I love homeschooling, but it's not what you think

I love homeschooling, but it's not what you think.

I ran across a post recently about 'reluctant learners' and mothers who subsequently feel like they are failing in homeschooling. I could relate to it. Then it made me wonder if I've been sending the wrong message to the world. 

OK. Not the whole world. But at least the handful of people who are paying attention. 

I don't do it on purpose. But I can see that when I say "I love homeschooling!" and you think Oh but that's because you don't have my kid, or obviously you have more patience than I do, you've gotten the wrong idea. I am not a patient person. I just love my son enough to send him to his room for his own safety when I've reached my limit. And I'm supplied with whiskey. And no, I don't have your kid, but I have mine and that's more than enough. 

I don't really love fighting him to get to the table and fighting him for every page that I know he could finish in 5 minutes but we have to go through a half hour of drama first. I don't love the drama. 

A little note about me: I hate, hate, hate whining. Aside from all the little buttons it pushes in me, I watch the clock and think 'so much time wasted on this DRAMA!' Hey, I have other things I could be doing as well. I often think about all that I could be accomplishing for myself if he was in "real" school. I just finished my first novel. I did it on the weekends, while he was away at his dad's house. I daydream about all the books I could write, the cleaning I could get done, the relaxing I could be doing. I don't homeschool because I have no other life-goals for myself. 

But these are fleeting thoughts. In reality I am assured - by many, many reasons that I'm not going to list here - that this is the right thing to do for him. Motherhood isn't about me and neither is my decision to homeschool. 

Not just in spite of all of the struggle, but partly because of it, I love what I do. He challenges me in ways that another human wouldn't be allowed to. He challenges my intellect with his insightful and philosophical questions. He challenges my creativity - how can I teach him this concept in a more interesting way?  He challenges my life philosophies - why do we do what we do? How can we look at things differently? He challenges my patience and sense of self - why does this bug me so much, and how can I be a better person? 

I don't enjoy being constantly challenged. It's exhausting. But I need to be challenged. 

More than anything, however, is that when all the drama is finished, my struggling learner has learned something new at the end of the day. He does this in spite of himself. I understand him. Part of the fighting is because he lacks confidence. Every accomplishment adds another piece of confidence back to himself. He goes in fighting and walks away smiling, and a little prouder. I listen to him read now and I'm blown away every single time, because every time I flash back to the difficult years it has taken to get my dyslexic child here. His accomplishments are my accomplishments. I think of the research and the articles and the statistics that bemoan the poor academic performances of children with learning disorders and the national question of 'How can we stop failing them?' and know that we are ahead of where he would have been conventionally. 

At the end of the day, what's not to love about that? 

Crosspost from Homeschooling Aspergers

Baseball & Ballet

After a brief hiatus (ok long) from extracurricular activities, we've thrown ourselves into the Spring mix again with ballet and baseball. Our hopes for ballet is that it will help him get more in touch with his body (OT) and because it's good for him to have some discipline with following directions and peers (speech, ABA and socializing.)

I just don't think I'm ever going to think in 'normal' terms again. 

This is also our first drop-off situation. Well, to me but not to him. We dropped him off at the Brown Center but then I'd go in and watch from the monitors. No monitors here. Jaden however is so used to being observed by camera that he thinks it's natural. 

I ask him about what he does in ballet, because I have no idea. He likes to answer with one or two word sentences, which I patiently try to stretch into at least 3 or 4. 

"If you want to know what we're doing, why don't you just watch from the monitors next time?" he said last week. 

"They don't have monitors at ballet," I answered. "So I can't see you at all. I have no idea what sort of things you do, and I'm just curious." 

"No monitors?" He looked at me baffled. 

I wonder again what life is like inside his head. 

"We had to do our legs like a diamond, but I wasn't very good at it." 

"How do you know?" 

"The teacher came and straightened me up."

"Did she fuss at you?" I wondered, because he seemed unhappy. 

"Why would she do that??" he answered in an offended tone. "She's a nice lady." 

It comforts me to know that she's such a "nice lady" that even to question her offends Jaden. I nervously had taken some advice to not mention to them that he has Autism. After meeting his teacher, though very briefly, I got the impression it wouldn't have mattered. She expects her students to listen to her and that's all. I'm ok with that. 

I also didn't tell his baseball coaches. Not yet anyway. Unless it's someone's job to work with Autism, I've found it doesn't do much but cause awkwardness. I can imagine they'd just look at him differently like "What am I supposed to do with that? Should I treat him differently?" 

No, please don't treat him differently. He needs to learn to pay attention and follow directions the same as the other kids. 

So then, what's the point of mentioning it? 

The coaches are patient and they're pros at teaching the kids. And unlike soccer where most of the kids had apparently been on the field since they were 2, all Jaden's teammates seemed to be just as awkward and confused as he was. 

Yes, this makes me happy. Just once in a while we need a level playing field and this might be it. 

He did space out some from all the stimuli, and it was difficult for me to see it. At home he's so engaged now. So it meant that the coach would call his name about 5 times until his dad or I got his attention, and that happened several times. But once he would realize he was being spoken to again, he did good. 

I think a lot of Autism moms will understand when I say I am hopeful, and it's a big deal that this goes well. If you were reading my blog last Spring you'll know that soccer did not go well. He gets discouraged easily and that only served to make it worse. He needs something he's good at, that will show him that work and practice can pay off. 

He objected to going to practice again tonight, but I sent him off with his dad with what I hoped were inspiring words. Whether or not it helped, he called me on his way home, though he doesn't usually like to talk on the phone. 

"Mom, I did great!" 

He then proceeded to describe to me, without prompting, everything he had done. There was pride and excitement in his voice. 

That's a home run. 

Homeschooling ASD: joy and patience

I waded into Jaden's toy strewn room, unable to find a clear path. I told him to clean it earlier, and he said he did. 

"Jaden, this is what you call a clean room?" I asked incredulously. 

"I'm sorry, Mom," he replied. "My room looked clean to me. It's because my brain thinks different from yours." 

Aww, baby's first time using Autism as an excuse. I called bull***.  Sorry son, not this time.

We're doing well. Oh I mean we still have our moments where I'm supposed to have the patience of an angel and --- sometimes I don't. 

It's important to try my best as a parent, but I know that somewhere along the line I'll always fail. Like any parent.* I think it's also important to apologize to him when I screw up. Children see their parents as some kind of God-figure, if even if we're being wrong and unreasonable. I mean, they do know that we're being unreasonable, but the greater part of them is saying that we are unreasonable because there's something wrong with them. If I screw up, and I do, I tell him so and apologize. 

*Unless you're Caillou's parents, who never get upset, lose their patience, or raise their voice to more than the joyful twitter of a nightingale. But Jaden likes the show, so I must insert my earbuds and try to endure without growling and mocking them, because he hates it when I do that… 

But we've both been out of sorts lately. Just when I think I've found a good balance with him, it goes awry. Patience is worn thin in this household, and his temper flares up like a forest fire over the slightest thing. I wonder if the seasonal allergies have us wonky. Almost worse to me is how terrible he feels about himself afterwards for losing it. 

I think it's partly because school's "in session." He's very hard on himself, and I spend a lot of time trying to get him to be nicer to himself. There's no one to keep up with and there are no tests to fail. But the smallest mistake can send him over the edge.  

So I'm still trying to find our rhythm. I've read in several places that it can take a good year, so to consider the first year practice. I'll take this as gospel since I don't feel completely stabilized yet. I'm really enjoying it though, and - though the word "school" causes a biological reaction in children that is instinctual, much how like a field mouse knows to run away from a hawk's shadow - Jaden is enjoying it more than he'll admit. Any simple craft is a big hit.  He evens asks to do certain "school" things in the evening, for fun. And since I have a sick obsession with researching everything then attempting to compile it, of course lately it's been all things homeschooling. This time there is way too much of it - too many brilliant ideas, cute crafts, and free worksheets and printables everywhere - and I have to stop myself often. If I can't get it under control I might have to go into rehab. 

But I am also fully faced with the… discrepancies in Jaden's learning. Autism, SPD, and Executive Dysfunction are loudly prevalent. My personalized and pieced together curriculum ranges from preschool work to second grade. I've advanced him in some areas, only to have to fall back again to the beginning. His skills and comprehension are all over the place. Which is why I'm more glad I'm able to do this for him. But if ever I had a doubt of his intelligence (and I did, at times) they've been completely laid to rest in the last 6 months. 

Now, God give me more patience. 

You’re just going to have to come see for yourself

“Ugh, I can’t explain it. You’re just going to have to come see for yourself.” Words we’ve said or had said to us several times in our lives when explanations fail and nothing but the experience will do.

This is how life should be lived. Not always balanced out in ledgers with pros and cons and risk management but with leaps of faith and “why not’s”.

I think about this now, after reading something once again that tells me that stress for a parent of a child with Autism stays at high alert pretty much forever. OK sure I’m 9 months post-diagnosis and still find myself saying “He wasn’t diagnosed very long ago,” for the mere fact that I feel like I’ve barely processed it yet. But is it too much to let me hope that it gets… easier? Even though I can’t see how right now?

I am however going through a divorce and recovering from various other not-directly-related-but-somewhat-related blows, so I may be a little sensitive to it all right now.

But I’m digressing slightly. Only slightly. The thing is, in times like this, I can’t help but think about my mindset when I decided to have a baby. I was 32, and life before then had been anything but calm and drama-free. I had in my early 20’s been told my chances of getting pregnant were basically nil. So I went through the whole process of grieving and accepting that I wasn’t going to have a child. Later I found I could get pregnant by the fact that I did, then miscarried. Then divorced. And went through a whole different but same process of accepting that being a mom wasn’t going to be in my future. Came to embrace it even. Being child-free meant being free to do other things.

So when I did meet, fall in love, and get married to someone who had a strong preference for having children, I was still on the fence about it. I’d say when it happened I was 60-40 and “If we’re going to do it we might as well do it now.”

It was the way things looked on paper that had me trepidatious. The costs and sacrifices being weighed with the ghost of an idea of loving someone so much they’d be worth the costs and sacrifices. I was never much a of coo-er over babies that didn’t belong to me somehow. I didn’t melt over other people’s children and wish I had one too. I just saw dirty diapers and snotty noses and screaming tantrums.

And these are the things I think of now. What I’d had on that “paper” was nothing – nothing – compared to the true costs and sacrifices. And if I would have known, I would have said NO. No way. Even had the rest been put on paper – his beautiful smiles, witty personality, what it feels like when he says “I love you, Mommy,” - I would have mistrusted myself for the sentimental twit I can be sometimes. No trustworthy message could have come with that price tag that I would have believed “and you’ll find it all worth it.”

I would have said “I think I’ll take option B and take my childless self to Hawaii now, which I may never see with option A.”

I would have never known the person I missed out on, the indescribable thing that goes beyond dirty diapers and snotty noses and germy race-car shopping carts. Beyond high needs and Autism and endless worry. Beyond every sacrifice I’ve made and thing I’ve lost that I would have never believed worth it.

I would have never known what I’d lost and that makes me thank God - THANK GOD that I didn’t know what I was sacrificing. 

The funny thing is, on paper many people would have said to me “If that’s the way you feel, you probably shouldn’t have children.” And it’s true that many probably shouldn’t, and do anyway. But you just never know sometimes what a person’s made of until they get there. Wherever there is for them.

I laugh because I’m only relating my own story and not trying to convince anyone to have children. Though I do think about those who have had abortions because they didn’t think they could pay the price demanded for a special needs child. The ones who did see it on paper. The ones who couldn’t imagine that the thing they sacrificed to preserve their own way of life would have, in just a few months, been the thing they would have gladly died for.

What would I say to someone who's on that fence? “The love, the joy, the anguish; it’s indescribable. It’s like- it’s like… You’re just going to have to come see for yourself. But it’s so worth it.”