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<blockquote data-quote="Marguerite" data-source="post: 203522" data-attributes="member: 1991"><p>Deb, I hear you on the social interaction stuff. We have found two things of extreme use:</p><p></p><p>1) Pervasive Developmental Disorder (PDD) kids do not pick up social skills by osmosis; you can't just have them immersed in a room full of 'normal' kids and expect normality to brush off on them. It's not soot. Unfortunately.</p><p></p><p>2) Pervasive Developmental Disorder (PDD) kids home-schooled are not necessarily socially isolated; often they have MORE opportunities to be taught appropriate social skills in a more natural environment. There are MORE opportunities to mingle with other people across a much wider range of humanity. And you can have the BEST school excursions, when you go as a family. Last year we had the wonderful opportunity to take difficult child 3 to New Zealand's North Island while he studied continental drift and vulcanism. There's nothing like sitting in the middle of a highly active volcanic region, watching the steam rise from the lake edge, feel the scalding hot water, enjoy a bone-warming mineral bath in zero air temperatures, to really appreciate geothermal energy. And the opportunity to actually see and photograph the continental plate margin (South Island, two weeks later) - difficult child 3 now REALLY understands this topic.</p><p></p><p>As for social skills - he learned about cultural differences. He interacted with a lot of people in various places we stayed, at shops, tourist centres, educational centres. With us there, to help him and support this learning.</p><p></p><p>It works for us. </p><p></p><p>I'm not saying mainstream doesn't work. Only that the choices are broader than is often realised, and that sometimes we view options in a strict heirarchy which is unvarying - mainstream is best, home-schooling is a last resort of desperate people for whom everything else has failed.</p><p></p><p>It's actually different to this - it really does depend on the child, on the place itself, on how it's done. You can have a brilliant mainstream setting which could help a child like yours and mine in so many wonderful ways. And you could have a bad home-school placement which isolates and stagnates the child. Or you can have the reverse.</p><p></p><p>The thing with home-schooling, is at least there, we as parents have CONTROL over how good it can be. And with each other here, and other home school support networks in our locality, we have a lot of support ourselves to fall back on.</p><p></p><p>When difficult child 3 was in mainstream, I often went along on school excursions. I had to work really hard to be accepted by the teaching staff - I had to find ways to make myself of value to them. I used humour - I provided the staff with a steady stream of the best jokes I could glean off the Internet. Stuff that was often "adult eyes only" and hand-delivered to the staffroom. Often stuff with a teaching theme, or similar. I told them I felt it was my duty to keep them supplied in this way, because I knew that a good sense of humour made it easier to cope with the stress of teaching my child.</p><p></p><p>I worked hard at it. I am still on good terms with them, even though I despise what they did to my son.</p><p></p><p>We do what we need to do, to help our children.</p><p></p><p>Marg</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Marguerite, post: 203522, member: 1991"] Deb, I hear you on the social interaction stuff. We have found two things of extreme use: 1) Pervasive Developmental Disorder (PDD) kids do not pick up social skills by osmosis; you can't just have them immersed in a room full of 'normal' kids and expect normality to brush off on them. It's not soot. Unfortunately. 2) Pervasive Developmental Disorder (PDD) kids home-schooled are not necessarily socially isolated; often they have MORE opportunities to be taught appropriate social skills in a more natural environment. There are MORE opportunities to mingle with other people across a much wider range of humanity. And you can have the BEST school excursions, when you go as a family. Last year we had the wonderful opportunity to take difficult child 3 to New Zealand's North Island while he studied continental drift and vulcanism. There's nothing like sitting in the middle of a highly active volcanic region, watching the steam rise from the lake edge, feel the scalding hot water, enjoy a bone-warming mineral bath in zero air temperatures, to really appreciate geothermal energy. And the opportunity to actually see and photograph the continental plate margin (South Island, two weeks later) - difficult child 3 now REALLY understands this topic. As for social skills - he learned about cultural differences. He interacted with a lot of people in various places we stayed, at shops, tourist centres, educational centres. With us there, to help him and support this learning. It works for us. I'm not saying mainstream doesn't work. Only that the choices are broader than is often realised, and that sometimes we view options in a strict heirarchy which is unvarying - mainstream is best, home-schooling is a last resort of desperate people for whom everything else has failed. It's actually different to this - it really does depend on the child, on the place itself, on how it's done. You can have a brilliant mainstream setting which could help a child like yours and mine in so many wonderful ways. And you could have a bad home-school placement which isolates and stagnates the child. Or you can have the reverse. The thing with home-schooling, is at least there, we as parents have CONTROL over how good it can be. And with each other here, and other home school support networks in our locality, we have a lot of support ourselves to fall back on. When difficult child 3 was in mainstream, I often went along on school excursions. I had to work really hard to be accepted by the teaching staff - I had to find ways to make myself of value to them. I used humour - I provided the staff with a steady stream of the best jokes I could glean off the Internet. Stuff that was often "adult eyes only" and hand-delivered to the staffroom. Often stuff with a teaching theme, or similar. I told them I felt it was my duty to keep them supplied in this way, because I knew that a good sense of humour made it easier to cope with the stress of teaching my child. I worked hard at it. I am still on good terms with them, even though I despise what they did to my son. We do what we need to do, to help our children. Marg [/QUOTE]
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