Marguerite

Active Member
Could you stand the thought of home-schooling? It may not be the disaster you expect it to be. If a lot of the problems are because other kids at school are causing him grief, or teachers have stopped trying to control unruly behaviour (especially aimed at other kids) then that could be enough to disrupt him badly at home.

We found difficult child 3's anxiety ramped up to the point where he appeared to be physically ill with some mysterious gastric malady that caused vomiting and low-grade fever. I could not leave the area to attend doctor's appointments or even do the shopping, because I was always getting called to fetch him from school because he was sick. I had to de facto home school him on and off for a year. The problem was finally confirmed as extreme anxiety. By then I had seen that his behaviour improved and his studies also improved, when we worked at home. We had a strict rule (to avoid rewarding illness behaviour with a holiday from school) of "school work during school hours". I had to buy some cheap resources for him to work on at home because the school never gave us enough. Some of what we let him do at home - we let him watch documentary DVDs, play educational computer games and so on. They really made a huge difference to him academically. From there we eventually enrolled him in a correspondence school and he has done well until now. Currently struggling, but he would struggle more back in a school setting.

Our kids went to disadvantaged schools at times. Our local school doesn't have disadvantaged status but should have. The older three went to an inner city ghetto school that had a breakfast program and a homework program. easy child left the homework program because she said she felt like the "token white kid". The school ended up eliminating midweek homework, replaced it with a quarterly project done over a month. The academic results for that school were an inverted Bell curve - a cluster of high achievers (a lot of uni staff and students sent their kids there) and a cluster of major learning difficulties/academic delay. Not much in the middle.

You could come live in our area if you wanted - it's a cheaper part of Sydney because we're in an isolated little pocket. But I would not recommend you use our local school!

Marg
 

HowMuchLonger

New Member
Sorry got cut off on the last post and had to run swimming gear to the kids that forgot them! Yeah, the high turnover rate at the school is horrendous. My two youngest have been there six years, and they're on their THIRD principal!! There is only one teacher still there that was there when they started. Something is wrong with that. I remember going back to my elementary school when I was in grade 12 and there were still a good 5-6 teachers still there, and the principal, although different was one that started the year after I left. I feel not only my own kids, but the other behavioural kids there have noone to trust, turn to that won't leave once a bond develops. I understand teachers not wanting to teach there...but you'd think there'd be some crazy enough teachers out there willing to take the chance and the challenge! I sat in difficult child 3's classroom for 2 hours a day 5 days a week for all of Grade 2 and it was....a zoo. It was no wonder he was all over the place. I couldn't hear the teacher or even stay focused long enough to colour a picture with my kid..it was that chaotic. I have thought about homeschooling but know I don't have it in me to do that. I was a great student but have always been a terrible teacher. Not to toot my horn but I myself am fairly intelligent but find my brain works differently than others. I see things in numbers others don't and it just makes sense to me. I tried teaching my kids the tricks I use and ended up completely confusing them LOL. I also don't have the patience as I just "get" things and it's hard for me to understand when someone is struggling. I would totally be on board for moving him to a new school, the problem ends up being difficult child 2. He's on year 2 of absolutely wonderful behaviour and I'm worried moving him elsewhere will throw him into a tailspin...I haven't ruled that out yet though.

The other thing that drives me crazy is that this school offers almost nothing in the way of extra-curricular. They are short on parent volunteers and I have no right to complain as I also work and can't do anything until after 6pm myself...and the teachers are probably so exhausted at the end of the day they jsut want out of there...but I wish I could think of a way we could get some programs going.....track, swimming, something anything that might find not only my kids but others an outlet. I don't know how it is where you guys all are, but here they've cut gym time down to only 2 days a week for 45 mins...for kids that are more active, that's not enough, they need that time to burn off energy and/or anger.

Anyhow, bedtime here, i'm going to check out for now. I've decided to start getting up an hour earlier than my husband and walking each morning while everyone is sleeping. I used to be so active and I've let that go and I feel that may actual be depressing me further and messing with my confidence and maybe the kids can "sense" that too? Who knows, I'm so tired of trying to analyze everything! My morning walks are just my no thinking time for me and the dog!!
 
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