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Have you ever wanted to just homeschool?
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<blockquote data-quote="Marguerite" data-source="post: 195401" data-attributes="member: 1991"><p>Dazed&Confused - you said, "For me, my kids would want me to homeschool one day, and then the next, would have a fit if I even mentioned it. I would remind them of the isolation and that was the deal breaker."</p><p></p><p>With this decision, the child has to be part of the decision also. Once the decision is made, it is done. You can't go back, not immediately. You put your hand to the plough and keep going. You can't turn back, not until you get to the end of the furrow. Then you can re-evaluate and consider changing direction. So a child who can't stick at the decision - has to REALLY accept that they DID make tis decision. Maybe a contract between you that the child will sign? And don't forget your contract too, also discussed and developed with the child. For example, "the parent will not nag, but will try to stay calm and help the child find their own answers to the questions." Neither person signs the contract until they are happy with the wording. Neither contract is put forward for signing, until the person who wants the contract (the other party) is happy that it covers all bases.</p><p></p><p>A quick example of the child's contract - </p><p></p><p>"I will work at my lessons during school hours, or at other times as mutually discussed by my and my supervisor in order that my overall effort through the school week meets the requirement for a good week's worth of work. In exchange for working well through the school day five days a week, homework will be minimal or nonexistent.</p><p></p><p>I will make an effort to stay on task. If I am having difficulty staying on task I will discuss this with my supervisor.</p><p></p><p>I will ask for help if I cannot understand the work or if I keep making mistakes and can't work out why.</p><p></p><p>I will seek out opportunities to learn at all times."</p><p></p><p>And so on.</p><p></p><p>The supervisor's contract -</p><p></p><p>"I will try to not nag. However, I will also try to keep the student's nose to the grindstone, to at least make sure he/she is staying on task.</p><p></p><p>I will be understanding if he/she is having difficulty concentrating, or feeling overwhelmed by a task. If the child is feeling overwhelmed I will help by showing how the task can be broken down into smaller, simpler parts or made easier in some other way.</p><p></p><p>I may not know the answers - nobody knows everything - but I will help the student learn how to find the answers."</p><p></p><p>And so on.</p><p></p><p>Also included in there if you want - food options. You can include fun things like, "I can eat at my desk if I want to. I may not eat or drink at the computer unless it has a spill protector on the keyboard. I can do my schoolwork in my pyjamas if I want to. If I need a change of scenery, I may work outside if I choose, or even ask if we can go for a drive to sit in a park or a forest or anywhere else reasonably within range, so I have a different place to work. However, I recognise that this might make it more difficult to work than I anticipated - if I ask for effort from my supervisor, it has to be repaid with effort from me."</p><p></p><p>Other good things - difficult child 3 is portable. Since beginning this, we've gone away on holidays a number of times. Because we're not restricted to school holiday times, we can book at cheaper rates. We also go when things are quieter, fewer crowds of kids. difficult child 3 still gets plenty of social interaction, but with adults as well as children. After all, when he's an adult he will have to get on with adults then - he may as well start learning now. </p><p></p><p>I was socially isolated as a kid. I was "smarter than the average bear" and bullied and ostracised by other kids. I was a child in a household of adults. I got on well with adults, but not so well with kids my own age. I tended to gravitate to the geeky kids.</p><p>As an adult I've not had the same problems. Some adults I tend to avoid, because frankly to me, they show no more maturity than the kids who used to bully me. But kids - I get on with really well. I make a point of treating kids with respect. As a child, I also got on well with kids younger than me, or kids several years older. I tended to get on well with boys but not in a flirty kind of way, more as just another one of the blokes.</p><p></p><p>So especially now with hindsight - I can see that really pushing social interaction onto a kid who isn't fitting in well anyway, is over-rated.</p><p></p><p>However - if you have a child who DOES fit in well, who is popular with other kids, who is doing well at school - you COULD choose to home-school, but why go to that trouble if the child is happy and doing well?</p><p></p><p>I'm glad I wasn't home-schooled by my mother, because she would have continually distracted me and pulled me away from my work, to go help her. That was how my life was, at home. She was proud of me being so bright, but couldn't fathom that I would ever want a career. I was encouraged to do well at school, but when I finished school I was expected to get an easy job working behind a cash register or in a bank, until I got married and had kids (when of course I would not work). My mother was really concerned when I chose to study at university instead.</p><p></p><p>Back to holidays in school term - the week after we pulled difficult child 3 out of mainstream, we went to Tasmania for two weeks. We HAD planned that he would write a report for his class teacher in mainstream, we had organised to take some other schoolwork with us, but we just changed who he had to do the work for, on our departure. I DID take a copy of difficult child 3's subsequent Tasmania report to his previous mainstream teacher, to show how he was getting on. We left on good terms - they just couldn't give difficult child 3 what he needed, in terms of quiet learning space away from the crowds. We've since met his old teacher a few times, the last time being only about a month ago. A lovely man who only taught difficult child 3 for one school term but who was very kind and understanding.</p><p></p><p>When we go on holidays (and you can begin as a home-schooler by doing the same thing in your local area) we look for the local tourist spots, the historic places, the places of scientific interest, the local museums and zoos. We get to know the area and what makes it special. For example, Tasmania was originally the site of a penal colony, for the worst offenders. Much of the early settlement there was to support the penal colony at Port Arthur. That penal colony is very well preserved so we did a tour over it. However, there was also a very nasty massacre there twelve years ago (which led to Australia's now very tight gun control laws). difficult child 3 just wasn't emotionally strong enough to cope with ANY knowledge about the massacre so we carefully shielded him. Even so, despite Port Arthur now being a beautiful place and difficult child 3 at that time having minimal understanding of the convict history, he was like a panicked cat struggling on a leash, from the moment we arrived. He could not have known anything - but he kept saying, "I've got yo get out of here, something really bad is going to happen."</p><p>easy child 2/difficult child 2 wanted to stay so husband & I took turns keeping difficult child 3 calm and relaxed.</p><p></p><p>Next day we drove back there - easy child 2/difficult child 2 wanted to re-visit, while the rest of us were at a small zoo just up the road. difficult child 3 was in a panic, just being in the car park of Port Arthur (the gunman also stalked his victims through the car park and up the road).</p><p></p><p>It was weird, and also taught us that difficult child 3's anxiety needs to always be considered, wherever we go. It also taught us that he is far more empathic than is usually considered possible for someone with autism.</p><p></p><p>However - in Tasmania, we explored the docks (where the Boxing Day yacht race finishes); the local Shot Tower; the agriculture of the region, the wildlife (including the problems of the face cancer that is killing off Tasmanian Devils). We went for a one-day drive to see the Southern Beech forests that are a relic of Gondwanaland. Then last year in New Zealand, we made a point of visiting the same type of Southern Beech forests in Milford Sound. It was really bizarre to see rainforest, and snow. Together.</p><p></p><p>difficult child 3 has discovered a talent for photography. We let him use the digital camera and he took a lot of photos on our holiday. He also wrote a lot of text, much of it on a small keyboard which travels with him (Alphasmart Neo). He uses the keyboard because his hands are hypermobile. But it meant tat in Tasmania, for example, while we were driving through the Huon Valley, difficult child 3 could look out the window and when we said, "what crops are growing here?" he could immediately type, "apples".</p><p></p><p>In putting the photos and text together into a presentation format, difficult child 3 then was learning to use the computer technology.</p><p></p><p>There is so much you can do. When you begin to help your child learn, you find yourself learning also. There is so much scope.</p><p></p><p>A lot of places you go to - ask at the front door if they have any resource sheets for schools. A lot of places do.</p><p></p><p>We went to Canberra two years ago, for a week. We used the "let's ask for a resource sheet" thing wherever we went. Canberra for us, is Washington, for you. Only more so. The entire reason for existence of the city of Canberra, is for there to be somewhere for our national government to be placed. Everything there was ONLY there because it is where our Federal government is run. The Mint - we got a resource sheet there. difficult child 3 ran up and down the corridors answering questions. The War Memorial - same story. Old Parliament House - no resource sheet, but the whole place is now a museum (as well as art gallery) with a focus on the events in Australia's political history. The old chambers, in the Upper and Lower House are now available for school groups to practice being politicians. They allow school groups to role-play. People can watch this in the public gallery.</p><p>Over at the NEW Parliament House (the hill - it's an amazing construction, it is an earth-covered building of enormous size, the dug out an entire hill, built the new Parliament House then turned it back into the hill again afterwards, with a giant flagpole on top) you can also explore through the two main rooms where Parliament sits. Under normal circumstances, you can sit in the public gallery and observe. Part of our Parliament is also televised - Question Time in the Senate (Upper House).</p><p></p><p>You can get tours of both the old place and the current one. The tour guides are often former public servants, now retired, who have some fascinating stories to tell.</p><p></p><p>What difficult child 3 has learned tis way is staying with him.He takes photos, so we have those memories also. His photos have commentary to them (which sometimes we tell him, sometimes he finds out for himself). By writing this commentary, he helps it stick in his memory.</p><p></p><p>When we're on holiday and difficult child 3 has lessons, he often does the more basic stuff (maths, science) where we are stating, in the morning. Meanwhile the rest of us have a leisurely rise, sleep in, shower, play a game or two at the resort, watch TV - then we go out for an explore. We buy the local food then take it 'home' and cook it. We have looked at where it grows and how it is part of the economy.</p><p></p><p>This is a marvellous adventure for the family. It provides a learning opportunity for everyone, one that simply isn't possible in mainstream.</p><p></p><p>Don't underestimate the value of good documentaries on TV. Similarly, computer packages. For example, the correspondence school put us onto Mathletics, which is a web-based version of a much more expensive maths tutoring system which we also looked at a few times. But compared to thousands of dollars for a licence to use the software, A$99 a year per child buys us 24/7 access to this maths package which, as far as I can see, is equivalent. It is global in access, although it is an Aussie school curriculum, we've been told. It's possible it now can match other countries' requirements to the extent that when the local authorities approach you and say, "How is your child doing in maths?" you can answer them with a printout of his results in this package and have them pat you on the back and say, "well done."</p><p></p><p>You will probably find a routine works better for you. However, with a bit of support the child's natural work methods will fall into their own routine. When you find what works well, discuss it with your child and say (for example), "I've noticed that when you begin your school day with half an hour of Mathletics, you then do well for the rest of the day. What do you think?"</p><p></p><p>difficult child 3 does have some days when he just can't settle to work. That's when we get him to do easier work, or subjects he can concentrate on better. Sometimes this settles him to work better.</p><p></p><p>If we have a house full of people or a break in our routine, it also unsettles him. Again, we have to modify what we do to take tis into account.</p><p></p><p>The end result - difficult child 3 now CAN get distracted at times, but generally works well and knows for himself if he hasn't done a good job. He is self-motivated, he will dig in an work on a problem. He has learnt that work has to be done. It won't just go away (as it used to in mainstream). he can't keep postponing an unpleasant task and expect it to eventually vanish. So he may as well get stuck in.</p><p></p><p>Sometimes it can be confronting for difficult child 3 to read a book that he is required to read. That is when again, I can modify it. If we have the book available as a movie, we watch the movie. In pyjamas, with popcorn, snuggled under a blanket. Then we can read the book together, the same way. I read the text, he does the dialogue and enjoys putting in the different emotions in the characters.</p><p></p><p>You do need to put in the time. But if you approach it as a shared adventure, you will both enjoy it. And no matter what your level of education, you will find yourself learning, too.</p><p></p><p>Marg</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Marguerite, post: 195401, member: 1991"] Dazed&Confused - you said, "For me, my kids would want me to homeschool one day, and then the next, would have a fit if I even mentioned it. I would remind them of the isolation and that was the deal breaker." With this decision, the child has to be part of the decision also. Once the decision is made, it is done. You can't go back, not immediately. You put your hand to the plough and keep going. You can't turn back, not until you get to the end of the furrow. Then you can re-evaluate and consider changing direction. So a child who can't stick at the decision - has to REALLY accept that they DID make tis decision. Maybe a contract between you that the child will sign? And don't forget your contract too, also discussed and developed with the child. For example, "the parent will not nag, but will try to stay calm and help the child find their own answers to the questions." Neither person signs the contract until they are happy with the wording. Neither contract is put forward for signing, until the person who wants the contract (the other party) is happy that it covers all bases. A quick example of the child's contract - "I will work at my lessons during school hours, or at other times as mutually discussed by my and my supervisor in order that my overall effort through the school week meets the requirement for a good week's worth of work. In exchange for working well through the school day five days a week, homework will be minimal or nonexistent. I will make an effort to stay on task. If I am having difficulty staying on task I will discuss this with my supervisor. I will ask for help if I cannot understand the work or if I keep making mistakes and can't work out why. I will seek out opportunities to learn at all times." And so on. The supervisor's contract - "I will try to not nag. However, I will also try to keep the student's nose to the grindstone, to at least make sure he/she is staying on task. I will be understanding if he/she is having difficulty concentrating, or feeling overwhelmed by a task. If the child is feeling overwhelmed I will help by showing how the task can be broken down into smaller, simpler parts or made easier in some other way. I may not know the answers - nobody knows everything - but I will help the student learn how to find the answers." And so on. Also included in there if you want - food options. You can include fun things like, "I can eat at my desk if I want to. I may not eat or drink at the computer unless it has a spill protector on the keyboard. I can do my schoolwork in my pyjamas if I want to. If I need a change of scenery, I may work outside if I choose, or even ask if we can go for a drive to sit in a park or a forest or anywhere else reasonably within range, so I have a different place to work. However, I recognise that this might make it more difficult to work than I anticipated - if I ask for effort from my supervisor, it has to be repaid with effort from me." Other good things - difficult child 3 is portable. Since beginning this, we've gone away on holidays a number of times. Because we're not restricted to school holiday times, we can book at cheaper rates. We also go when things are quieter, fewer crowds of kids. difficult child 3 still gets plenty of social interaction, but with adults as well as children. After all, when he's an adult he will have to get on with adults then - he may as well start learning now. I was socially isolated as a kid. I was "smarter than the average bear" and bullied and ostracised by other kids. I was a child in a household of adults. I got on well with adults, but not so well with kids my own age. I tended to gravitate to the geeky kids. As an adult I've not had the same problems. Some adults I tend to avoid, because frankly to me, they show no more maturity than the kids who used to bully me. But kids - I get on with really well. I make a point of treating kids with respect. As a child, I also got on well with kids younger than me, or kids several years older. I tended to get on well with boys but not in a flirty kind of way, more as just another one of the blokes. So especially now with hindsight - I can see that really pushing social interaction onto a kid who isn't fitting in well anyway, is over-rated. However - if you have a child who DOES fit in well, who is popular with other kids, who is doing well at school - you COULD choose to home-school, but why go to that trouble if the child is happy and doing well? I'm glad I wasn't home-schooled by my mother, because she would have continually distracted me and pulled me away from my work, to go help her. That was how my life was, at home. She was proud of me being so bright, but couldn't fathom that I would ever want a career. I was encouraged to do well at school, but when I finished school I was expected to get an easy job working behind a cash register or in a bank, until I got married and had kids (when of course I would not work). My mother was really concerned when I chose to study at university instead. Back to holidays in school term - the week after we pulled difficult child 3 out of mainstream, we went to Tasmania for two weeks. We HAD planned that he would write a report for his class teacher in mainstream, we had organised to take some other schoolwork with us, but we just changed who he had to do the work for, on our departure. I DID take a copy of difficult child 3's subsequent Tasmania report to his previous mainstream teacher, to show how he was getting on. We left on good terms - they just couldn't give difficult child 3 what he needed, in terms of quiet learning space away from the crowds. We've since met his old teacher a few times, the last time being only about a month ago. A lovely man who only taught difficult child 3 for one school term but who was very kind and understanding. When we go on holidays (and you can begin as a home-schooler by doing the same thing in your local area) we look for the local tourist spots, the historic places, the places of scientific interest, the local museums and zoos. We get to know the area and what makes it special. For example, Tasmania was originally the site of a penal colony, for the worst offenders. Much of the early settlement there was to support the penal colony at Port Arthur. That penal colony is very well preserved so we did a tour over it. However, there was also a very nasty massacre there twelve years ago (which led to Australia's now very tight gun control laws). difficult child 3 just wasn't emotionally strong enough to cope with ANY knowledge about the massacre so we carefully shielded him. Even so, despite Port Arthur now being a beautiful place and difficult child 3 at that time having minimal understanding of the convict history, he was like a panicked cat struggling on a leash, from the moment we arrived. He could not have known anything - but he kept saying, "I've got yo get out of here, something really bad is going to happen." easy child 2/difficult child 2 wanted to stay so husband & I took turns keeping difficult child 3 calm and relaxed. Next day we drove back there - easy child 2/difficult child 2 wanted to re-visit, while the rest of us were at a small zoo just up the road. difficult child 3 was in a panic, just being in the car park of Port Arthur (the gunman also stalked his victims through the car park and up the road). It was weird, and also taught us that difficult child 3's anxiety needs to always be considered, wherever we go. It also taught us that he is far more empathic than is usually considered possible for someone with autism. However - in Tasmania, we explored the docks (where the Boxing Day yacht race finishes); the local Shot Tower; the agriculture of the region, the wildlife (including the problems of the face cancer that is killing off Tasmanian Devils). We went for a one-day drive to see the Southern Beech forests that are a relic of Gondwanaland. Then last year in New Zealand, we made a point of visiting the same type of Southern Beech forests in Milford Sound. It was really bizarre to see rainforest, and snow. Together. difficult child 3 has discovered a talent for photography. We let him use the digital camera and he took a lot of photos on our holiday. He also wrote a lot of text, much of it on a small keyboard which travels with him (Alphasmart Neo). He uses the keyboard because his hands are hypermobile. But it meant tat in Tasmania, for example, while we were driving through the Huon Valley, difficult child 3 could look out the window and when we said, "what crops are growing here?" he could immediately type, "apples". In putting the photos and text together into a presentation format, difficult child 3 then was learning to use the computer technology. There is so much you can do. When you begin to help your child learn, you find yourself learning also. There is so much scope. A lot of places you go to - ask at the front door if they have any resource sheets for schools. A lot of places do. We went to Canberra two years ago, for a week. We used the "let's ask for a resource sheet" thing wherever we went. Canberra for us, is Washington, for you. Only more so. The entire reason for existence of the city of Canberra, is for there to be somewhere for our national government to be placed. Everything there was ONLY there because it is where our Federal government is run. The Mint - we got a resource sheet there. difficult child 3 ran up and down the corridors answering questions. The War Memorial - same story. Old Parliament House - no resource sheet, but the whole place is now a museum (as well as art gallery) with a focus on the events in Australia's political history. The old chambers, in the Upper and Lower House are now available for school groups to practice being politicians. They allow school groups to role-play. People can watch this in the public gallery. Over at the NEW Parliament House (the hill - it's an amazing construction, it is an earth-covered building of enormous size, the dug out an entire hill, built the new Parliament House then turned it back into the hill again afterwards, with a giant flagpole on top) you can also explore through the two main rooms where Parliament sits. Under normal circumstances, you can sit in the public gallery and observe. Part of our Parliament is also televised - Question Time in the Senate (Upper House). You can get tours of both the old place and the current one. The tour guides are often former public servants, now retired, who have some fascinating stories to tell. What difficult child 3 has learned tis way is staying with him.He takes photos, so we have those memories also. His photos have commentary to them (which sometimes we tell him, sometimes he finds out for himself). By writing this commentary, he helps it stick in his memory. When we're on holiday and difficult child 3 has lessons, he often does the more basic stuff (maths, science) where we are stating, in the morning. Meanwhile the rest of us have a leisurely rise, sleep in, shower, play a game or two at the resort, watch TV - then we go out for an explore. We buy the local food then take it 'home' and cook it. We have looked at where it grows and how it is part of the economy. This is a marvellous adventure for the family. It provides a learning opportunity for everyone, one that simply isn't possible in mainstream. Don't underestimate the value of good documentaries on TV. Similarly, computer packages. For example, the correspondence school put us onto Mathletics, which is a web-based version of a much more expensive maths tutoring system which we also looked at a few times. But compared to thousands of dollars for a licence to use the software, A$99 a year per child buys us 24/7 access to this maths package which, as far as I can see, is equivalent. It is global in access, although it is an Aussie school curriculum, we've been told. It's possible it now can match other countries' requirements to the extent that when the local authorities approach you and say, "How is your child doing in maths?" you can answer them with a printout of his results in this package and have them pat you on the back and say, "well done." You will probably find a routine works better for you. However, with a bit of support the child's natural work methods will fall into their own routine. When you find what works well, discuss it with your child and say (for example), "I've noticed that when you begin your school day with half an hour of Mathletics, you then do well for the rest of the day. What do you think?" difficult child 3 does have some days when he just can't settle to work. That's when we get him to do easier work, or subjects he can concentrate on better. Sometimes this settles him to work better. If we have a house full of people or a break in our routine, it also unsettles him. Again, we have to modify what we do to take tis into account. The end result - difficult child 3 now CAN get distracted at times, but generally works well and knows for himself if he hasn't done a good job. He is self-motivated, he will dig in an work on a problem. He has learnt that work has to be done. It won't just go away (as it used to in mainstream). he can't keep postponing an unpleasant task and expect it to eventually vanish. So he may as well get stuck in. Sometimes it can be confronting for difficult child 3 to read a book that he is required to read. That is when again, I can modify it. If we have the book available as a movie, we watch the movie. In pyjamas, with popcorn, snuggled under a blanket. Then we can read the book together, the same way. I read the text, he does the dialogue and enjoys putting in the different emotions in the characters. You do need to put in the time. But if you approach it as a shared adventure, you will both enjoy it. And no matter what your level of education, you will find yourself learning, too. Marg [/QUOTE]
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