Forums
New posts
Search forums
What's new
New posts
New profile posts
Latest activity
Internet Search
Members
Current visitors
New profile posts
Search profile posts
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
New posts
Search forums
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
Forums
Parent Support Forums
General Parenting
Home Schooling. I'm actually considering it for ..
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="Marguerite" data-source="post: 46953" data-attributes="member: 1991"><p>Please clarify - what is an IS program? is it an internet curriculum? If so, it sounds very similar to what we do.</p><p></p><p>difficult child 3 does school at home now, due to his extreme anxiety and inability to work effectively in a mainstream environment. And when we look back, it seems like he never really learned anything much in mainstream, everything he learned was done at home. Now he's doing well.</p><p></p><p>difficult child 1 was failing senior high school. We have state-based exams for final year high school, difficult child 1 was heading to fail just about everything due to mismanagement over many years. These exams are held in September. We transferred him in June. We also spilt his workload at that point, so he would do the whole program over three years instead of one. The end result - he worked much better, much more efficiently, and he PASSED!</p><p></p><p>From my own observations, if you can set up and support a home-based program which follows the principle of school work during school hours, it actually makes life easier for all concerned as well as giving them a more thorough education. With less work than we'd all been putting in, for less time, we've had astronomically better results.</p><p></p><p>It takes work on all sides as well as constant moral support and motivation, but for us it has been the answer.</p><p></p><p>If you clash, or if you find you argue too much, you need to deal with this fast or it will get in the way. You also need to set up some level of personal monitoring, such as a progress chart. Some space in which to keep tools and study materials is also desirable. We bought a cheap set of plastic drawers with a chrome metal frame. Each subject's paperwork goes into a separate, labelled drawer. difficult child 3 can choose which subject to work on, but as he runs out of work for one subject he has to move to another so he can stay caught up. Although we're not rich I will go out and buy materials for him if he needs them - a really good language dictionary, for example, or good paint sets for art. Most of the time I can find what we need around the house - his current science topic is rocks and he found a hand lens so we can go and look at rocks with a neighbour of ours who is an amateur geologist.</p><p></p><p>Using resources like where we live, or our neighbours, is great for social development. School is a very artificial environment, especially for a kid who isn't coping. You cram a lot of kids together, far more than you would get except in an extended family (when you also have a wider age range plus more adults around) and you shove those kids into a small space with one adult to supervise, make the kids sit down and all do the same work at the same time. Kids like to run around and be active; sitting in a classroom is not natural. However, our society dictates that this is what the kids do. The problems begin because to a varying degree, kids try to continue to have fun. The ways in which they have fun are OK if it is compatible with learning, but too often it is not. The fear of being caught is part of the thrill and excitement, and kids try to boost the excitement factor to alleviate the boredom factor.</p><p></p><p>Bullying is one really good entertainer that can result from this.</p><p></p><p>difficult child 3 gets no more social interaction from attending a classroom. It was rarely a positive interaction for him anyway. The big argument against home schooling for him was, "But he is autistic! He needs the social contact of school more than most kids!"</p><p></p><p>What difficult child 3 needed most, was NORMAL and POSITIVE social interaction. He gets more of that now than ever before.</p><p></p><p>In the past, difficult child 3 spent a lot of time outside school hours, at home catching up on missed work, or doing homework. Now he gets just about all his work done during school hours, he is free to go visit a friend as soon as THEY get home from school. Or, if he's doing OK with his schoolwork, he comes shopping with me. There are always some kids at the shopping centre but there is a wide range of humanity there - a balance. difficult child 3 interacts with other shoppers, including children of all ages there with parents and grandparents. He interacts with shopkeepers, with officials, with cleaning staff - everybody. You don't get other shoppers, or cleaning staff, bullying a kid. As a result, difficult child 3 is once more learning appropriate social interaction through being shown the right way to behave. He comes home having had a series of positive interactions, all reinforcing the right way to behave and talk to people. And when he meets groups of kids (such as a class full of kids) we have fewer problems, except in our own neighbourhood (where local bullying is still a big problem).</p><p></p><p>I think if your child has extreme anxiety, is going to fail at least some subjects anyway, then this is worth a try if you think you can handle it. If you can step back and not be the teacher, even better. I will step in and help difficult child 3 with a tricky question, but just about all the time I let him do his own work. I just check now and then to make sure he IS working. Sometimes we talk about a topic, just to see if he's understood it or sometimes to give him extra information I happen to know, or to connect a topic to something in his life so he has a frame of reference for it. I ask him questions, his opinion about things. We have a lot of driving to even just get to the shops, so we have plenty of opportunity to talk.</p><p></p><p>If you go down this path, I hope you get good results for her. She may find that given good material to work with, she gets through the work three times faster than in a classroom. This can at first make you feel as if work is being missed somewhere - surely it can't be THAT fast! But a distraction-free environment coupled with good educational material can produce amazing results.</p><p></p><p>Marg</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Marguerite, post: 46953, member: 1991"] Please clarify - what is an IS program? is it an internet curriculum? If so, it sounds very similar to what we do. difficult child 3 does school at home now, due to his extreme anxiety and inability to work effectively in a mainstream environment. And when we look back, it seems like he never really learned anything much in mainstream, everything he learned was done at home. Now he's doing well. difficult child 1 was failing senior high school. We have state-based exams for final year high school, difficult child 1 was heading to fail just about everything due to mismanagement over many years. These exams are held in September. We transferred him in June. We also spilt his workload at that point, so he would do the whole program over three years instead of one. The end result - he worked much better, much more efficiently, and he PASSED! From my own observations, if you can set up and support a home-based program which follows the principle of school work during school hours, it actually makes life easier for all concerned as well as giving them a more thorough education. With less work than we'd all been putting in, for less time, we've had astronomically better results. It takes work on all sides as well as constant moral support and motivation, but for us it has been the answer. If you clash, or if you find you argue too much, you need to deal with this fast or it will get in the way. You also need to set up some level of personal monitoring, such as a progress chart. Some space in which to keep tools and study materials is also desirable. We bought a cheap set of plastic drawers with a chrome metal frame. Each subject's paperwork goes into a separate, labelled drawer. difficult child 3 can choose which subject to work on, but as he runs out of work for one subject he has to move to another so he can stay caught up. Although we're not rich I will go out and buy materials for him if he needs them - a really good language dictionary, for example, or good paint sets for art. Most of the time I can find what we need around the house - his current science topic is rocks and he found a hand lens so we can go and look at rocks with a neighbour of ours who is an amateur geologist. Using resources like where we live, or our neighbours, is great for social development. School is a very artificial environment, especially for a kid who isn't coping. You cram a lot of kids together, far more than you would get except in an extended family (when you also have a wider age range plus more adults around) and you shove those kids into a small space with one adult to supervise, make the kids sit down and all do the same work at the same time. Kids like to run around and be active; sitting in a classroom is not natural. However, our society dictates that this is what the kids do. The problems begin because to a varying degree, kids try to continue to have fun. The ways in which they have fun are OK if it is compatible with learning, but too often it is not. The fear of being caught is part of the thrill and excitement, and kids try to boost the excitement factor to alleviate the boredom factor. Bullying is one really good entertainer that can result from this. difficult child 3 gets no more social interaction from attending a classroom. It was rarely a positive interaction for him anyway. The big argument against home schooling for him was, "But he is autistic! He needs the social contact of school more than most kids!" What difficult child 3 needed most, was NORMAL and POSITIVE social interaction. He gets more of that now than ever before. In the past, difficult child 3 spent a lot of time outside school hours, at home catching up on missed work, or doing homework. Now he gets just about all his work done during school hours, he is free to go visit a friend as soon as THEY get home from school. Or, if he's doing OK with his schoolwork, he comes shopping with me. There are always some kids at the shopping centre but there is a wide range of humanity there - a balance. difficult child 3 interacts with other shoppers, including children of all ages there with parents and grandparents. He interacts with shopkeepers, with officials, with cleaning staff - everybody. You don't get other shoppers, or cleaning staff, bullying a kid. As a result, difficult child 3 is once more learning appropriate social interaction through being shown the right way to behave. He comes home having had a series of positive interactions, all reinforcing the right way to behave and talk to people. And when he meets groups of kids (such as a class full of kids) we have fewer problems, except in our own neighbourhood (where local bullying is still a big problem). I think if your child has extreme anxiety, is going to fail at least some subjects anyway, then this is worth a try if you think you can handle it. If you can step back and not be the teacher, even better. I will step in and help difficult child 3 with a tricky question, but just about all the time I let him do his own work. I just check now and then to make sure he IS working. Sometimes we talk about a topic, just to see if he's understood it or sometimes to give him extra information I happen to know, or to connect a topic to something in his life so he has a frame of reference for it. I ask him questions, his opinion about things. We have a lot of driving to even just get to the shops, so we have plenty of opportunity to talk. If you go down this path, I hope you get good results for her. She may find that given good material to work with, she gets through the work three times faster than in a classroom. This can at first make you feel as if work is being missed somewhere - surely it can't be THAT fast! But a distraction-free environment coupled with good educational material can produce amazing results. Marg [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Forums
Parent Support Forums
General Parenting
Home Schooling. I'm actually considering it for ..
Top