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Seems like we're heading that way too -homeschool for DS8

I am sure like howlerkarma said , there are good days and power struggle days . I haven't homeschooled our son yet but we did some 'school' stuff during summer months and i know well when you guys said " power struggle "

But i have to say , compared to school . At least even on a stressful , power struggle days at home , would have been so much better than stressful days that was brought up by the school . Because there is nothing you can do to change it with the school and to me , that stresses the whole family even more , not being able to do anything about it .

Right. If it's a choice between spending the time and energy ON my child... versus on her behalf...

it's really a no-brainer.

It looks like I am going to be the outlier here. My DD8 also has all sorts of "dys-diagnoses" - dyslexia, dysgraphia, dyspraxia, "math disability" (aka dyscalcula), etc along with migraines and anxiety. She was also labeled ADHD-Inattentive but DH and I don't agree with that diagnosis. We believe the tester picked up on what happens when she is shut down from anxiety rather than ADHD. The neuropsych labeled all this as "NLD-ish" - she doesn't really fit the diagnosis because she doesn't have the social aspects you would expect to find. I don't remember if you have looked into the possibility of Nonverbal Learning Disorder for your son. We were told the "ish" label was used for our DD "because it's easier than saying super high verbal along with dyslexia, dygraphia, dyspraxia, math disability, etc." It certainly sounds to me that this could apply to your DS as well. But it also seems that he may have the social issues so it could be even more suitable for you.

Anyway, given all that and some bad experiences in school I have had many, many people suggest that I consider homeschooling. I have realized that the learning disabilities make this impossible for us, though. Neither DH nor I feel that we could possibly meet her needs in terms of the reading, writing or math. We do a ton of enrichment and feed her comprehension strengths but just don't feel we could possibly do what the trained spec ed teachers do for her. I know there are others here on the boards who have made it work but we just feel that with the depth of our DD's challenges (not to mention the complexity of having so many together) makes it impossible for us.

Just the other day DD's psychologist told me that she has become convinced that our current school cannot meet her needs. We discussed all the possible out of district placements available in our state and she does not believe that any of them are appropriate either. She said that it comes to either making it work at the 2E school that I have located a couple of hours away or trying homeschooling along with tutoring. I told her that we could consider homeschooling down the road once DD is up to speed on keyboarding and more fluent decoding and reading but now - we can't do it. She has to have a certain level of independence or we can't make it work.

I know in the past you have posted about how distressing all of this is for your DW. That concerns me - a lot. If she takes on the responsibility for homeschooling I am afraid she will become even more distressed. The reality is that your DS - like my DD - has a great deal of difficulty mastering certain tasks. It is what it is. My DD had 56 points difference between her verbal IQ and her processing speed score. 44 points between verbal and visual perception. She also has no working memory to speak of. These are MAJOR deficits. Very few people in the world are trained to teach kids like this. Most trained educators can't wrap their heads around it. My DD is sweet and kind and generous. She is likable and friendly and easy to get along with. She still has had numerous teachers practically lose their minds figuring out how to teach her. She doesn't fit any mold they have learned about.

My relationship to my DD would likely be damaged pretty significantly if I tried to undertake homeschooling at this point. I wish you all the best and hope you find a solution to your son's incredibly difficult situation. I just want to be sure - as a parent of a child with similar challenges - that someone has pointed out the other side to making this decision. Good luck!

Very wise words, Pemberley.

Pemberley :
I did not know what NLD was. I googled it and find very interesting new sources of information. This seems to perfectly fit with DS challenges… As far as social aspects are concerned, my son has very few friends and they are mostly girls. He used to be invited to many birthday parties, but not any more since 2 or 3 years. But, he is socially-able and can speak to anyone right in the eyes on any subjects … Well, indeed we did not search for NLD-ish. Twice-exceptionnality is just almost not known in France, so NLD is probably a too new concept here … I’ll have to get deeper in this. Thanx
Your answer definitely strokes a cord with me. I also asked for the negative sides. Because, without any doubt, it will be hard … But it is just a matter of balance between pros and cons. When you tell “Neither DH nor I feel that we could possibly meet her needs in terms of the reading, writing or math. We do a ton of enrichment and feed her comprehension strengths but just don't feel we could possibly do what the trained spec ed teachers do for her.”, my feelings are quite different since we succeeded just on extra-time to get him back on the track to reading, whereas the speech therapist and school fail. As long as the speech therapist is concerned, it is a matter of the time spent with her : one hour per week .. Definitely not enough for a kid who need to practice to get into it …For the school, I guess they just do not really care of his real reading skill. A good question from masterofnone is “Do you see your son's disabilities as interfering with his ability to learn or do you see them as something that can be worked through and around?”. This question is at the core of my interrogations … A dyslexia cannot be cured and most of his challenges either. Methylphenidate is just a help, a kind of wheelchair for ADHD…. And I do not know if we can work through all his challenges. But, the fact is that we succeed in getting him to be a better reader by a one-on-one hard working way (we also try to be as encouraging and gentle as possible). I mean school just do not really care of what he will be in 10 years. And my guess is that if we let school do, in 3 years, he will be at a 3grade reading skill with everybody in the educational institution being satisfied with all the progresses he did and asking us for approval. … So, motherofnone, I have no answer to your question and I am afraid of being wrong with believing that we can “fight” against his challenges. But if we do not do anything, nobody will. Our aim is definitely to bring him up not to wait and see … Maybe, we are too optimistic with that. An opposite example is making him learn the multiplication facts … It just drives us nervous (need a lot lot of patience to work that). You can have him repeating several times 6x8 = 48 in a row, and on the tenth time he will still tell 38 although we tried several ways to make him learn (understanding, counting, flashcards, …) I am not sure that we can work that around. But at least, with us, we try to make him learn instead of saying he just cannot do it as a postulate. It does not mean that we refuse him as having challenges … For instance, as his handwriting is just very poor, we started to make him learn to use a computer keyboard. Anyway, we are presently thinking as HowlerKarma and jaylivg.
Pemberley, I am thanking you for your concern about DW distress … Well, this is also quite a problem for me. As I said before she is just willing to homeschool our kids. But I told her several times that it is possible that it might not work and that she should possibly accept that. Moreover, the psychologist in charge of DS told her that she is afraid that this homeschooling can destroy her relationship to DS. Man, I do not know what to think of that. If it had to happen things will just get worse and worse. And I give it a 40 %. Anyway, right now, DW is just into the homeschool stuff, I do not think that she’ll change her mind.
To answer masterofnone about part-time working, we tried to see what can legally be done on a half-time working, but in France, it is not that easy. If your kid is in a school, he can only get out during school hours to go to a therapist (speech therapist, OT, shrink, …). Moreover, hiring a tutor is just too expensive if DW got to a half-time work. Besides, in case of homeschool, hiring a babysitter, having fun (movies, theater, …) will just get impossible money-wise …
For happylymom, my DS has visual issues too not on vision efficiency but more on how his view focuses on things, tracking drawings with closed lines but with not opened ones .. I do not know the exact English for his troubles, sorry ... But once again, with the work he do under our help, he got better in identifying syllables in words (a kind of eye-tracking thing), whereas he did not make a lot of progress with a vision therapist..

Thank you masterofnone. I have no doubt that if we let the things go at school, it will end in a remedial school. I do not know if we will succeed in avoiding this, but at least we would have tried.
Of course, I have not precise this point, but we will take a correspondence course school to provide us a solid framework.

An external framework is a great starting point and touchstone.

Good luck to your family.