Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Learning Environments homeschool tipping points

DS3.3 situation. Because of his high functioning autism diagnosis and the way he was behaving during the few school therapy sessions we let him attend, the school's opinion at this point is autism class to work on his behavior and social issues. NOTHING that would even remotely address his learning needs in terms of academics. For us, his behavior is not an issue unless he feels threatened in a particular social situation (such as school setting). He CRAVES advanced academics. He self-taught himself to read before he turned 2.5, same with basic math operations, he does a lot of other advanced stuff and absolutely cannot stand repetition, completely loses it around kids who are crying or slow learners ... but give him academic stimulation and he jumps right in, attention full on! WHY in the world would I put him in an autism class or even special ed preschool (that the school was very insisting on) to put him through learning basic alphabet and numbers to 10 for the next 2 years???

So, with DS3.3, our plans for the early years are to homeschool and use his motivation to learn academics to modify his behavior. Certainly NOT try to break him the way that was recommended to us.

I just didn't start with the belief that school is the "default" option. I've known many homeschoolers in my life. Public school is fine, but I don't think opting out is some big huge decision.

My kids don't have medical problems, or 2e, the school staff are literally my friends. They truly care about the kids and it shows. The kids in town are not clickish, they fight and cuss and spit and act like kids, but they're good friendly kids whose mamas have taught them better.

My friends and family keep trying to give me an "out" and claim I don't have a choice because his academic needs are not being met. I swear I am just choosing to do it by choice. I'm not at all sure about socialization. Before this year he socialized at the playground at the mall, at sports, and at public dances/bbqs, but school is the big social event. I don't know if his social needs have changed drastically from just one year in school.

One non-academic benefit that should balance the lost socialization is outside play time. All year long he complained about not feeling like he had enough time to play. Here it gets ridiculously hot most afternoons by the time he gets out of school. Next year when we're homeschooling I plan to kick them out in the yard in the morning when it's cool outside. I can sit on the porch and drink my morning coffee.

I guess I'd rather say it's just my choice because I have no reason to say the school's not doing a good enough job. I think it would have been different except he started out learning that he doesn't have to do his work in school. But that does not mean they did not do a good job. They did what they were supposed to do and they taught the lessons to their class. They made accomodations and advanced him from the start because he really is very advanced. He just didn't play along and was allowed to opt out of doing his work all year. I could honestly just let it go and I'm sure it would turn out fine by the twelfth grade. I'm not making any specific plans for or against mainstreaming them back into school some other year.

I left my job as a public school administrator to homeschool. You can imagine how many head-scratching questions, eye rolls and dirty looks I got for that!

Our tipping point emotionally was earlier, but our actual decision making tipping point was when I was spending more time at the school advocating, volunteering, fighting, arguing, photocopying and teaching teachers than it would actually take me to homeschool. That was the final "Why are we wasting all this energy when we could just do something else?"

That's it exactly, CAMom. When I think of all of the time I'd have lost over the years with my family as a result of spending that time gnashing my teeth and crafting well-worded responses, insisting on meeting after meeting, documenting, documenting, documenting, and being "on call" for the school for pretty much every day of the year anyway, it was just plain crazy NOT to homeschool.

2e issues really muddy the waters with school. Most schools in this country are ill equipped or totally unable to deal with them. The problem is that you often need the services and oftentimes you simply cannot get the services unless your child is enrolled in a public school or you go through them at the very least.

I had this happen to ds when he was 3.5/4 years old and in pre-kindergarten. I couldn't get the ot/pt/speech without enrolling him in a special needs pre-k program, period, authorized by the NYC Board of Ed. I had to obtain a lawyer and go through the ordeal of threatening to go to mediation. Talk about a major headache. There's nothing like the NYC Board of Ed and its bureaucracy anywhere on the planet. NYC has some of the best and worst schools in America.

We now live in MA and I'm still wrestling with the public schools over getting ds7 re-tested for DYS. If we could afford to get him re-tested privately, we would. We can't, but part of me also believes that my ds7 should get some educational 'services' from public schools even if it's a darn test or textbook. I don't feel like this is asking for blood. Oy. Will this ever end?

Yes CAMom, that's one reason why I decided to homeschool in the end. It's much easier than fighting, advocating, arguing, etc. the system. I'm a former public school teacher/college instructor myself. So I've had the eye balls and looks too - like how dare you ditch the public schools to homeschool! It's venomous at times.

Mk13 - with an spectrum diagnosis, try to get hold of Kristine Barnett's book, The Spark. She pulled her autistic son, Jake, from the public schools and used his interests to work on the behaviors. He's a math/science prodigy who's now 14/15 years old, working on his master's, and an original theory to Einstein. He was featured on 60 Minutes.

Many gifted kids hate repetition and rote learning, especially eg/pg ones. Another reason to homeschool!

My husband, son and I even talked to our state representative last year. We told her that the reason we were homeschooling was that we could not get an appropriate education in our state. She agreed that there were problems with our schools and that is why she supported homeschooling. Our state can't even provide safe places for kids to go during tornadoes because it costs too much money. They are certainly not going to do anything for my child.

We had to face the reality that our schools are indeed ill equipped or totally unable to deal with twice exceptional kids. It is the fact that they wouldn't even try that really upsets me. We pay taxes for other kids to get an appropriate education while my child is left out and if I say anything about this I am viewed as a "negative person" by people who are happy with the school system.

cdfox - thank you for the book tip! I'll look it up!

We are fortunate that while IL doesn't provide any mandatory gifted support and the gifted program in our school district is next to nothing, at least I can get services through the school district that DS needs as long as I keep his IEP going. For now we put it on hold but it's valid for 12 months and we are hoping that DS will be able to go back in later this year for at least some therapies without getting so majorly stressed out. I spoke with our special ed director about homeschooling and while she is against it she did say he would still qualify for some services like speech.

For what it's worth, most of the therapists he's had in the last year support the idea of him being homeschooled.

I am still unsure about how it works with us requesting testing further down the road. When I gently touched the subject, the special ed lady's reply was something along the lines of "oh, I don't think testing would be necessary. We can clearly see what services he needs" ... yeah. Right! That's why we ended up pulling him out because clearly they could NOT see what he needed. So we might have to do testing eventually at our own cost. Not that we would so desperately need it but I wouldn't want to wait too long to identify any other 2E issues aside from the ones we are already dealing with.

We're not homeschooling, but we came close to it. After an exhaustive school search for DS6 (in K now), he was not doing well in the one we finally chose. Wasn't learning a thing, and he was being stressed out by the green-yellow-red behavior system. By mid-December last year, fortunately, we'd found another placement for him that was much better - if not for that school, I would be homeschooling him now.

We figured the public schools would not be able to differentiate well enough for him (he's doing basic algebra, analytic geometry, statistics, etc.). We also knew they were anti-acceleration - I don't think there's been but one or two cases of grade acceleration in the whole district for the past decade! And we were quietly advised by a couple of in-the-know families to not bother with the neighborhood public school. So we didn't. (Good thing we didn't need SPED services; that might have been an issue, but he "graduated" OT and seems to not need it now. Like a previous poster said, school-age kids can only access SPED services through the schools themselves, during school hours.)

What shocked us was how poorly the *private* schools in the area handled kids with high math ability! Several of them told us frankly that they couldn't give him what he needs, especially in math. A Montessori school said he would be bored in math and reading; another recommended subject acceleration to third or fourth grade (yikes!); yet another school came right out and said that math was the one subject in which they would not ALLOW kids to work ahead of their age mates. Baffling.

I had already chosen curricula for homeschooling him. But his cup is full at his new school, and so is mine, so I won't be doing it yet. At least I can help my sister with her homeschooling.

cdfox, we're in MA as well. It's frustrating to see how little support this state offers to gifted and 2E kids, in spite of MA's reputation for great public schools.

Lori H - this a huge national issue with 2e kids. Only a handful of schools in the US are really equipped to deal with 2e kids. Most are not. Even in NYC, there's hardly any for 2e kids. They've got specialized special needs schools, but they can't really address the giftedness. They've got g/t programs and schools, but these don't necessarily address the 2e issues. In MA, there's nothing for 2e kids so it gets me very angry at times too.

Mk13 - you are legally entitled to testing with an IEP under IDEA or ADA, I think. In some states, you can request testing as a homeschooler; some states require testing too. The testing varies from state to state. However, you might be able to get the WJ-III testing from your school district. And, if this is the case, you could potentially get a qualifying score for DYS and/or other potential programs without going through your insurance and/or a big expense, which can be a big deal.

HAHA this was it for us, except in South Africa there is only 1 gifted school and after 3 different private schools suggested them we tried them only to realise all the other things mentioned here.

For me, the tipping point was the night my 5 year old tried to strangle me (the black eye was the night before) as I would try allow him to rage in an attempt to get his angst out. Fine at school - if you consider declining work output and declining social skills and declining capacity to learn and declining reading and maths skills fine. ("of course he has no reading/writing issue - even if it looks like dyslexia or something, he reads and writes above grade level so you are being paranoid and pushy")

At his worst his speech and motor skills deteriorated to those of a toddler, he wet the bed every single night, he stopped eating for the most part, he woke up in a screaming panic, he tried to hide his bag/shoes/waterbottle in the mornings, he had to be carried to the car crying and forcibly buckled in, the daily anger and screaming fits - sometimes 3 in the space of an afternoon (Except for friday and saturday). And then a therapist diagnosed him with acute anxiety and borderline clinical depression. He was my precious 5 year old and it was ripping our entire family apart. It took 8 months of de schooling and therapy weekly before he was okay to consider "learning" again.

I wish I didn't leave it so late. I wish I had pulled him the moment I suspected it wasn't working. Needless to say with son #2 as soon as I saw the aggression starting (towards the end of his second term in the 3 -4 class at the same school) we pulled him immediately.

Son #3 will not even be setting foot into that school. (In case you needed that clarified. lol.