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    Joined: Apr 2015
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    My 2E DS13 has had a better year in 7th than 6th but school is still very difficult. I was unsuccessful in getting an eval for IEP and his 504 works "kinda" but it's a huge burden on...me.

    The biggest issue is that he is on academic probation and so there is this constant pressure not to let any grade slip below a C. He has pretty much lost interest in learning, but will do his work.

    Here are some of his strange issues:

    --he loves to write and is very creative but will NOT share his "real" writing with his CA teacher, even though it is much better than the crud he turns in to her.
    --he still has a lot of trouble turning in completed assignments.
    --he is very difficult to communicate with in any sort of useful way, and responds to most personal conversations with...song lyrics.

    So, I found a really really cool private school with very low class sizes (as in he would have perhaps 5-6 age/grade-mates), project-based learning. Very low stress and personalized. They even have a digital composition music lab, which is one of his personal hobbies.

    They put a lot of emphasis on putting high school students into internships in interest areas and during junior/senior year taking dual-credit on campus of small lib arts university. They also emphasize service-learning, which would be right up his alley as he has said that he wants to "go around helping people" in his free time.

    I think this would be a fantastic fit for him. The problem? He is freaking out at the very idea of something different. I refuse to "allow him to fail" in his current program but am trying to make him understand that learning does not have to be stressful.

    He has stated that school makes him hate himself, and threatened suicide on several occasions this year over things like homework.

    Anyhew. Any advice? He has agreed to do one shadow day in a week, but they really want him to do two in a row to help him really get the feel for it.

    He is autistic but is not severely disabled. His anxiety and executive function are the biggest challenges for him. They don't play well together.

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    Nice to hear from you again, eco!

    It's generally tough for ASD individuals to manage change, or even the thought of change, so it's not too surprising that he's freaking out. I think he may need more than two shadow days, and he may also need an introduction-not-shadow day, just to give him an opportunity for gradually acclimating himself to the idea. Perhaps you can arrange a visit to the campus after hours, when it's mostly adults, or mostly empty, so he can start by experiencing the physical space, at his own pace. You might also consider having him meet an understanding adult before the official shadow day, so he has an on-campus resource to turn to, in the even that he feels overwhelmed by all the newness during the shadow day.

    And, of course, continuing to mention, in a low-pressure, casual way, little things he might enjoy about the new school. I'm thinking, leave a little nugget out there, without commentary, let him mentally pick it up and roll it around, and wait.


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    Change is scary. Don't brush his fears aside (you probably don't anyway but it is common and I have found myself telling my kids not to worry - so unhelpful). It sounds like a great school. Do you know anyone who goes there? Would the school help you find a student he could talk to? I agree about an adult and a "not coping plan" for the shadow day.

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    We went through a process much like aeh and spaghetti describe with DS10, then 9, last year. He was miserable at school, having anxiety/panic attacks, resisting attending (he had a lot of mental health days at my office), having his areas of strength ignored and his second E mismanaged - it was comprehensively bad and had been going downhill for some time. I had been looking at other options and found a school much like the one you describe. DS was adamant that he would not change schools, believing all schools were awful and he might as well stick with the one he knew. Rather than start with telling him about the school I thought would work, I had a number of conversations about different learning environments, styles of teaching, educational philosophies and used the example of his preschool versus DD's preschool, how both of those differed from their current school, which differed from a friend's school. I moved from there to discussing the many different schools I had looked at and what was similar/different amongst them, and how they compared to current school. Then a discussion of pros/cons of current school and how school x compared. After all those conversations I suggested that the best way for him to figure out whether he liked school x was to take it for a test drive.

    I went to great lengths to make sure he knew that the question was whether the school was a good fit for him. Not us, not the school, him. I assured him we would not even consider sending him there if he didn't think it was a fit (and said that we wouldn't be considering he visit for a day if we hadn't already satisfied ourselves that it might be a fit). I also told him that we had learned a lot from our experience at the current school and would never again try for so long to make a school work for him. We would pull him out if things went sideways. He was so distressed by the idea of changing schools and so beaten down by school that he needed to know even before visiting that it was his call, that we had extensively pre-vetted, and that he wouldn't be locked in to the decision. Oh, and I dropped lots of random nuggets, as aeh suggests.

    That took weeks (!), but it led to him spending a day at the school, paired up with the head of school and a teacher throughout. Afterward we talked about all the sorts of questions spaghetti sets out - classes, teaching, kids - and how the day compared to an average day at his current school. I particularly asked how both his favourite and least-favourite subjects compared. He was fairly positive, but told me he needed to spend another day there to be sure (I only suggested one at first, because I knew he needed to see this as a minimal commitment).

    We did a second day about a month later, and there was some renewed opposition to the idea of changing schools, beforehand. I reminded him of his own comments after the first day, nothing about my thoughts, just his own, and that helped him regroup. The second day was wonderful. He made a friend, was excited about what they had learned, expressed disappointment that something he'd really liked the first day wasn't on that day's schedule, talked about some policies he really liked and how they were different from his current school. The next morning, en route to the current school, he said he'd made up his mind and he was going to school x the next year!

    Getting his buy-in, to the extent that he felt he was the one making the decision, made the change manageable for him and told us we were making the right choice (he was moving with or without buy-in, but he was 9, not entering high school as with your DS).

    We had to get through another 5 months at the old school, which wasn't fun, but we're now almost 10 months in at school x and it has been largely a success. DS is happy & doing well. When he has a reflexive 'I don't want to go to school' moment (rare, now), it just takes a question about how the previous school day went to redirect him.

    Good luck. The school change has been transformative for our family and I wish the same for yours.

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    Good to hear from you. I'm glad to hear 7th is going a bit better than last year.

    Don't have much more to add that spaghetti, aeh, & CostalMom haven't already said. I agree wholeheartedly that you need to make sure he understands this is HIS choice. But you would like him to give it a chance and try it out. I love the idea of creating together a list of questions he should try and answer.

    Good Luck.

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    DS9 switched schools last September and it was challenging since he really doesn't like even minor change and that was a biggie. One thing that we did to get him to consider it was to sit with him and make a pros/cons list. For the cons we also brainstormed to see if there were things that we could do to minimize them. In the end we said that it was his choice but we strongly encouraged him to at least give it a try (school was such a HUGE disaster that staying wasn't really an option TBH). He finally agreed to try it but then 2 days in he declared that he wanted to go back to his old school. We knew that wasn't enough to make a decision so we then had to negotiate a length of time that was long enough for him to bother trying to make friends (he spent recess and lunch reading a book on the steps and didn't speak to anyone those days).

    I don't know what we could have done to make it better but it was a rough 6 weeks for us. We even got to the point of meeting with the teacher because we wanted to get her observations before pulling him. After meeting with her it was obvious that it was actually a great fit and that we needed to stick it out. Then magically 2 days after the meeting that he didn't even know about he all of a sudden decided it was the best thing ever. It has been 7 months and he is a completely new kid and has convinced his sister to make the switch as well. Sorry that probably isn't much help but I figured I'd pass on our experience.

    Good luck!

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    We have had several school changes with a kid who gets anxious about change and loves routine and predictability. We also did what Chay suggested - made a list of cons of the old school from what DS had complained about all year long and a list of "pros" that he would gain by switching schools. We included impacts on free time, commute, extra curricular activities, lunch offerings at school, PE activities offered, field trips etc in our list.
    Then, we assured DS that it was just a meeting and not a commitment and took him to talk to the administrator in the new school and asked all our questions in an atmosphere of "no pressure". DS is usually present and observes these meetings. We asked to see what books they used for literature reading, what their educational philosophy is, what the math curriculum looked like, what the computer classes were like etc. Then, we had DS visit the classroom and had the teacher talk to him. At that point, when he saw that the class had kids just like him and to them, being in that school was their "normal", DS agreed to shadow the class. We make it clear that after the shadow day, he gets to make the final decision.
    He usually likes the new school after the shadow day because he already knows the "pros" of switching from our discussions and he also feels comfortable in the new environment after the shadow day.
    The changes were always rough with anxiety making DS sleepless and the stress making him irritable. He also gets forgetful during periods of stress and loses a lot of his belongings, so I have to be extra alert about them. It is an upheaval to both him and us. The last school switch came at age 8 and maybe because of his greater awareness, he feels the effects of the switch more than before. But, he says that he is very happy that he changed schools and that I should have "forced" the issue a lot earlier than listening to him!

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    I really like all the ideas above. Your situation is more complex and your son older than mine, so personally I think spaghetti and CoastalMom are probably better models. However, I'll throw in one more experience in case there's something that helps. DS11 had an opportunity to go into a full-time gifted grade 6/7 class at the start of this year. He was actually offered a similar spot the year before, but only after school had started, in a school far away, under a wide range of less-than-ideal circumstances. He didn't want to switch, and after visiting the place and doing the pros and cons list with him, etc, we agreed with the reasons for his decision and he didn't move.

    This year, however, the circumstances were much better and switching was clearly the right thing for him to do. But DS is terrified of change, especially when it comes to his environment. He has never been one for routine, but instead always seemed to find security in the constancy and predictability of his surroundings. Moving around the living furniture is still a big deal. So I threw out the idea, let it percolate, and then tossed it in the air again a couple of times a week without seeking any particular response. Eventually he asked me, "Are you going to make me do this?" And I responded, "I am going to make you try it. It will be your choice whether you stay." In our case, it was a one-time only chance to get into the new school, but his old school would have to take him back any day, anytime he wanted, no matter what. So the big deal for us was making it clear that going back was always, always an option and would be entirely his choice. But not trying it at all wasn't.

    A big reason this worked for us was that he knew he really did want a new kind of school environment, but feared letting go of the very-well known and therefore safe place. Even if it wasn't a very happy or effective place for him, it was at least totally predictable, and that mattered an awful lot. So we could force the issue because we knew he did really want it, and because the escape clause was clear.

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    I really appreciate all the advice and suggestions. At this point, DS has one grade in jeopardy and missing school completely messes him up--so he can't even afford to *do* these shadow days. I can't figure out what to do about him." He is teetering on the oppositional brink...I think it's a mood issue but the why of it doesn't seem to matter much at this point.

    Current plan is to hope he makes it through the rest of the school year okay, and then regroup. We could still apply to the private school if he doesn't make his grades. He could go to his assigned public school, but that would be a mess because he's already in high school classes. We could "homeschool" 8th grade, but I am pretty sure he thinks that means he could stay in his room all day and do whatever he wants (which would suit him fine).

    Plan is also to remind myself (frequently) that 13 is not generally a really fun age. I have a feeling it is extra fun with gifted AS kid. smirk

    I am trying to focus on the gains he's made this year--so much better than last, so far to go.


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