4 ms·

If my wife and I were to put our 4 special needs kids into public school it would result in them having a bunch of unbelievably negative experiences: - they wo

If my wife and I were to put our 4 special needs kids into public school it would result in them having a bunch of unbelievably negative experiences: - they would NOT receive a quality education or be taught to be self-learners. - they would be passed along, even with failing grades, putting them further behind their peers, highlighted their differences and denying them their dignity. - they would all end up in social situations that we ourselves would prefer to avoid. Not caused by their peers (though that can and does happen even in homeschooling families) but by the institutions that are responsible for public education - we would spend just as much (if not more) time and effort fighting the system as we do just taking the reins. If we want to get help for our kids, we literally have to pay thousands of dollars to get them each diagnosed with a mental handicap, because they aren’t cripple or have other readily-identifiable disabilities. Still, we teach all of our kids as they’re capable that THEY are responsible for their own education. Anything else is a) a lie and b) setting them up for failure and a wrong sense of entitlement.

standardUser 3y ago
A good friend has two children, one with fairly severe autism and one with extra-strong interpersonal skills. They both go to the same school, but the kid with autism gets special care, including specialized teachers working with him. This is certainly not to say you are wrong! Rather, it's to point out the vast differences between one public school and another. I have to remind myself sometimes that, even though my public school experience was pretty solid, I had a lot of things working in my favor, like living in a solidly middle-class liberal suburb, having access to lots of honors and AP classes and having several brilliant (and over-qualified) teachers in some departments. Most Americans do not get anything close to such a sweet deal out of their public schools.
- twodave 3y ago
  Our kids have all been diagnosed with FASD, but in our state at least that isn’t enough to qualify for specialized care. Not that it matters a ton, because we would still be fighting the other bullet points. We can get scholarships through the state if we get our kids diagnosed with a mental handicap, and that costs around $3k per child and requires them to be evaluated intensively (which is more difficult for some of our kids than others). So that’s the path we are taking, because at least after the $3k much of the therapy they each need can be reimbursed through the state (up to a certain amount each year). There are a ton of kids in this situation—-either adopted or in foster care, mom abused drugs and alcohol during the pregnancy, and even those of us who pay to adopt these kids from birth/early age (~$30k each for us) there is just very little support available. We are essentially doing the state a favor by not putting these kids into foster care or making them be the public school’s problem, and we don’t get repaid unless we happened to know about FASD, get a diagnosis and apply for an adoption subsidy BEFORE adopting them. It’s absurd.
hedora 3y ago
I don’t know where you are, but this wasn’t true decades ago when I grew up, and doesn’t seem to be true at my kids school. For one thing, our school pretty aggressively tries to find and obtain diagnosis for kids with learning/behavioral issues. I know “just move” isn’t really actionable advice, but if you have the means to home school, maybe you could?

standardUser 3y ago

A good friend has two children, one with fairly severe autism and one with extra-strong interpersonal skills. They both go to the same school, but the kid with autism gets special care, including specialized teachers working with him. This is certainly not to say you are wrong! Rather, it's to point out the vast differences between one public school and another. I have to remind myself sometimes that, even though my public school experience was pretty solid, I had a lot of things working in my favor, like living in a solidly middle-class liberal suburb, having access to lots of honors and AP classes and having several brilliant (and over-qualified) teachers in some departments. Most Americans do not get anything close to such a sweet deal out of their public schools.

twodave 3y ago
Our kids have all been diagnosed with FASD, but in our state at least that isn’t enough to qualify for specialized care. Not that it matters a ton, because we would still be fighting the other bullet points. We can get scholarships through the state if we get our kids diagnosed with a mental handicap, and that costs around $3k per child and requires them to be evaluated intensively (which is more difficult for some of our kids than others). So that’s the path we are taking, because at least after the $3k much of the therapy they each need can be reimbursed through the state (up to a certain amount each year). There are a ton of kids in this situation—-either adopted or in foster care, mom abused drugs and alcohol during the pregnancy, and even those of us who pay to adopt these kids from birth/early age (~$30k each for us) there is just very little support available. We are essentially doing the state a favor by not putting these kids into foster care or making them be the public school’s problem, and we don’t get repaid unless we happened to know about FASD, get a diagnosis and apply for an adoption subsidy BEFORE adopting them. It’s absurd.

hedora 3y ago

I don’t know where you are, but this wasn’t true decades ago when I grew up, and doesn’t seem to be true at my kids school. For one thing, our school pretty aggressively tries to find and obtain diagnosis for kids with learning/behavioral issues. I know “just move” isn’t really actionable advice, but if you have the means to home school, maybe you could?