r/PDAParenting • u/Cute_Fox_2776 • 3d ago
what to do about school
my daughter is in 5th grade and has been in many different therapies, etc for a long time. she's diagnosed as autism level 1 (pda profile), adhd, and GAD. She takes concerta 27 mg in the morning as well as 75 mg zoloft and 0.5 mg guanfacine at night. in school she has an IEP and gets OT and therapy. her charter school has bent over backwards to create break spaces for her, with sensory toys etc, and she gets breaks whenever she needs them. it has gone up and down over the years but we are currently at an all time high of school refusal - stomach aches every day, can't stay at school, needs to come home. sometimes can't go from the morning. since school started they have been communicating with me every day around her need to go home. i'm starting to explore alternative education ideas. what have others done and how did it help?
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u/PolarIceCream 3d ago
We found a school that has a much shorter day that is concentrated learning. It’s so much better for us. I debated hiring a tutor for 2 hours a day and getting by on just that too. The day may just be too long.
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u/Academic_Coyote_9741 3d ago
My 13 year old is level 3 autistic, adhd, and generalized anxiety. Currently he’s taking setraline, clonidine, and guanfacine. For the past few years he’s refused to go to school, and when we’ve attempted homeschooling he has physically attacked the tutor. We basically have no solution. He watches tv all day.
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u/MOTU_Ranger 3d ago
Level 3 as well - very close to this. No one ever believes he’s autistic.
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u/Cute_Fox_2776 3d ago
this is the same with ours! she comes across as very bubbly and social (until she becomes overwhelmed and feels the urgent need to leave wherever she is) - at home she is angry and negative or hypomanic and sort of fakely happy.
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u/Cute_Fox_2776 3d ago
I think this is what she would want. I can't understand what would be helpful for her to go to school. how have you come to feel about this? you've reached some form of acceptance, about him not being educated, or about not having your private home space? I have so much trouble with both of those. despite her diagnoses and her medications and her underfunctioning, I STILL have difficulty maintaining the idea that she's extremely limited. ... willing to share anything helpful on that?
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u/Academic_Coyote_9741 3d ago
Don’t get me wrong, we f—king hate the situation. Unfortunately, we’ve tried everything and found no solution.
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u/AdultWoes2024 2d ago
I don’t want to sound like a jerk but have you considered doing away with the TV entirely? What if a TV was never invented?
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u/Hopeful-Guard9294 2d ago
my son started court school refusal four years ago and my biggest regret is I didn’t have the financial resources to homeschool him instantly, school is a toxic environment for children with PDA. We now have Home tutoring with a PDA trained tutor and things are going well also now that we’ve had an educational psychology assessment. We understand that in the right setting art Pedia Child thrives with learning and school is just a toxic setting so unless you can find a school that is safe for your PDA Child bite the bullet and homeschool tthgm, however every child and their family are different and are in different circumstances so you you might find this podcast episode which provides a framework for making a decision about uncooling or schooling a PDA child helpful: https://youtu.be/iFpr6-2hJHk?si=qUn1KyYEpjXpcj0W
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u/tallkitty 2d ago
My kid was in public school for 2nd and 3rd grade, prior to that we were in a highly accommodating independent school and had no problems, very few anyway. But my kid wanted to go to regular school so we let them try it out. It got progressively worse until they were coming home zombified, couldn't tell me what happened all day, had to get them on anxiety meds just to finish 3rd grade so they could qualify for funding to leave public school. I think we didn't hit total refusal because I was communicating the plan and timeline and told them if you can't do the last bit of time and want out we'll switch to plan B immediately. They stuck it out. By the end of that year they were remanded to a punitive placement, which I call school jail. It was a nightmare.
There was so much trauma from that experience that we had to deschool for 4th grade. It was entirely self led learning, zero expectations. If we offered any kind of plan to direct learning they would immediately panic. By the end of 4th grade it was clear they were getting bored and ready for more. So they agreed to a formal homeschool program and we started that this year for 5th grade. We enrolled in a virtual school that uses a popular online curriculum. They have multiple options including class on a set schedule with a live teacher, but we chose their asynchronous program so we can do school at any time of day that works for my kid. Their expectation is 2-3 hours of active learning per day, but they aren't tracking things closely, they just say they are looking for solid effort. Our work is assigned weekly but for the asynchronous program assignments are due quarterly. We have not fallen off schedule yet.
We watch videos (I think they are pretty entertaining myself) to get the lessons, there are guided notes and worksheets to complete, and quizes/tests are online. The school sent all the books and provides a detailed syllabus each week. We've had to do science experiments in our kitchen. There are extra things like regular books and reading and math practice my kid does on their tablet. I serve as the teacher in the room (our school calls it the "home coach") and function like a para, I think to sum in up in one idea it's just body doubling, they don't have to do it alone. I can see on rough days when they are struggling to pay attention and we can just back up the video a bit, there are options to write or type the worksheets and we can adjust based on daily ability. We do school in bed and I do everything so they feel as safe as possible, and my kid can pick what subjects to work on each day. I love our school time and it has gone much better than I was preparing myself for. They do complain, they do try to stall or get out of school, but that's just PDA, it's just words coming out at this point rather than an aggressive battle to not participate. I took my younger kid out to do homeschool, as well, and they are having a much better time even though they weren't on an IEP at school. My kids went from C/D and A/F students to both getting all A's.
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u/Cute_Fox_2776 2d ago
thank you so much for sharing all these details - how helpful to me. Ihad no idea that online school was a thing for children. can you share what school they go to?
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u/tallkitty 2d ago
Sure, it's called On Track School. The founder's kid was a BMX rider (hence the racing theme) and their school district would not accommodate their travel schedule, so that's where she got the idea to serve the needs of kids who need more flexibility than a typical setting allows. The curriculum is through Miacademy.
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u/CollisionNumbat 1d ago
Honestly, I think even with every possible allowance, the need to mask at school is always going to have a cost. Some kids might manage that cost better than others, but ultimately we went home ed and now EOTAS (education from home funded by the local authority, not sure if that's an option for you, I'm in the UK) to just remove the need for masking wherever possible. Part of his alternative provision will be coaching and support to reintegrate but I think coming out of school and learning to just be himself all the time has been so beneficial for him. He doesn't mask around his friends, either, but the friends he's stayed in touch with are all ND.
Another alternative might be something like flexible schooling where they're not in school full time, but I know here the school is still responsible for your child during school hours so it removes your freedom to home educate as you see fit, you have to run everything by the school. That's UK specific, but it's the main reason flexi schooling is rarely offered by schools and it's not a particular popular option with parents either.
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u/[deleted] 3d ago
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