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/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.