unschooling & 'special needs'

[Darlene Mirawaty]

just curious to know if there are any unschoolers with 'special needs' kids here..

we've been homeschooling since day 1 (our oldest will be 10 tomorrow): a slow morph from package curriculums to eclectic pick-&-choose unit studies to 'oh, screw all this structure' and our present unschool philosophy. that said, our biggest paradigm shift was because of our son who has asperger's syndrome...

it seems that most families with spectrum children tend to lean towards 'more structure' - whether this has to do with complementing a child's natural desire for structure or else off-setting a child's 'lack of structure', you pick. most families will seek the extra special ed. resources found in public & private schools, and some families will go the traditional homeschool route - where a child will get the 1:1 attention he/she needs.

when we realised that our son had AS, we knew that homeschooling with structured studies & written work was out of the question. both DH and i are already quirky individuals with quirky ideas, so unschool was the 'duh' choice for us. - and if we were going to unschool with our son, ofcourse we would unschool as a family.

giving our children equal partnership in family learning has been wonderful. it's been fascinating to see how their personal interests and giftings have developed. and the learning continues organically - at home and through outside life experience (art, violin, ballet, shopping, etc.)..

our family is somewhat defined by autism; we've recently adopted a gluten-free & casein-free diet, and we're seeking resources for having 2 more of our children evaluated for neurological syndromes. but that, i guess, is what makes our unschooling interesting; there's always something new for us to learn around the corner.

admittedly, i don't think we're particularly 'radical' in our unschooling; we're simply doing what we do, and we don't really care that much how you do it (no offense meant). but up to now, i haven't met any families with 'special needs' kids who've decided to go the unschool route... anyone out there?

[Sandra Dodd]

I've known several, but I don't know of any of those are on this forum (and some, the kids are grown and I know the moms never did any online unschooling discussions).

What I've seen work well is for the parents not to press the kids to be social if it wasn't absolutely necessary. Don't look for trouble. Avoid structure outside the home as well as in.

My nephew was here last week and I heard him make a couple of phone calls. WOW. He had nice phone manners and a nearly lilting voice, which might not matter except he was here on his 23rd birthday, and I've known him since he was born. He was one of the flat-affect guys. I could tell much more but let me just say he was rarely happy about anything, he spoke so late they had his hearing checked, and when he spoke it was monotone and stilted. He took a long time to want to even consider why he would say "please" or "thank you." He avoided eye contact, but his parents let him.

Now he performs on stage, and he takes his CDs to stores to ask them to carry them, and they say yes.

I called my sister after he left and said he was amazing on the phone to some of those record shops and book stores. He was the gifted-program kid who inspired all this:
http://sandradodd.com/schoolchoice

A boy who was in our unschooling play group when my kids were 7, 9 would stand near a tree and look at the bark, but they knew in advance he was an Asperger's guy, so I had advised them some, and they would say "Michael, we're going to go over there now, in case you want to come," or not much more, and within a few weeks he was staying closer to them and watching them play, and they would find a small way he could participate, if he wanted to, instead of a big-in-the-middle way, and that helped him. His parents let him watch all the TV and play all the video games he wanted to. They tried to arrange it so his sister could get out lots and he could stay home lots.

When he was 18 he got a job stocking in a grocery store and by then had figured out his own ways to be within the courteous range without people thinking he wanted full socializing.

So I've seen it work well, but you can't expect to "see results" early on, unless the results you'll be happy with are that he's in a situation where he's not being bullied or harrassed or feeling afraid.

It takes those guys longer to learn social niceties, but provided with an environment in which the things they DO want to do are okay, it seems to me that by the time they're grown they're really okay.

http://sandradodd.com/special/videogames.html
http://sandradodd.com/specialunschooling

[Katherine]

You might not have met them but they're definitely there. The ones at this link are only a handful: http://sandradodd.com/specialunschooling

One of the things you might want to know is that many radical unschoolers choose not to label their kids and some choose not to have them tested for syndromes at all.

The idea is that everyone has varying levels and kinds of needs, whether they're on a spectrum or have a syndrome or learning disabilities or not. Unschoolers, living as they do outside the school system, can afford to drop labels and focus on meeting their children's unique sets of preferences and needs. Schools pay attention to labels because they have funding based on goals they must meet. Parents can totally ignore many things that school officials live and breathe.

For instance, some people react to gluten and decide to eat less of it or cut it out. Some people have a slower speed and some are much quicker about some things and inexplicably slow about other things. Those are things that can be recognized as differences (in other words, NOT as disabilities). Differences of degree with no need to label any of the individuals as hyper or slow, especially children who are still developing! They may thrive with more or less stimulation or intervention. They may get easily bored which could be challenging OR are seldom bored which would probably never be troublesome.

Learning Disabilities: http://sandradodd.com/holt/teachyourownstress
How to Be a Good Unschooler (and this also applies to differences/disabilities): http://sandradodd.com/pam/howto
____

[Michelle Thedaker]

My son Drew is about to turn 10 and was diagnosed with mild to moderate autism when he was 2.5. My second son Josh is 6 and is not autistic. We started Drew in public school at age 3, went to school-at-home mid-way through K, and then moved to unschooling in December of 2008. Josh has never been to school, and did a smidge of school-at-home for a few months but *refused* to do the work I set for him - I credit Josh for really opening our eyes to the joys of unschooling. :)

Drew is definitely still in deschooling mode (as are the rest of us!), but his sweetness and passion for life has come back *so* strongly since we started living this unschooling life. I won't say we are 100% radial unschoolers, we just do better each day than the day before and strive to be more connected to one another, repsectful of each other, and joyful in general.

I also used to believe that, because of his autism, Drew 'needed' structure and schedules. We've tried many types of ways to schedule our days, and what I found more often than not was that the constant transitioning - imposed by someone outside of himself - was horribly stressful for him. When he is allowed to go with his *own* flow, ah! Peace! We certainly still have to work around the needs of other people in the family, but he is *so* much more flexible now that he is in control of the majority of his day. We definitely still have our difficult times, unschooling hasn't 'fixed' the stresses, sensory challenges, social confusion, etc. But it *has* helped, because we're all more relaxed and connected.

I've also found that, in the past several months, I'm seeing just *Drew* almost all the time. I used to see 'my autistic son Drew'. He's just himself now, in my eyes. It's a beautiful thing for me to experience again.

[Meredith]

We've never sought a diagnosis for Ray, but when he was younger he would either freeze up or melt down completely when things were unpredictable in his life. Our first thoughts were "structure" but what we found was that he was helped most by predictability. Things he wanted to use around the house needed to be put back fairly precisely or he'd fall apart, unable to find something that was, literally, right in front of him. It also helped him alot to have meals be really regular. We had food available all the time, but the regular punctuation of meals helped him find a rhythm to his day.

Any time something would come up to change the rhythm of Ray's life, we learned to give him some warning, but not too much warning - that took some tweaking and adjusting over the years as his needs changed and he was able to deal with talking about the future more. For Ray "too much" notice of a change of routine led to him getting stressed out.

[Alan Marshall]

Michelle

What you wrote was really inspiring to me. How wonderful that you have been able to see your son in new light. Thank you for sharing that.

[Michelle Thedaker]

This is my personal take on the social skills/needs of kids on the spectrum; it should be up to the *child* if social skills are something they want to receive help with and it should be up to the *child* to say whether or not their current social needs are being met adequately.

I've seen many families who really push social interactions on their spectrum kids because the *parent* wants it to happen. Often the child is perfectly happy with much less social activity, but the parent feels that this is 'abnormal' or 'wrong'. Although I certainly fall prey to worry about our social schedule on occasion, I quickly remember to drop *my fear* and just ask the boys how *they* feel about our activities. They'll speak right up!

[Sandra Dodd]

-=-it should be up to the *child* if social skills are something they want to receive help with and it should be up to the *child* to say whether or not their current social needs are being met adequately.-=-

This should be true of all children!

[Sandra Dodd]

-=-. Do you all get the sense from the literature that given time, and perhaps social skills training when nec., these children grow into adults who function almost NT? (neurotypical) -=-

Without social skills training, unschoolers seem to be functioning before adulthood.

I think reading about unschooling and treating a child as an individual is better than reading "the literature" about Aspergers and school.

http://sandradodd.com/intelligences
Looking through Howard Gardner's multiple intelligences might be helpful. Asperger's seems to be a slower development in the interpersonal area but not necessarily in any of the others! If you play to the strengths of your child, no matter what the strengths are, the other areas can fill in as gradually and naturally as they can.

[Michelle Thedaker]

I agree completely! I do think, however, that kids who are labeled as 'autistic' or something similar are *less* likely to be given those choices. The adults in their world become convinced that these children just don't know any better and will be unable to function in the 'real world' if they don't receive specific training. I suppose I speak up about the issue more when it surrounds those types of children for that reason. But yes, all children - all *people* - should have that choice.

[Darlene Mirawaty]

'One of the things you might want to know is that many radical unschoolers choose not to label their kids and some choose not to have them tested for syndromes at all.'

yeah, i would be one of those parents. my son has never been formally diagnosed (there was no point, since we homeschooled); we are thinking about going a more formal route for our daughters as suits their personal needs.

i'm not sure what you mean by 'label'. if you mean using the word 'disability', i guess i don't label my kids. if you mean using words like 'autism' or 'asperger's syndrome', i guess i do label. suffice to say that i'm comfortable with stating the obvious. coming from a multi-cultural upbringing, being in a inter-ethnic marriage, and raising a multi-cultural/multi-ethnic family in asia: i see simple labels as an open door to exploring fascinatingly complex definitions.

'Schools pay attention to labels because they have funding based on goals they must meet.'

i so agree with you on this.

good to know that there are other 'special needs' unschoolers out there. :)

[Sandra Dodd]

You're talking about mainstream parenting, though, and I'm talking about unschooling.
http://sandradodd.com/rules
The principles involving parenting a child right where he is work no matter where that "right where" is.

[Darlene Mirawaty]

my son also has his own sense of structure. that said, our life was virtually without structure for several years: living OTR ('on-the-road'), preparing to move overseas, etc. because if this, i think he - and our other children - have been stretched in 'real life' ways that some spectrum kids haven't experienced. (at least, not in an organic way.) so our son is learning to adapt even as he maintains his own sense of stability/safety within 'structure'.

like you, i've seen how unschooling has brought my son to life: allowed him to pursue his passions and develop his giftings. drawing has been his best therapy so far. when he finally began to draw, he began to talk and interact with the rest of us. he also taught himself to read with his favorite comics - 'calvin & hobbes'. (my son is very much like calvin..)

when he stims, DH and i ask him, 'what are you imagining?'.. this invites him to share his thoughts with us - and his thoughts are pretty interesting.

i agree with you that unschooling doesn't 'fix', but it does help us figure out what's *really* important and what is - in truth - simply 'optional'.

admittedly, i see autism/AS as just another good thing. it has its pros and cons, but it's part of what makes my family interesting. i've told my children: 'everyone has quirks. if you have more than ____ quirks, you may qualify for asperger's. if you have more than ____ quirks, you may qualify for autism. opa is dyslexic, abba has tourette's syndrome, and mom is a few points short of AS. it's neither positive nor negative; it simply is...'

as an unschooling parent with 'special needs' children, i often feel caught between the 2 philosophical worlds of 'special needs' parents (SNPs, for short hand) and 'unschooling' parents (UPs). to most SNPs, i'm too unstructured - and therefore negligent of future 'real world' issues. to most UPs, i'm too structured - and therefore demanding (negative connotation) of a fellow human's 'work in progress'.

but that's our life - walking that journey. which is why i've been interested in knowing how other SN-UPs make the 2 worlds meet. nice to meet you. :)