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Thanks. I actually am in Washington State. I saw your mention of this on another thread and checked it out. It sounds like an option, although it might be too late for this year. My concern is providing the kind of structure where the kid would actually do school work and not sit around playing video games all day – having a physical space dedicated to learning, and having time when I’m not at work that I can dedicate to helping him with school work. My husband is dead set against the idea (without taking any time to actually review the website), but if things don’t improve….I want to know what my son thinks about it. He asked to be home schooled in middle school and we didn’t know programs like this existed – he was so miserable, but we thought it would cost a fortune – I’m surprised this is free.
Teachers are still ill equipped to respond to special needs kids who are being “mainstreamed” – good intentions but may not work.
I gather the amount of work kids at the online school do is comparable to the number of hours in a regular school day. But do they have to be there during set hours, or can they log in and out when they want? Is that what you mean about show up for some Skype lectures, and then do online stuff at other times? I couldn’t tell from the website, but it sounds like if your grandson can do a day’s work in two hours, they have quite a bit of flexibility.
As it turns out, this particular teacher has been complaining to the mother of another kid who has ADHD about her kid, so it sounds to me like the teacher is a bad match for kids who have ADHD. I feel better, actually, knowing that it isn’t just us. It’s like a classic example of a guy with a problem who wants to make his problem everyone else’s problem because he doesn’t want to adjust his thinking. He mistakenly believes he shouldn’t have to. Bad idea.
The schools dump on parents way too much – the attitude seems to be that we should bully our kids into better behavior, or that kids with disabilities or learning differences are just bratty and should be beaten into submission. A teacher with a “my way or the highway attitude” who is authoritarian, punitive, and hyper-controlling is going to be frustrated – but it’s not like it will ever occur to him that he has a choice between being right and being happy, and might have to change his approach if he wants better relationships with his students.
When I hear some of the “problems” some adults have with their kids – like power struggles, “disrespectful” behavior, or “defiance” – I’m glad I didn’t have that kind of role modeling growing up. I don’t seek power over others, and don’t fight battles like that. My struggles are with what might be excessive non-intervention, not chronic micro-management. In a lot of ways, I think I’m a pretty cool mom. Control freaks are begging for trouble. They bring that upon themselves. I might have a lot of other failings as a parent, but that whole area isn’t one of them.
Anyway, enough babble. Thank you, again, for the link. It looks promising to me.
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