Personality

[Iloveponies]

Hello,

I would like to ask whether you think a certain type of personality is required to home educate.

I worry I am not tenacious enough, and that I wont have the patience to be around my children so much. I am also rubbish at discipline. I am socially awkward and that may affect the kids if I find home educating groups difficult.

I do think it would be so lovely to learn together,without pressure and be able to go out when the mood strikes and enjoy the children,at the moment I just get the tired,hungry moody bits after school.

Do you really think anyone can do it?

If a child is unable to function (wash, eat, socialise etc.). or is very unhappy, then of course they need serious assessment and perhaps medical intervention.

But if the only problem is 'inattentiveness' I greatly disagree. I said pretty much the same phrase as ponies, "She's not doing anything destructive or harmful" to describe my dd.

My daughter wouldn't function in a classroom. She was staring out a window or dancing constantly. She refused to read or write and didn't talk to the other children.

Four months at home and she's completing worksheets, reading dozens of books and doing several outside activities... and making friends. Most importantly, she is happy. She still has issues but they're wholly manageable through coping mechanisms and not pushing her to do things when she's tired or in the wrong frame of mind. It was just a matter of figuring out how best to communicate with her and encourage her. The teachers didn't have time or inclination to do so, even in a small private school.

I think 'fitting a child into life' is a dangerous concept. I know what you mean, but I also think there is a danger of trying to force the child into the kind of life you expect them to have. If they are happy with their life and they're not doing anything harmful to themselves or others, then I would be very disinclined to medicate. If they are unhappy, then I would think differently.

BTW, I was diagnosed ADHD as a child and was very similar to dd. I am personally very glad to have not been medicated - I figured out ways to cope which have served me well.

Perhaps the key is, as you suggest, whether the child is happy, functioning and able to find coping mechanisms that work. Sometimes they are miserable and can't find workarounds for the difficulties they struggle with daily. In my family's case, that misery and frustration escalated to the point where other children weren't safe around my son and he was in desperate need of practical help.

I didn't want my son to be medicated but then I didn't want him to have a dual diagnosis of restrictive conditions that hamper his ability to cope with daily life. That's just how it turned out and we have to deal with it the best way possible to match his needs. Medication has helped enormously with that and it does for countless other children too. Management techniques had limited effect because he lacked the basic processing ability to learn from what he was being taught - methylphenidate was the link that made it possible.

I'm very pleased that coping mechanisms have been sufficient for both you and your daughter, but that's simply not enough for some children. And heaven knows we tried.

Sorry, bacon. I don't mean to belittle what you and your ds have been through.

I absolutely agree with much of what you say and unerstand some children are severely affected.

My only concern is that there are a lot of children being overdiagnosed and overtreated. The rate of children being treated for 'ADHD', 'ODD' and similar disorders around me is overwhelming. So is the amount of greedy doctors!

No problem Carmen

Tbh I'm not sure that ds is particularly severely affected, rather that the schools he attended wouldn't admit on paper to the range and extent of problems he had so psychiatrists hadn't accurate information on which to base a diagnosis and treatment. He went without treatment for several years and that time has been wasted.

I do agree that in some regions there seem to be a high number of inaccurate diagnoses for behavioural conditions. My personal experience in this area is of under-diagnosis and children have suffered as a consequence. Postcode lottery again, I guess.

I do feel that I have to defend methylphenidate as a treatment though, as there's often a Daily Mail-esque attitude towards it and an assumption that it's being spoonfed to children who don't need it by inept parents who can't be bothered to discipline them . It's been almost miraculous for my son and has helped enormously in helping his degree of social understanding and limiting his frustrations. The fact is, if it's not the right medication for the condition it won't work anyway, so it can't really be used to calm down a child who's just a bit lively and inattentive because there would be side-effects. But to be fair we don't find out the ins and outs of it until we need to pursue it for our own children, which is why I think it's so widely misunderstood.

I'm in the US, bacon.

They offer free samples of Adderall and Ritalin in parenting magazines here

Sheesh .

Now that's a completely different thread!