So we're moving to a state that requires students study civics every year, and I'm trying to figure out exactly what would meet that requirement. Do you think I'm supposed to assume it's US civics only? What are civics, exactly? Just government? Or economy, too? My kids are 4th, 2nd, K, and PreK (obviously not on the books officially yet). I'm considering just looking for a straight up text book, and then just using it more like a "list" of things to talk about with them, just a topic a week or something like that (not having them go through the book at all themselves, it would just be for me.) Any recommendations? I don't want them on those free online civics apps, fun as they seem. The last thing my kids need is more screentime! lol.

It's really not, actually. I only gave it as the example of how they use it NOW. If all that mattered were my current list - which boils down to web browsing and word processing - I'd just buy them a cheapo $150 Best buy back to school laptop like we got for DH (who really does only use those things). My hope here was to find out what sorts of things they could be doing on a laptop that would be very helpful, either now or in the future, and then buy something accordingly (with the understanding that, at this point, I don't want to spend $$$ on a macbook). So I do really appreciate your suggestion to look at a refurbed iPad and the other conversation about apple just being more accomodation-friendly. It's that sort of info that is helpful to me (along with figuring out what people actually DO that makes them more accomodation friendly). 🙂

Part of my problem is that I don't know exactly what I want it to do. Sure, I know what I want it to do *now*, but the main reason for this question to begin with is that I'm not sure what I'll want it to be able to do in the next few years! lol. Right now, the kids primarily use my computer for * watch Nova/Youtube vids * Use Google docs for "writing" things (stories, summaries, letters, etc.) * Web browser stuff like XtraMath, Alcumus, Prodigy, Code.org, Typing.org, etc. * Arduino We do have a little iPad mini that they regularly use for Barton, and very occasionally get to use for stuff like DragonBox. So that's what they do now, and I'm tired of seeing them dragging my laptop around and getting it stepped on by the dog and the like. So I'd like to get them something more study and less expensive. IF that something could also have *things* that would help them as they get older (whatever those *things* may be - apps, accomodations, whatever), then that would be perfect. It will have to be something shared by all my children, rather than getting something for each individual child at this point, if that factors into the recommendation at all.

Really?? The chromebooks by us are far cheaper than any ipad, even without a case. Which chromebook and ipad are you referring to?

What should I be looking for in a cheap computer for kids with dyslexia/ASD/ADHD? I was thinking of getting a Chromebook for my kids to use for school, because they are not at all gentle with my own laptop. They are already relatively comfortable using Google's voice typing online through Google Docs, but we have not really ventured into the world of tech too much with them outside of that and some basic stuff like XtraMath, Code.org, Typing.com, and Prodigy. Right now, most of our time is spent on daily living, learning how to get along with others, and Barton (I've got kids in levels 2, 3, and 4 right now! lol.) Eventually, I hope to do a bit more "school," with them so I'm trying to think ahead to what may be helpful. I really have no idea what I'm looking for. I guess that's part of my question. Anything in particular that is very helpful for a kid like this, from a tech perspective? It would be a school-only sort of computer, so I'm not concerned about gaming requirements or anything like that. My kids are rough enough on their stuff that I'm definitely looking for something on the inexpensive side.

Thank you all. Yes, we do a lot of the mental math stuff and talk about how it's easier to subtract a bigger number and add back in (she's doing Beast and Singapore concurrently, Beast a level behind Singapore). She's getting things a lot of different ways! 🙂 We do all the cheats out there! lol. I would just like this to be a tool in her arsenal as well, I guess. Yes, I suppose I'm not yet used to putting things into perspective with her new ASD diagnosis. She is profoundly dyslexic and we've known that for the last year, but all of her other language skills (expressive/receptive) where at or above expected. (caveat: it's not clear to me that "normal" is actually a good descriptor here, since she was also told she was reading "at or above grade level" last year before the SLP did actual phonological tests and found her profoundly dyslexic -- she's just a bright kid who compensates as best she can, you know?) Would things like autism and dyslexia affect how she does arithmetic?She has relatively good number sense and can subtract any two digit numbers, but she often has a hard time remembering the extra ten when she's trying to do something like make 100 (e.g., she almost always says that you need 65 to make 100 with 45 when she's doing it in her head. On paper, she can *always* do 100 - 45, because she's pretty much got the "carrying one place" procedure down -- though whether or not she has the concept down is a bit more fuzzy, despite it being emphasized/explained over and over and over again, since 130 - 40 is often gets regrouped as (0) (10) (0) on top, instead of (0), (13) (0) because she forgets to *add* 10, instead of just making the new number a 10.) She does have poor working memory, despite having exceptional processing speed (99.7th %ile).

Forgive me if this has already been mentioned: nothing popped up in my search, but I'm not confident in the search function. 🙂 Some folks on the Barton fb group were talking about how they got this pass for their kids based on a dyslexia dx: https://store.usgs.gov/access-pass?fbclid=IwAR26l4JV0DA73hYx4P8_dcPws9Ccrr0OoWEaQumJri29d3CFzDp1JUdNhg4 Seems pretty cool to me, but I'm wondering what you'd actually include in a disability letter for dyslexia. I'm all about taking advantage of things like this that we can access, and I'd really love to get my kids passes, but I guess I worry they might roll their eyes at me if I do apply with "only" dyslexia as my kids' disability. I've read that the disability statement must include: that the individual has a PERMANENT disability, that it limits one or more aspects of their daily life, and the nature of those limitations. I guess I'm asking if you have any sample disability statements or if you have any ideas on how to actually word this? Our physician will sign off on it, I'm confident, but I'm just not sure what to put down. Also, for something like this, does autism count as a disability? How would one write a letter including that? (It'd be nice if I could just get passes for all my kids at once! lol.)

My kids really like Should I or shouldn't I? It's a little surprising to me, because it seems a little bit... dry... to me. But they seem to think it's as fun as apples to apples or something like that. They pull it out to play in their free time, when it's competing with monopoly and catan and chess and mancala.

Not at this point in time. DH is aware that my single biggest concern is lack of support for our children. So we're going to go and see what happens. I'm going to put out calls and just see what folks might be able to do for us. I believe the school in the area (there's 1 public grade school in the entire county) has relatively good supports, actually (funding is allocated on a statewide basis based on # of students, rather than neighborhood taxes, so the poorer areas actually have decent schools still) and that most of the support people in the area get seems to come through the school, instead of driving the hour to the nearest city. So I'll be interested to meet with them and see what they say. There's also a lot of home health care for elderly, but I'm going to see what I might be able to get in terms of getting an OT to come to our home, and possibly see all four of my kids in one longer chunk of time (someone may actually find it worth their time if they can get four appointments in in one fell swoop, right?? .... :D). Maybe nothing will come of it and I'll just end up driving the hour on a regular basis. But I'm at least going to try and see what I might be able to find.

Ha ha. No, I'm SO not an introvert. I'm an extraverted unschooly parent at heart. I already went through a grieving process the last few summers realizing that my kids don't "do vacation" and I have to just keep their school/structure all year long. I have no idea what my next steps are, honestly. We're moving this summer to a super rural place where OTs and psych's are an hour drive away. I'm very much at a loss as to what my next steps are. 🙂

Well we met for our feedback appointment today. Both girls got the ASD dx. The 3 yo had an ADOS score on the lower end of the ASD score range, while the 7 year old had a "close but passing" ADOS score, but the evaluator felt like it was still the right dx based on all the other information we had. And DH said that his clinician is finishing up the testing this Friday, but has said that ASD will likely be the dx as well (whereas before it was anxiety, depression, PTSD, OCD, and social anxiety...) So apparently I'm now in the minority of non-ASD people in my home now.... Me and the 5 yo... lol.

Has anyone ever had a kid who couldn't figure out the carrying rule about re-grouping with 9's until the end and then a 10 at the very end (e.g., when subtracting something like 598 from 1234)? We moved on when she got stuck on it last year, and she finished the rest of Singapore 3, but I tried revisiting it this week and she's still completely stuck on it. She can get there on her own by a series of regroupings (e.g., turn 1 into 0 and 2 into 12, then turn 12 into 11 and turn 3 into 13, then turn 13 into 12 and 4 into 14) but it seems like WAY more work (to ME!! lol). This is the only way she can do this that makes any sense to her. I've tried base 10 blocks, drawings, trading in money, etc. all to no avail, and I'm out of ideas. She does often forget to actually *add* the 10, as well, and frequently just replaces the number with 10 (i.e., instead of turning 1 into 0 and 2 into 12 in the first step above, she'll turn the 2 into a 10. And then she'll cross off the 10 and put a 9, and cross off the 3 in the tens column and replace it with 10.) When I ask her why you put the 10 there, she can fix it on her own half the time, or so. I feel like she *does* get the idea, but her EF skills and very low working memory are working against her here. How do I know when to move on or if I need to hit this until she's solid?

5 more weeks until feedback from the private psych! Feels like eternity!! lol,

Sigh. Don't even get me started about dd7's testing... When I mentioned her appt with her the day before, she brought me paper and asked me to write down what she wanted to remember to tell her psych. It went like this (and I know for sure, because she made me write it down!): It's hard to understand people. In public, in a group, I'll say stuff like, "Yeah, yeah, totally!" But I'll walk away from the group thinking, "What just happened? I don't understand what's going." When I get in trouble for being mean, I don't understand how or why I got in trouble and I'm sad that people don't understand. I'm having a good day and all of a sudden I'm in trouble, but I feel so left out because I don't understand what I did or why they're so upset. It's hard because my brain just doesn't understand things. I feel left out because my brain doesn't understand things that other people understand. And even the things I do understand, I can't do in public because my brain gets so confused around people. Then, there was right after her ADOS: Me: So what'd you talk about with the Dr? dd7: Oh, you know, I just told her about all my friends and how great they are and how much they like me. Me: .... ..... Why? dd7: Oh, I don't know. The other stuff is kind of weird to talk about. Suffice it to say that I'm not holding my breath about her ADOS testing showing anything...

So I had my 3 yo's ADOS done with a private person and not gotten results back. Simultaneously, I had her evaluated through the schools, and it turns out that they do an ADOS too (though I didn't know that before hand). But now I'm confused. Here are the results the school gave me: ADOS score of 2 -> not even a little autism, despite BASC-3 percentile scores of 1st %ile in Adaptability, 1st in social skills, 99th in withdrawal, 97th in atypicality, 94th in anxiety, and 89th in aggression. So they very nicely (and I really liked this team, so don't get me wrong!) told me that it stinks she has so many problems at home, but at least she did great for them on the ADOS! I'm interested to hear if the private person got the same ADOS results or not (maybe it's wrong to think that maybe the school wasn't as good as the private person? Or maybe it's wrong to wonder if having two ADOS's administered in one week might have skewed the results on the second one? I'm not sure). But -- assuming the school is right, and the ADOS says no autism, despite the BASC flagging all those sort of "autistic traits," -- what do I do with this information?

Well, DH backtracked on sending her to school and is just strongly encouraging us to take a break and go for bike rides and hikes and spend time together outdoors and having fun. I need to figure out how to “take a break” in a way that’s meaningful to me while still having the structure that my kids need. So I doubt we plop her into school this year (school by us is out in 7 weeks anyway), but I will keep thinking about and mulling over all of this as I think about what would be best for next year. Thank you all so much for all of your advice, encouragement, and wisdom.

I don’t know what pairing is? i have a few friendS that step in when we really need it, but no family or anything that could step in more often. A few older church members have tried to offer us childcare for us to take a break or go in a date or something on occasion, but my kids are enough of a handful that they usually don’t offer to watch them again after that.

Mostly zones of reg stuff. Problem was that dd knew all the right answers to say, but can’t apply them. So they told me at this point, the balls in my court to make her implement the things she knows. Thanks for this. It’s helpful. Thanks foR the encouragement that any change we make might be a good one, and that we do have more options than I was previously considering. I’m honestly not sure who would tynhrive in school and who not. Part of my hesitation in trying to sort this school stuff out now is that we are likely moving out of state this summer, so anything I do now doesn’t really carry over to next year anyway. She’s by far my most difficult child, though, but st least two other kids do also need significant support, which makes me feel like a juggler who’s constantly dropping balls because people keep adding more balls to my rotation. Lol. And we actually do know it’s dyslexia, from having an SLP administer the ELLA and looking at phonological processing and phonemic awareness. Weve completely stopped VT for now because it was such a struggle, but now we have the same level of struggle for reading! 😛 I haven’t checked RR in the last four months, but as of for months ago we had integrated all that weren’t previously. I like our OT. She has advanced training in sensory stuff. They went through the zones of regulation material. But there was definitely nothing challenging that she asked of dd. So dd spent the whole time smiling and laughing and joking and otherwise have the time of her life in squeezy swings and other stuff like that. 🙂 No genetics, yes evals. Dx: anxiety, depression, dyslexia. In two weeks she also has an ADOS scheduled. This was my husbands other idea. Just break from work and focus on building relationship up again, since it’s taken a real beating from so much conflict. It’s true. And I guess end of the year stuff gives us a short trial at least without committing to a full year.

Any suggestions on how to convince a therapist that she's sweet and well-behaved in their office, but a holy terror at home? lol. They somehow tend to think it's either an imaginary problem (because I like taking her to therapy several times a week and depriving my younger kids of their nap just for fun...) OR a behavioral problem that I've brought on myself by rewarding her outbursts....

That is what I'm concerned about. She is/was in therapy and OT for the anxiety and depression. But they felt like she was so much better that they released her from OT last month and her therapist only wanted to see her every month or two. I wonder if that decrease in supports led to the most recent month of panic attacks and not sleeping.

I post a lot about dd7, I feel. She has a number of diagnoses (dyslexia, anxiety, depression, vision issues) and a number of things people sometimes ask about and/or suggest (bipolar, ASD, adhd, apraxia) that have not been evaluated yet. School with her is a nightmare. Every day involves crying, refusal to do her work (reading exercises, vision exercises, etc.). For every 30 minutes of work we get done, I think we spend 2ish hours crying and refusing to do it. She was in a full-on panic attack a few days ago, unable to stop scratching at my and her clothes while shaking. She's also back to waking up 3-4 times a night with panic attacks, so I feel like I have a newborn again, I'm so exhausted during the day!! I'm at my wits end and my DH has suggested it may be in everyone's best interest to send her to PS next year. I spend so much time with her that I feel like I'm completely neglecting my other children. I feel exhausted after dealing with each meltdown. I think it's true that I could school my other three kids so much better dd7 went to PS. I also think that she *does* do better for others and would not have nearly the tantrums at school that she has for me. On the other hand, she has major sensory issues, is overwhelmed by people, and struggles socially and reading people and situations. (Summer camp last year left her crying for three hours straight but insisting she return each day and she already complains about not being able to make friends.) And she's very much 2E, so she's really bright and able to fly on a lot of people's radars, so I doubt her dyslexia gets remediated well at PS, because she *is* reading on grade level. But the idea of going to school puts her into even more of a panic and she becomes incoherent and unable to even talk about what she's feeling. DH is hopeful that sending her to school would give the rest of our family back our sanity. I'm fearful that it be the straw that puts her over the edge. I'm not sure what I need, honestly. Besides a clone (one for dd7 and one for the rest of my kids). 🙂 I don't know if I'm looking for permission, reassurance, or a sound cuff over the top of my head. I guess I'm just looking for some sort of input/thoughts.

In that case, I would definitely approach it the way that I mentioned above. My child like this responded relatively well to it, but I had to be very firm going into a situation, because the authority figures were usually flustered or unsure how to respond to questioning. So before we went pretty much anywhere, I would review what I expected from them with regards to doing what people tell them to, and how much conversation is appropriate, And especially that bickering for the fun of it wouldn’t be tolerated (and we’d have to just leave if I felt like they were being disrespectful.) They still push boundaries sometimes, but they are smart enough to figure out that I mean it and that the consequence for them will be losing out on fun activities that they actually do want to participate in.They still push boundaries sometimes, but they are smart enough to figure out that I mean it and that the consequence for them will be losing out on fun activities that they actually do want to participate in.

Ha ha! I have a kid like this! The best the best defense I have found thus far Is just to respond, equally matter-of-factly, “well, they are still wrong. Please correct them now” or “Well, it is annoying to everyone else, so you need to quit anyway.“ or whatever fits your particular situation. 🙂

Just to be clear: you're certain he really needs clarification? Or does he just like to argue, bicker, challenge authority, and get the upper hand, since he probably *can* in most situations, because of his giftedness? In the absence of a diagnosis (since you said he'd been eval'd), I would just draw a line and say that he needs to stop asking annoying questions. Period. There's a time to ask questions and there's a time to be respectful of other people by keeping quiet. If he needs to know these things, write down his questions and bring them home where you can research them together. I don't know your situation, of course, but this sounds less about a kid really needing information, and more about a kid needing to understand what's appropriate and how actually do it.

Aw! I just had my math students read this in a class I’m teaching! The problems are so fun (on two men breaking bread is really interesting and unexpected) and it’s always fun to share how the Fibonacci sequence was actually really not the main thing he contributed to the field of mathematics! 🙂 PS. There are free online ones as well, I think.