fear of not doing enough, even though we are doing as much as we can

[momma aimee]

trying to breath -- I ordered this book -- FIRST GRADE -- for my son who is finishing up first grade. i am strongly considering giving him the CAT test this summer. for my own knowledge.

 

http://www.amazon.com/Test-Prep-Grade-1-Spectrum/dp/0769681212/ref=pd_sim_b_6

 

anyway i have been looking at it and some of seems like stuff he can handle but some of it (like some of the money math) seems beyond him. so i am now freaking out that i have not done enough for first grade and that he is behind his peers. ........................how do you cope with the "I am not doing enough" fears escapilly when you have a child -- like i do -- who is struggling with attention and focus and other "external" challenges that are effecting school (and we are working on them)

 

I know we could do a little more than we do -- with a lot of struggles -- and i am increases how much we do -- but now i am over come with panic i am not doing enough and he is behind

[Rosie_0801]

My dd is only in K, but we do our best and if that isn't good enough, bad luck, because there's nothing we can do about it. I have a sook or a panic about it occasionally, but it still comes back to us not being able to do better than our best. Our bests fluctuate day by day, but no one, and I repeat NO ONE, is capable of operating at their ideal all of the time. No one with any imagination is capable of operating at their ideal much of the time, to be honest.

 

Have you had him checked for retained primitive reflexes? They could be the cause of much of the SPD, ADD and non-verbal learning disorder, possibly even the speech delay. Not saying they *are* but it's within reason.

 

:grouphug: No amount of wishing will make him developmentally able to learn stuff he's not developmentally able to learn. We've been very deliberately modelling correct pronoun usage to my dd for over a year, yet she still can't learn them. There's nothing we can do about that but to keep bringing it to her attention until it finally sticks. When you've got special needs kids, it's better for your mental health if you don't spend too much time comparing yours to NT kids. :grouphug:

[...................]

I'm being totally honest and not flippant at all:

 

Don't worry. It will fade.

 

Sanity requires that at some point you will realize where your gifts and limitations are, and where priorities and non- priorities are.

[momma aimee]

My dd is only in K, but we do our best and if that isn't good enough, bad luck, because there's nothing we can do about it. I have a sook or a panic about it occasionally, but it still comes back to us not being able to do better than our best. Our bests fluctuate day by day, but no one, and I repeat NO ONE, is capable of operating at their ideal all of the time. No one with any imagination is capable of operating at their ideal much of the time, to be honest.

 

Have you had him checked for retained primitive reflexes? They could be the cause of much of the SPD, ADD and non-verbal learning disorder, possibly even the speech delay. Not saying they *are* but it's within reason.

 

:grouphug: No amount of wishing will make him developmentally able to learn stuff he's not developmentally able to learn. We've been very deliberately modelling correct pronoun usage to my dd for over a year, yet she still can't learn them. There's nothing we can do about that but to keep bringing it to her attention until it finally sticks. When you've got special needs kids, it's better for your mental health if you don't spend too much time comparing yours to NT kids. :grouphug:

 

what are retained primitive reflexes???

[momma aimee]

he is 2e according to his PhD (she has done IQ testing with him twice) -- and it is a struggle -- i don't see too much of the gifted part of the "2e" yk?

[Rosie_0801]

what are retained primitive reflexes???

 

 

All those baby reflexes that are meant to go away but may not have. My boy has a whole collection, including but not limited to the plantar (foot one,) palmar (hand one,) the spinal galant, the Moro and the tongue thrust. This all adds up to a 4.5 yo who in most ways behaves like he's only 18 months old, though anyone who watches him for ten minutes can see it's not a lack of intelligence. He's coming along, but slowly. The behaviours are obvious with strong reflexes, even if you don't know that's what they are and what they mean, but in their mild forms, you won't necessarily notice them. The palmar, plantar and spinal galant are easy to test yourself. Have a squizz at Wikipedia. The trouble I'm having is that while you can work on all of them, you can't get rid of any entirely until the prerequisites have been removed. I've got my boy's spinal galant and tongue thrust down to minimal, but they won't go away entirely until the palmar is gone, and that's proving stubborn.

[jessj]

First of all, not all curriculum cover the same things in the same grades. So I would really not worry about that math thing.

 

Secondly, lots of kids, even ones without any diagnosis, are not ready to take on 100% of formal schooling until around 8. My eldest is like this. Could she learn? Yes. Was it worth it to battle her and live a miserable life to keep her "with or ahead of her peers"? No. Keeping a relationship with her was more important than that. The important thing is that they really understand what they are learning. If that means going at a slower pace, so be it. What are the reasons you are so worried about being at the same level as "standard" students? Are you planning to move him into school at some point? Does it really matter what year he graduates? This is my 4th year homeschooling. The first couple of years I was terrified of falling behind. But then I read, and read, and read. And I found that I was not alone. Most homeschoolers operate with a fear of not being good enough. But the truth is, we are. In fact our kids are often ahead of most public school children. Even the ones who start slow. If a child in school starts slow, they get left behind and struggle forever. At home, you can slow down so that he gets it. And if he gets one thing, you can build on that. You can't build on something that wasn't built properly to begin with. And he's only in 1st grade. Really, you and he are just fine. Concentrate on working out his other issues right now. If you can work those out, then he will be more ready for schoolwork. And if you ruin your relationship by burning him out with too much formal schooling when he's not ready, he's going to build walls and close you out completely.

 

Also, another thought, have you looked much into learning styles? I know looking into that helped me to find ways to work with my daughter that she didn't realize were "real school". This year she was in 3rd grade, 8/9 yrs old, and she made big gains in being able to do formal schoolwork. For many kids it's around that they developmentally mature and can handle a lot more schoolwork.

[MeganW]

I have 3 children with some learning challenges/developmental delays. There is a limited amount of time in the day, and so I chose to really prioritize reading this year. With the help of several different kinds of specialists, my kids went from CCCCAAAATTT to a 4th/5th grade reading level in the past 9 months. We also did math & handwriting daily.

 

They got some history & science & other things, but it sure wasn't a good consistent focused daily effort. I don't regret it a bit. Reading is for a lifetime. With that skill, they'll get the other things.

 

My focus for the next year is math. We are going to hit it as hard as we did the reading this year, with the goal of being caught up/ahead in that area by this time next year.

 

With special needs kids, you really have to prioritize where they spend their focus & energy. It took my 3 older kids probably 10 times more time & effort to learn to read than it did my other, more typical child. We could have spread that effort over 10 subjects and gotten nowhere, but just decided to really focus on one.

 

I would suggest you do the same. Focus on the basic skills. The content can wait.

[momma aimee]

how do you know what your child's learning style is -- i have thought about this a lot -- but really don't know how to know what his style is

[jessj]

There are many resources out there that teach about learning styles. Just do a quick search on Amazon and you'll come up with a bunch. It really helped me a lot!

[Karen in CO]

And for reassurance, even without developmental problems, I never believed I was "doing enough" with my ds until I received his first college acceptance letter. That was when I let out a big breath that I had been holding since I first decided to step out the the mainstream and do what was best for him. I had been pretty certain that I had ruined his life by homeschooling him.

 

My great words of wisdom that I often remind myself of is that it is important to focus on basic skills then build. I also try very hard to remember that this isn't just my homeschool, but it is also their childhood.

[MerryAtHope]

How to cope--First, let go of the comparisons. When your child is grown, no one will care what his focus and concentration was like in 1st grade. If he doesn't learn to read until he's 12--no one will know that either. They won't know if it took years to master the multiplication tables. These arbitrary standards that freak us out now have some value for giving us things to work towards, for helping us to know when there might be an issue to take notice of--but they have little value beyond that. Kids are not cogs in a machine that they should all look the same. Some are behind in this and ahead in that. Some excel at many things. Some struggle in many areas. So what? The important thing is that you meet your son where he is, right now, today. Value him for his giftings, and help him as much as he needs.

 

I blogged on a similar theme recently: How Much is Enough? Race to Nowhere

 

(((Hugs))) to you! Hang in there and love your son and let go the need to measure up to others' preconceived notions. Do what's best for your son based on who he is.

 

Merry :-)