Why do homeschoolers do this?!?!

[shinyhappypeople]

This is a vent.

 

Why is there the tendency among homeschoolers to downplay the possibility of learning disabilities?

 

I'm talking about responses to moms who say, "I'm worried - but probably for nothing.  My 10 year old can't count to 100.  But, he's probably just a late bloomer..."  (eta: details changed to protect their privacy, but that's the gist of it)  I definitely get the parent's denial.  Lived it, understand it, GET IT. (And eventually GOT PAST IT.)  

 

But I don't understand the tendency of other homeschool friends to ENABLE the denial, downplay legitimately troublesome concerns as 'late bloomer,' or 'she'll catch on,' or my (not) favorite, 'There is no normal!'  <--- said in the context of a kid who has OBVIOUS undiagnosed learning struggles.

 

This has come up - again - in a homeschool group I'm in.  Mixed in with the sane advice (get your kid tested) are the usual idiots who say stuff like, "Well I know a guy who couldn't add until he was 12 but now he works at NASA!" <----- made up exaggeration, but you get the drift, right?  And who do you think the mom listens to?  The people who tell her what she wants to hear.  And, again, I get it.  It's hard and scary to think of your child being anything but just a "late bloomer."  But seriously people, enabling the denial is not helping ANYONE - especially not the child!!!!!!

 

In our own situation, I actually had someone tell me, "You're worrying for nothing.  How much math does your daughter really need in life?  She'll be fine.  Just get her a calculator."

 

Thanks for listening....

 

 

[Arcadia]

:grouphug:

Your daughter needs enough math to be the capable financial controller of the household (so said my dad who is very traditional).

 

My boys still can't balance on a bike. Unfortunately I can't either so hubby have to help teach them. They could walk the high beam at gymnastics so its the lack of practice on a bike.

 

:grouphug:

Doctors may not be able to give a perfect diagnosis but yucky of people (other than the parents) to refute it.

[FairProspects]

It really bothers me too. And I often get verbally voted down as the "helicopter parent/psycho overbearing homeschooler" when I suggest evaluations. I can't fix everyone. I can only test and remediate my own kids. But yes, super frustrating.

 

ETA: And I cannot OVERemphasize enough how *thrilled* I am that we started evals at age 5 and got to the bottom of it by age 7. My kids are doing SO well because we've had more time to remediate and adjust expectations/accommodations to get them working at their potential.

[HS Mom in NC]

It's an overcompensation for the trend of many young mommies fretting  over learning disabilities when their 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7 year olds aren't reading well yet.  In other words, it's jumping into one deep end to avoid jumping into the other deep end. 

I do think there's a small, growing trend for some parents to need a label of some kind (yet another deep end) and by, golly they're gonna get one if they have to see every specialist in town.  The first 3 said it was within the range of normal but the 4th one who gave a label is only one who was actually right in their minds.   It's resulted in another small, growing trend of parents insisting no labels are ever needed.  (Deep ends everywhere.) No matter what clear evidence there is that  child needs some professional help to diagnose and treat something, by golly their kid is just a unique individual and missing years of foundational academics doesn't matter in their minds.

Welcome all or nothing thinking, folks.  It's going to be a bumpy ride.

[PeterPan]

Evals are a touchy subject.  I know people who *won't* eval.  I know people who know they need evals and are scared to.  I know very few people who've actually gotten evals (just a few).  And I know nobody who has gone eval shopping.  My own ds saw three psychs in a year (one who was an utter jerk who didn't listen, was rude, and blamed me for things, one who was a school psych who said he was quirky and that my explanations were incomplete, and the third who actually slowed down to listen).  In our case the three evals got extremely similar results (ADHD, SLDs, social delays), with the differences being which delays, which SLDs, etc.  That would be an expensive proposition to pay $2100 (what we paid for our first eval) times 3-4 just to get a different answer.  Since the clarity of our answers *did* improve with subsequent evals, I can hardly fault someone who got multiple evals without knowing the whole situation.  

 

This kind of poo-pooing is complex, hurtful, not respectful, and not really limited to education.  You see the same thing with braces, ways of parenting, ways of birthing, etc. etc.  People just feel very free to have an opinion, denigrate, and not respect.  Whatever.  Like FP, I find in reality I just have to focus on my situation.  It helps me to have answers to the most annoying and constant questions.  (Well are you sure it's SLDs, what if he's just young, blah blah)  I try to have answers that shut that down.

[Farrar]

Answering like it's a real question and not just a JAWM vent. It bugs me too sometimes, but also, I feel like I get it...

 

I think it's in reaction to the school need to label every 4 yo struggling with blending as dyslexic. I mean, it's not quite that bad... but it seems that way sometimes, especially in some places. Overdiagnosis, especially of things like ADHD, is a real problem for school kids, as is over-medication. I think a lot of homeschoolers get into it determined to not let that be their kid. So then when real issues arise, they're determined to explain them away.

 

I also think it's a reaction to school parents humblebragging about all the amazing young academic skills that their kids are engaged in. Little Timmy is writing his first essay for his first grade class! Little Janey is doing word problems so complicated in second grade that I don't even understand them! Most of us homeschoolers agree that there's a downside to this early academic focus for kids. We've made a choice to step off the rat race for early elementary - and the studies support that's a good thing to do. But then it puts us in a funny position with family and friends where we're always having to explain away why our young kids aren't doing the same things. I mean, it looks cool to some people that our kids are, say, super creative and imaginative or can talk about Greek mythology or retell classic stories or whatever, but there's still this other factor of competition. Except that then when something real arises, it becomes less clear to a lot of parents if this is just another out of step thing or if it's a real problem.

 

But really I think the biggest reason is that when you're homeschooling, you don't have a class of kids to compare to so your kid simply doesn't stand out to you as outside the norm. Your kid is all you've ever known. You don't trust other people's assessments of him - they don't know him like you do. But then you don't know a vast number of comparison kids. And it's true that often homeschool parents don't know what to expect as normal - how many times does someone post something here where they're like, my 4 yo is struggling with reading or my 7 yo can't add and subtract time well or my 8 yo isn't writing with perfect mechanics yet and we all chuckle... because those aren't really reasonable expectations for those ages. And just as often it goes the other way where someone thinks that it's reasonable for an 8 yo to still be struggling with blending or a 9 yo to still be struggling with telling time or a 12 yo to still be having trouble paying attention for very long.

[Tranquility7]

It's an overcompensation for the trend of many young mommies fretting  over learning disabilities when their 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7 year olds aren't reading well yet.  In other words, it's jumping into one deep end to avoid jumping into the other deep end.

Yep. Although I'd say it isn't just young moms, I'd say it is our society in general. The "labeling" that goes on these days is, imho, waaaaay out of control. Not to mention lots of meds that accompany those labels.

 

And so now there is pushback from people who see the labeling craziness and remember a time when it wasn't this way. When a kid reading late was just, well.... a kid reading late. Who cares? If you are a homeschooler your kid doesn't have to fit into an age-level box anyway. And so the pendulum swings in the other direction, and sometimes perhaps too far, into the territory of "underlabeling" - IOW, not getting help when it is needed.

 

Frankly, I see TONS more labeling in the homeschool community now than there used to be. I've wondered sometimes if the overlabeling mentality is creeping in. But OTOH, it is really good to see people getting help for their kiddos when they actually DO need it.

 

FWIW, we are probably in the underlabeling crowd (though not extreme). But that being said, we got speech therapy for our DD since she still wasn't talking at 3yrs old. We weren't sure what to think, but the best advice DH and I received was to follow our own gut. And thus we went and got help for her :D

[HS Mom in NC]

 And I know nobody who has gone eval shopping.

It's quite a shock the first time you meet this kind of parent.  The one I know sounds so extreme, many people would think I was making it up. 

 

She's the most chaotic person I ever met.  Her family moved around constantly because her husband had few marketable skills. She had filed for bankruptcy twice.  She bounced from one brand of spiritualism to another every couple of years.  Her educational philosophy changed significantly with every book she read-and she read constantly.  She had 5 kids in 10 years and homeschools them.  She couldn't focus on a topic very long herself. Her house was terribly cluttered and in disarray.  Her self diagnosed food issues (no meat, no animal products, no legumes) were, of course inherited by all of her children who fussed and did kid stuff because they had eaten corn chips, not because they were kids.  Those magically went away when she was pregnant with twins.  Yep.  Pregnancy cured her of severe food issues and her ethical veganism ended too.

 

Her oldest son started being very fussy and when she went on about all the things she suspected might be at issue causing his anxious behavior, she couldn't hear people suggest maybe looking into environmental factors first and seeing if a routine and some order might make a difference, and if not, seeing about an evaluation.  The oldest child was the kid who liked making complex, detailed things with construction toys, constantly asked about what was going to happen next and when, and constantly wanted things quiet and orderly but never got it.  We knew this kid was likely an introvert (mom was an extreme extrovert) and had a more engineering kind of mind that thrived in order and routine, but it didn't fit into her spontaneous, whimsical kind of dramatic lifestyle, so she wouldn't even consider it.  She finally got a specialist to say the child has Asperger's.  Maybe he did and maybe he didn't, but I think it was unfair that she didn't consider he was different than her and that she didn't make an effort to try to accommodate him to some degree before insisting on diagnosis shopping.

[SeaConquest]

Listen to your gut. I haven't been wrong yet. I knew something was amiss with my oldest's eyes. I assumed myopia since my vision is pretty bad. I asked his preschool teachers if they noticed anything. Everyone assured me that his vision was fine. Took him to a pediatric ophthalmologist, and sure enough, he had amblyopia (lazy eye). He patched for a year, and is fine now, but it's actually the leading cause of blindness because it so often goes untreated.

 

I also had a nagging feeling with my youngest that his speech was not progressing appropriately. Finally ignored everyone who told me that it was normal for a boy, and went with my gut. He is two, but his speech eval showed that his expressive speech is 9-12 months. He will be starting speech therapy soon.

 

Go with your gut.

[Butter]

I don't understand it either.  I had so many people tell me Cameron was fine.  Nope.  Dyslexia and dysgraphia.  I was spurred to get him tested, though, but a homeschooler.  She was trying to assure me he was just a late bloomer, but what she said didn't come across that way to me.  She said, "What's the worst that could happen?  He could be illiterate."  Yeah, not what I wanted for my kid.  I also had people tell me the results could be wrong and he could still be a late bloomer and not have dyslexia after diagnosis.  I was not upset by his diagnoses.  They confirmed what I already had a gut feeling was going on.

[deerforest]

I don't know how I feel about it. Honestly, I try to avoid the discussions. But, I also have a very strong sense of what needed to be done (my academic background is in child cognitive development), and I never even asked any of my friends what they thought. I just don't have that sort of inclination.

 

We didn't evaluate DD until she wanted to be, which was about 9.5. We explained that it might help us make clearer choices with her learning path. She liked that idea. She doesn't have anything totally earth shattering. 2e diagnosis with some uncertainty as to whether it's working memory, processing speed, or ADHD inattentive issue, and for the most part it doesn't matter because we are remediating in similar way, regardless. And, well, I had already guessed it. I guess it was mostly validating that she didn't have some other issues that we were concerned about too (like serious anxiety issues.)

 

She also started speech therapy somewhat late, at 10.5 just for middle vowel /r/ remediation. Again, in her case we might not have ever bothered except her own name has a middle vowel /r/ and people were always misunderstanding her and it led to some self esteem issues. If she had my name, which has a middle vowel /l/ sound, we probably never would have bothered. 

[Tsuga]

That must be frustrating.

 

I think that it's less of a pushback against labels and more of a pushback against unrealistic standards for kids.

 

So. Many. Kids. Aren't. Reading. At. 5. Even in Taipei, even on Seoul. So when I see parents say, "Well geez give it time!" I feel they don't trust general wisdom about child development.

 

The PBS development tracker is a great resource. I basically committed to, if my kids aren't hitting 90% of those milestones by the end of the year, then I'll consider an evaluation. Although they were behind in some things and ahead in others, we usually hit 90% by their next birthday. The tracker provides a wide range but if the kid is nowhere near a good chunk of the skills it's worth looking at.

 

It's a good rule of thumb for testing anyway and may give you something to say when people say they don't know how to judge. PBS Development tracker. Give me about 9/10 of each skill by the end of the year and I'm good.

[Ellie]

I think it's a combination of things, including the fact that public schools have a proven track record of not teaching children to read well, labeling children as dyslexic/other disabilities who are, in fact, not at all but have just not actually been taught how to read, and then when their parents bring the children home they find out that the children have no learning disabilities at all; they have just not been actually taught how to do...whatever it is. Public schools receive extra funding when they identify children with learning disabilities, which may be one of the reasons that so many children are labeled. At any rate, perhaps homeschoolers are less eager to downplay learning difficulties because of the public school thing.

[Butter]

I think that it's less of a pushback against labels and more of a pushback against unrealistic standards for kids.

 

So. Many. Kids. Aren't. Reading. At. 5. Even in Taipei, even on Seoul. So when I see parents say, "Well geez give it time!" I feel they don't trust general wisdom about child development.

 

No.  This is happening with kids with *major* red flags for learning disabilities.  Not the typical not reading at age 5 kid.  When Cameron was 6, he took 6 MONTHS to memorize the word "the."  I was told this was no big deal, even when you consider the many other red flags.  The illiterate comment was made when he was *9* and still couldn't read on a first grade level.

[Farrar]

No.  This is happening with kids with *major* red flags for learning disabilities.  Not the typical not reading at age 5 kid.  When Cameron was 6, he took 6 MONTHS to memorize the word "the."  I was told this was no big deal, even when you consider the many other red flags.  The illiterate comment was made when he was *9* and still couldn't read on a first grade level.

 

I think it's just radically uneven. On the one hand, parents with kids who have real issues are struggling to get them recognized in one school while in the school next door, dozens of sets of parents are being told their kids have learning disabilities based on pretty flimsy "evidence." The whole system is out of whack in every way. And it reflects how out of whack we are as a culture. Some parents are diagnosis shopping (though I do think this is rare), others are fighting to get their kid's issues figured out, others are fighting to keep labels off their kid. I think some of it can be explained by teachers labeling the "difficult" kids and not the "easy" ones regardless of issues, but I think it's more than that. We're deeply conflicted as a society about what we want out of early elementary education and what we think should be done about kids who hit road bumps and what we think those mean. And we see that play out with really conflicting stories about different experiences.

[SarahW]

One of the things that may be going on is that in some of the "fringe" pro-homeschooling groups (Gothard, etc.) there is a very deep suspicion of psychology. There is also a general opinion that most of the labels, especially ODD, ADHD, or bi-polar, simply excuse behavior which should be, literally, beaten out of the child. This carries over into a resistance to any evaluation.

 

Some well-known LD's are accepted, such as dyslexia, but even then the results are mixed. I knew one homeschool mom who self-diagnosed her son as dyslexic, and once she taught him to read, pronounced him "cured" and that was that. Since I know that person continued to struggle through school, I have very serious doubts he was "cured." 

[Zoo Keeper]

One of the things that may be going on is that in some of the "fringe" pro-homeschooling groups (Gothard, etc.) there is a very deep suspicion of psychology. There is also a general opinion that most of the labels, especially ODD, ADHD, or bi-polar, simply excuse behavior which should be, literally, beaten out of the child. This carries over into a resistance to any evaluation.

 

Some well-known LD's are accepted, such as dyslexia, but even then the results are mixed.

^  You don't have to be a fringe/Gothard-ish type to have this attitude; it is still very much a part of the mindset of an average, middle class American of an older generation... like certain grandparents I know... :cursing: .  Very frustrating.

[Junie]

When dd7 was a baby, she was developmentally delayed.  The pediatrician and I went around and around a little bit.  She thought there was something wrong; I said, no, she's just like I was when I was a baby.  My thinking was that she'll grow out of it.

 

She was my fifth baby; I was having a bad spell with my rheumatoid arthritis, and I really didn't want to do any more doctor's appointments.

 

Eventually we ended up at the cardiologist and then at the geneticist.

 

It turns out that the pediatrician and I were both right.  Dd7 was diagnosed with a genetic birth defect.  I was diagnosed with the same defect just moments later.  So, yes, there was something wrong.  And, yes, she was just like me.

[EmilyGF]

I think people like me are one reason this is done.

 

My oldest was very speech delayed. We spent much time (and money and headache) at the specialist as all the older parents we knew told us they could tell he would be fine (they talked about the way he looked at the world, interacted with toys, paid attention to conversations, etc).

 

We eventually moved and found the new school's specialist to be inept, dragged our feet in finding a new one, and guess what, he is fine. No, he's not just fine, he's incredibly verbal and well spoken. My cousin, who followed the same pattern, has won awards at his toastmaster club and gives a mean speech. 

 

So when I see young boys who are clearly "taking everything in" and interacting with the world but behind little girls in expressive speech, I just can't get worked up. (I generally don't give opinions on other things.)

 

ETA: One therapist we had decided to discuss my son's "condition" in front of him. Not only was her diagnosis completely ridiculous and worthless, she diagnosed problems way beyond what he had while he was listening. The first time she did this (week 1) he acted out those problems for the rest of the day. The second time she did that (week 2) he acted out the problems for the rest of the week. We called her later that day to tell her she didn't need to bother coming back. The fact that he could understand his "diagnosis" at just over two years old and imitate it should have clued me in to the fact that he was doing fine. So the idea that a therapist does no harm isn't quite true. Was this a best practice? Definitely not. But there are such therapists around.

 

Emily 

[Tsuga]

No. This is happening with kids with *major* red flags for learning disabilities. Not the typical not reading at age 5 kid. When Cameron was 6, he took 6 MONTHS to memorize the word "the." I was told this was no big deal, even when you consider the many other red flags. The illiterate comment was made when he was *9* and still couldn't read on a first grade level.

What I am saying is that people who are pushing against intervention are over-reacting to the trend of misidentifying not reading at four, five and six as a disability. I'm not saying they are right to over-correct for that trend.

[Tsuga]

No. This is happening with kids with *major* red flags for learning disabilities. Not the typical not reading at age 5 kid. When Cameron was 6, he took 6 MONTHS to memorize the word "the." I was told this was no big deal, even when you consider the many other red flags. The illiterate comment was made when he was *9* and still couldn't read on a first grade level.

What I am saying is that people who are pushing against intervention are over-reacting to the trend of misidentifying not reading at four, five and six as a disability. I'm not saying they are right to over-correct for that trend.

[HS Mom in NC]

I think these kinds of problems with extremes come from people who struggle with moderation in general.  That can show up in two sides of the same coin:

 

"My child had a problem and was behind the norm but people told me not to worry about norms so we have to assume every child must have a problem if they're behind the norm."

and

"My child was just a late bloomer and people told me to worry so we have to assume any concern about being a late bloomer is unjustified."

 

The parents, teachers and fringe religious crowds and some medical professionals with and without actual LD situations going on are often quick to jump to catastrophic thinking where as people who don't struggle with moderate thinking will have a range of possibilities in their heads and they'll take a closer look at different possibilities without immediately assuming either everything or nothing is wrong.  That looks something like this:

 

"My child seems to be behind the norm.  What is the norm, anyway? What should I look for that indicates this child has some sort of LD and not just a kid who is a late bloomer?"

My perception is that American culture tends to encourage running one of the opposite extremes rather than encouraging an attitude of thoughtful moderation on any number of different issues.  Some types of religious groups and educational philosophies are particularly entrenched in extremist approaches. From the religious angle, I think people who believe in absolute truth about something can be tempted to transfer that into a belief that there are absolutes in areas of life where they don't really belong. 

[Storygirl]

I don't like the term "diagnosis shopping." What is meant by that? Professionals don't always get it right. Sometimes a second opinion or new evaluation is needed because the first one does not answer all of the questions or get to the root issue. We accept this for medical concerns; why not for learning disabilities and developmental delays?

[kirstenhill]

^ You don't have to be a fringe/Gothard-ish type to have this attitude; it is still very much a part of the mindset of an average, middle class American of an older generation... like certain grandparents I know... :cursing: . Very frustrating.

I see this to some degree...and I also see among a totally different group of people I know the distrust of mainstream medicine (and psychology, etc) and the belief that pretty much any problem you have could be fixed by the right diet, product or non-mainstream treatment. Slight hyperbole, but you know what I mean. I don't have any problem with people pursuing those things, but it's not the path our family is pursuing. We're currently waiting for a neuropsych appointment for one child, but I have friends who keep asking me why we aren't trying this diet or that product to deal with his issues instead of waiting on that eval. As I read this thread I imagined how they are sitting around their crunchy lifestyle forum or whatever saying, "I know these people whose kid OBVIOUSLY has problems and they just won't try the diet changes I was suggesting!")...lol.

[abba12]

It's an overcompensation for the trend of many young mommies fretting  over learning disabilities when their 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7 year olds aren't reading well yet.  In other words, it's jumping into one deep end to avoid jumping into the other deep end. 

 

I do think there's a small, growing trend for some parents to need a label of some kind (yet another deep end) and by, golly they're gonna get one if they have to see every specialist in town.  The first 3 said it was within the range of normal but the 4th one who gave a label is only one who was actually right in their minds.   It's resulted in another small, growing trend of parents insisting no labels are ever needed.  (Deep ends everywhere.) No matter what clear evidence there is that  child needs some professional help to diagnose and treat something, by golly their kid is just a unique individual and missing years of foundational academics doesn't matter in their minds.

 

Welcome all or nothing thinking, folks.  It's going to be a bumpy ride.

 

Pretty much all this.

[Tsuga]

I don't like the term "diagnosis shopping." What is meant by that? Professionals don't always get it right. Sometimes a second opinion or new evaluation is needed because the first one does not answer all of the questions or get to the root issue. We accept this for medical concerns; why not for learning disabilities and developmental delays?

I think medical professionals will note when they are the third or fourth person to be consulted for a physical problem opinion, too. Sorry but I have heard nurses and doctors talk about this. "Eventually someone will tell her she has X but it won't be me, the tests don't show it."

 

Eta: This is when someone goes to more than two doctors to get a particular diagnosis, not when a symptom is dismissed, though that happens too.

[Ellie]

One of the things that may be going on is that in some of the "fringe" pro-homeschooling groups (Gothard, etc.) there is a very deep suspicion of psychology. There is also a general opinion that most of the labels, especially ODD, ADHD, or bi-polar, simply excuse behavior which should be, literally, beaten out of the child. This carries over into a resistance to any evaluation.

 

Some well-known LD's are accepted, such as dyslexia, but even then the results are mixed. I knew one homeschool mom who self-diagnosed her son as dyslexic, and once she taught him to read, pronounced him "cured" and that was that. Since I know that person continued to struggle through school, I have very serious doubts he was "cured." 

 

I don't think that's it, as much as I'd like to blame Gothard for it.

 

I've known homeschoolers of all sorts, and have seen the same kind of thing you saw with that one homeschooler, and they all had different backgrounds. Like the family that was all into raw milk being the cure for everything, and who told my beautiful brown-eyed daughters that if they would drink raw milk, they, too, would have blue eyes, because brown eyes were a sign that their bodies needed to be cleansed. :cursing: These people were fringe.

[SporkUK]

I know what you speak of OP. Stories of children going from not doing anything all to reading chapter books and mastering multiplication tables in days without any intervention are popular here. 

 

I think part of it is, as Storygirl said, professionals are wrong. And some of get tired of going through them when so many other see as 'diagnosis shopping' when we'd just like a straight answer and hearing it will all work out without dealing with them has a nice ring to it after going through or hearing others go through the grinder. 

 

I still have filed away somewhere the letter from when my eldest was 5 - a child who could only answer the most basic yes/no questions and did not understand why or how or when or pretty anything question based and did not ask questions himself - from the paediatrician that we were required to see to get him into speech therapy that states that this child's speech issues are only an odd speech pattern caused by his mother (me) having a foreign accent. I have a Midwestern Ohio US Newscaster like accent and the child only articulation problem was th-fronting (replacing th with other fricatives) which his father and most of the locals do as well which wasn't discussed at all. When he was actually seen by a speech therapist, it would turn out he had a significant language issues (I wish he could have worked with her - the person he ended up working with was far more obsessed that his score on correct pronouns for cartoon pictures was low and doing games to reinforce gender stereotypes to ensure he could figure out what gender a cartoon picture where the only difference is hair length correctly rather than the identified priority of using and understanding questions. It ended up being very unuseful). My partner went through knee surgery, camera inside and all, and still ended up misdiagnosed, it happens, more if you're in a group a professional has a bias about (see the stats on how dioagnosis and related medication are used - there is strong evidence of bias across the board even when unintentional). It gets tiring and many give up and cling on to anything else. 

 

Honestly, I have a 6 year old who has been begging to learn to read for over a year, learned to write all her letters neatly over a year ago but took months to remember any letter sounds or names and still has 5 or 6 she regularly can't remember. It's been almost 2 years since I stopped trying to get my eldest further professional help and the idea of going back into that makes me feel ill (especially as it would likely involve going through the before mentioned paediatrician who we refuse to work with after she made my  then 6 year old A cry because apparently a small child bathing every 2-3 days rather than every day will make her a smelly no-mates even when a hospital doctor gave her this bathing routine for her skin condition). Hearing that she could just be a late bloomer sounds great when facing a well known unsupportive barrier to getting any help. 

 

[Tsuga]

I don't think that's it, as much as I'd like to blame Gothard for it.

 

I've known homeschoolers of all sorts, and have seen the same kind of thing you saw with that one homeschooler, and they all had different backgrounds. Like the family that was all into raw milk being the cure for everything, and who told my beautiful brown-eyed daughters that if they would drink raw milk, they, too, would have blue eyes, because brown eyes were a sign that their bodies needed to be cleansed. :cursing: These people were fringe.

What is funny about that was that in the part of Asia I lived, they had a superstition that if a pregnant woman didn't get cravings satisfied, her baby would have blue eyes--blue eyes appearing to them pale and weak! Funny.

[Doodlebug]

You know, I have pretty strong feelings about my kid and our situation... (We pursued assessment at age 8 for behavioral/impulse issues -- horrible experience).  

 

But I tread very carefully when it comes to speaking into another parent's situation.  A co op acquaintance just can't know!!!   

 

What I wish someone would've said to me that would've been truly helpful?  "It sounds like you're dealing with some issues and you're not sure what's normal.  What about some family counseling?"  Who doesn't need some hand holding on this ride?  If it leads to better parenting practices, great!  If it leads to an organic family approach to dealing with a behavioral/educational diagnosis, great!  But that leap from "I think we might have a problem, maybe?" to assessment felt so gigantic, you know?  I liken it to marital/relationship problems... in most situations we don't jump to thinking our spouse/SO requires a psychological eval.  But the climate these days is just that for kids.      

 

We chose assessment because it was quite literally the ONLY advice give to us by the internet and our pediatrician.  Now that we're in a different season (DS is doing very well), I can tell you our issues were 80 percent a family problem.  A parent with undiagnosed anxiety, parenting struggles with personality clashes, marital stress, that heck yes, played out in DSs behavior.  And when THOSE problems were addressed, our home felt incredibly different.  The issues I thought my son may have felt much smaller.  They were still there, but the context and our approach was entirely different. 

 

Just my $.02.   

 

 

 

 

 

 

[RootAnn]

I've seen both sides to this coin. I try to stay out of it. (To me, it is like when a mom you know constantly complains about a teacher/school and you suggest that they consider changing teachers/schools, or even homeschooling. Then, they go on the defensive. Best just shut up & nod your head at them. :driving:  Or, a homeschooling mom that isn't doing squat with her kids academically asks you if you think she should put her kids in school. Just keep one's mouth shut! If you gently suggest it might be best for the kids, she thinks you are not supportive & are putting down her ability to teach her own kids.  :leaving: )

 

We pursued vision therapy evals on our two oldest as they were very slow to learn to read (plus other red flags). Eldest got a dyslexia diagnosis from a Ph.D.  and all sorts of a sales pitch for $$$ therapy. Her reading had already started to take off (age 7) by the time we got the results. DD#2 was eval'd at a different place & got some therapy. She hated the whole process & said it made her feel like she was dumb. Lost us progress in almost everything academic due to her attitude toward the exercises & the therapist. Still fighting some of the things that process triggered in her. Whether the therapy did anything (positive) or not is questionable. She finally started reading fluently the summer she hit 10.

 

It really turned me off 'professionals' - which is bad now since we need to get some non-academic pysch help and I don't trust the system.

 

So, really, both sides of the coin are tarnished for me.

[EndOfOrdinary]

PREACH!

[PeterPan]

You know, I have pretty strong feelings about my kid and our situation... (We pursued assessment at age 8 for behavioral/impulse issues -- horrible experience).  

 

But I tread very carefully when it comes to speaking into another parent's situation.  A co op acquaintance just can't know!!!   

 

What I wish someone would've said to me that would've been truly helpful?  "It sounds like you're dealing with some issues and you're not sure what's normal.  What about some family counseling?"  Who doesn't need some hand holding on this ride?  If it leads to better parenting practices, great!  If it leads to an organic family approach to dealing with a behavioral/educational diagnosis, great!  But that leap from "I think we might have a problem, maybe?" to assessment felt so gigantic, you know?  I liken it to marital/relationship problems... in most situations we don't jump to thinking our spouse/SO requires a psychological eval.  But the climate these days is just that for kids.      

 

We chose assessment because it was quite literally the ONLY advice give to us by the internet and our pediatrician.  Now that we're in a different season (DS is doing very well), I can tell you our issues were 80 percent a family problem.  A parent with undiagnosed anxiety, parenting struggles with personality clashes, marital stress, that heck yes, played out in DSs behavior.  And when THOSE problems were addressed, our home felt incredibly different.  The issues I thought my son may have felt much smaller.  They were still there, but the context and our approach was entirely different. 

 

Just my $.02.   

The bolded there really just needed repeating.  I agree that it's offensive that someone who sees a child in a limited situation, who hasn't lived with them, who hasn't seen the breadth of what is going on, judges someone and says *I* know why you're having problems...  The thing you ran into though is harder.  Like if we're on the internet and someone comes on saying their kid is doing xyz, we might see what it is or might be and suggest something, but to *carry it over to the parent*, that is much trickier and stickier.  Maybe you can appreciate that problem?  MANY times a kid goes in for an eval for ADHD, ASD, whatever, and then psych gives a bonus diagnosis for a parent.  This is SO common.  And that's a really sticky point on the boards, because sometimes the parents are there and see it and sometimes they have NO CLUE, kwim?  

 

And yes, I totally agree that there's the whole dynamic.  Having been through both sides of that, where I got BLAMED for ds' behavior (he later got an ASD diagnosis), I don't know.  You definitely have to have the family help, and sometimes the eval helps you connect with the level of help you need.  Like really, counseling would have been ineffective for us, because we needed to move up to an OT and a behaviorist.  We've just got a serious situation with a lot of challenges.  But dd and just run of the mill ADHD, just sitting down with the psych, spending a few hours, getting things aired, getting us all on the same page, that went a long way.  

 

I think you should preach what is working for you and helping you, because it obviously is.  

[PeterPan]

 

We pursued vision therapy evals on our two oldest as they were very slow to learn to read (plus other red flags). Eldest got a dyslexia diagnosis from a Ph.D.  and all sorts of a sales pitch for $$$ therapy. Her reading had already started to take off (age 7) by the time we got the results. DD#2 was eval'd at a different place & got some therapy. She hated the whole process & said it made her feel like she was dumb. Lost us progress in almost everything academic due to her attitude toward the exercises & the therapist. Still fighting some of the things that process triggered in her. Whether the therapy did anything (positive) or not is questionable. She finally started reading fluently the summer she hit 10.

 

It really turned me off 'professionals' - which is bad now since we need to get some non-academic pysch help and I don't trust the system.

 

So, really, both sides of the coin are tarnished for me.

Ok, you know me, every curious.  :D  I did have a dev. optom. give me the "to us dyslexia is a vision problem" bunk, so I know that happens.  When they said do VT, were they prescribing it in that generic sense or did they actually see convergence issues?  I've wondered if the kids with dyslexia tend to have convergence issues that are resistant to VT, or if it's more that they're treating things that are crunchy (processing, etc.) because dyslexic kids just have things that are crunchy.  I don't know, just wondering.  

 

So far my ds has been fine on the screenings by his dev. optom. and he has his dyslexia label.  Obviously I'm watching it.  That's a really nasty thing to run into though.  I know dd's VT was a lot of reading, in reality, like reading single letters, what would be essentially rapid naming (a disability for dyslexics), etc.  I could totally see where that would be a problem if the VT *denies* the disability and just insists in some rigid way that there's only ONE WAY to work on this and they're going to do it that way OR ELSE.  Like it would have been intriguing to see if your dd would have done better with the skills if there had been no print involved.  Our place can do VT on toddlers, who obviously aren't reading at all yet.  Also, I think the reason my dd had such a rough go of it was it turned out she had a bit of at least one retained primitive reflex.  We didn't find it till I got her back in the pool this summer and watched her swim.  Then it was like whoa, why is her head doing that??  VT docs are NOT careful to screen for retained primitive reflexes, even though they clearly affect vision.  

 

Anyways, sorry you had such a rough go of it.  I'm definitely interested in the details, because odds are (given my ds' low tone, dyslexia, etc.) that vision issues are going to come to the front of the radar.  

[Bluegoat]

I agree with the others that it is largely a reaction to over-medicalization and early academics.

 

We had an experience of that when my eldest was an infant with regard to her weight.  She began to lose ground on her growth curve when she started to be mobile - quite typical for BF babies I've since found - and they sent me to a ped for assessment.  She ordered a bunch of tests which came back fine, and started counceling me about getting more calories into her.  I went for a few months, I was supposed to be fattening her up, but i didn't have much in the way of results. 

 

I enetually lost patience with her and said "Look, there is no evidence of a problem from your tests, she's doing everything normally, she looks just like I did and my dad did at that age, she eats well.  So I don't see an issue."  The peds response was "Well, kids who are underweight are more likely to have problems and deficits later."  Well, ok, Ms. major-logical fallacy and doctor who doesn't understand how to apply statistics to individuals." 

 

I think it was at that moment I realized what utter bs a lot of people who were supposed to be experts were spouting - they actually didn't really understand what they were talking about more than any snake-oil salesman.  And I've seem the very same approach with things like learning disabilities, behavior issues, you name it.

 

So - i think a big component is that people just don't trust professional disciplines to give them really very good information or to recognize problems in an effective way.

[PeterPan]

I don't think that's it, as much as I'd like to blame Gothard for it.

 

On the contrary, the anti-psychology movement in conservative/fundamentalist christian circles IS the reason people in those circles are not getting evals.  In the christian colleges they are telling kids in the psych and counseling classes "Don't use DSM terminology."  (That's a quote.) They bring Bible profs in to the education classes to tell them their ed psych text is bunk.  They preach from the pulpit and have their theologians write books saying ADHD DOES NOT EXIST.  The theology dept of a christian university let a grad student use that for his thesis and publish it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Then they offered to HIRE him!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

This IS what's going on and it's why I know person after person after person who either refused evals or who only got evals late in life when things were falling apart.  It's a system of teaching that denies kids services, calls EVERYTHING SIN, and blames the child (or parent) for EVERYTHING.  You don't want to focus enough or you wouldn't be ADHD.  You won't meditate on Scripture enough, and that's why you're having anxiety you 13 yo.  On and on.  Don't worry, this same community knows almost nothing about ASD and is just as willing to tell you you're a bad parent.  No, take that back.  We now have a book on "Christian parenting of ASD" endorsed by Ted Tripp (the guru of all things discipline in this community) saying we should HIT OUR ASD KIDS ON THE FACE.   :svengo:

 

So whatever.  I'm just telling you it's ENTRENCHED.  I know another situation where I said take the dc to a neuropsych, they need this level of intervention (these features), and the person said no, we'll only take them to this other psych *because they're a christian*.   :toetap05:   Nevermind qualifications, experience, length of testing needed.  Must agree on mode of baptism and theology.  Because it's true that if an unsaved man runs that CTOPP and BRIEF and screens for ASD and SLDs, he might just wave his hands over your kid and send them to hell or give you advice that screws up their brains forever and leaves them willful, rebellious sinners.  Nevermind they already WERE.   :smilielol5: Oh no, that secular psych will give you bad advice.  So even when they finally agree to go, they won't pick the most qualified person.  They'll drive way out of their way and bend over backward to make sure it's someone sorta from their stripe, someone who's willing to reinforce what they already think maybe and not give them bad bad advice like meds or CBT.

[Soror]

Paranoia is what I see here. Personally I've not seen diagnosis shopping (and I'm in the camp that finds that offensive since there aren't clear cut tests for a fair amount of these things- there is still some left to opinion). 

 

People say they don't want their kid hampered by a diagnosis but in the end hamper their child because they miss out on remediation and further accommodations that would help their child. They also operate under the idea that such things don't really exist. I mean ADHD is just kids that need more outside time or haven't been disciplined properly. I've even seen profoundly autistic children brushed aside without diagnosis due to not wanting to be on some government list, even when it was apparent from a very, very young age. I've been that person that said that behavior is not normal - I guess no one else had had the guts to do so- despite the profoundness of it but although I'm sure plenty would chastise me for it it helped them to stop denying it and stop punishing for things beyond control the child's control. So, if that makes me a bad guy so be it.(fwiw we are very good friends and I've only ever received thanks for being the one to speak up- it made them feel crazy that everyone else acted like it didn't exist)

 

I've been on the other side too. I've been the one to say adhd is just because we don't let kids play outside enough and then reality hit me upside the head. And although I could accomodate the spiderman antics we hit a wall with executive function deficits that were related unbeknownst to me. Now, we still have some issues that I've yet to have a good answer for, his last eval showed a failure in one area but no recommendations, because he is operating at or above grade level in all areas except spelling and unfortunately I live in an area where even the experts aren't always up to date so I'm stuck. I'm not diagnosis shopping. I'd like to find someone who has up to date knowledge because I want to make sure my son has just the same chances to succeed as anyone else. I don't want him labeled with anything and anyone who has gone through the process knows that despite the relief you experience at knowing that there is a reason your child is having difficulty there is a mourning process as well. I've not seen anyone happy they got a diagnosis but rather they are relieved to have answers and maybe have a way to help.

 

I would say as well that I celebrate diversity in a lot of things and we do a good chunk of our school in unconventional ways but that still doesn't eliminate all the problems. I can give him the gift of time to mature, as it is quite often there is a delay in brain maturation, but there are some things this will not help and for some time is no remedy at all, waiting only leads to more and more problems.

[shinyhappypeople]

You know, I have pretty strong feelings about my kid and our situation... (We pursued assessment at age 8 for behavioral/impulse issues -- horrible experience).  

 

But I tread very carefully when it comes to speaking into another parent's situation.  A co op acquaintance just can't know!!!  

 

What I wish someone would've said to me that would've been truly helpful?  "It sounds like you're dealing with some issues and you're not sure what's normal.  What about some family counseling?"  Who doesn't need some hand holding on this ride?  If it leads to better parenting practices, great!  If it leads to an organic family approach to dealing with a behavioral/educational diagnosis, great!  But that leap from "I think we might have a problem, maybe?" to assessment felt so gigantic, you know?  I liken it to marital/relationship problems... in most situations we don't jump to thinking our spouse/SO requires a psychological eval.  But the climate these days is just that for kids.      

 

We chose assessment because it was quite literally the ONLY advice give to us by the internet and our pediatrician.  Now that we're in a different season (DS is doing very well), I can tell you our issues were 80 percent a family problem.  A parent with undiagnosed anxiety, parenting struggles with personality clashes, marital stress, that heck yes, played out in DSs behavior.  And when THOSE problems were addressed, our home felt incredibly different.  The issues I thought my son may have felt much smaller.  They were still there, but the context and our approach was entirely different. 

 

Just my $.02.   

 

 

I hear you, but this isn't a very young child we're talking about.  What I'm describing is a mom who is ASKING for advice.  And she's laying out some pretty serious struggles for her 10 year old child.  Her child is a bright, sweet kid, but has deficits in certain "kindergarten-readiness" skills, and yet we still have people in the group saying, "late bloomer," and "they'll be fine."  Um... no.  not without an eval and intervention.  It is (slightly) possible that somehow things will click and she'll make up for lost time.  But at this point, at this age and with these skill deficits mom is playing with fire and needs to hear the truth in love not a bunch of ridiculous outlier stories.  

[City Mouse]

The biggest concern I have with this situation occurs when the homeschooling parent finally "gives up", decides that he/she doesn't have what is needed and decides to plop the 10 or 11 yr old non- reader in my school and wants us to fix everything overnight. (Our school starts at 4 th grade). When we can't fix everything overnight, their extremely below level kid is expected to do grade level work, it just reinforces the perception that public school is no good. I will admit that this is not a large percentage of people, but we have three such kids in 4th and one in 5th grade.

 

As the regular Ed teacher, even if I know what to do, I can't fix much with 30 minutes of tutoring twice a week, and to be perfectly honest, it seems that by that age SPED services are less about remediation and more about accommodations. (Not that I agree with that)

 

I have all kinds of respect for parents who choose a non-traditional educational path for their kids, but to then throw that child in the middle of the traditional system and expect a miracle is not realistic.

[PeterPan]

People say they don't want their kid hampered by a diagnosis but in the end hamper their child because they miss out on remediation and further accommodations that would help their child. 

This.

[Serenade]

We're deeply conflicted as a society about what we want out of early elementary education and what we think should be done about kids who hit road bumps and what we think those mean. And we see that play out with really conflicting stories about different experiences.

 

You hit the nail on the head, here.

 

I've liked all of your posts on this topic, but to me, this is the crux of the matter. 

 

I have often wondered how much the push to early learning has impacted the early labeling of kids.   If 40 years ago a child wasn't expected to read until he was 6 or 7, and today we expect that at age 5, or even 4,  does the child who can't read until 6 or 7 today really have a problem?  Or is it just that society's expectations for that child have changed?  

 

I often think of a little boy in my son's public Kindergarten class.  He was still four when school started, and he barely made the cut-off.  I overhead his mother telling the teacher that she was a little worried how he would do, because he was so young, but she needed to put him in school.  This little boy had a whole lot of problems in school, and I know he got in trouble a lot, and I'm guessing he was probably labeled or held back, because he had aides at times.  I always wondered that if he had waited a year to start Kindergarten, if he would have had a better experience because he was clearly too young for an academic Kindergarten.

[Ellie]

On the contrary, the anti-psychology movement in conservative/fundamentalist christian circles IS the reason people in those circles are not getting evals.  In the christian colleges they are telling kids in the psych and counseling classes "Don't use DSM terminology."  (That's a quote.) They bring Bible profs in to the education classes to tell them their ed psych text is bunk.  They preach from the pulpit and have their theologians write books saying ADHD DOES NOT EXIST.  The theology dept of a christian university let a grad student use that for his thesis and publish it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Then they offered to HIRE him!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

This IS what's going on and it's why I know person after person after person who either refused evals or who only got evals late in life when things were falling apart.  It's a system of teaching that denies kids services, calls EVERYTHING SIN, and blames the child (or parent) for EVERYTHING.  You don't want to focus enough or you wouldn't be ADHD.  You won't meditate on Scripture enough, and that's why you're having anxiety you 13 yo.  On and on.  Don't worry, this same community knows almost nothing about ASD and is just as willing to tell you you're a bad parent.  No, take that back.  We now have a book on "Christian parenting of ASD" endorsed by Ted Tripp (the guru of all things discipline in this community) saying we should HIT OUR ASD KIDS ON THE FACE.   :svengo:

 

So whatever.  I'm just telling you it's ENTRENCHED.  I know another situation where I said take the dc to a neuropsych, they need this level of intervention (these features), and the person said no, we'll only take them to this other psych *because they're a christian*.   :toetap05:   Nevermind qualifications, experience, length of testing needed.  Must agree on mode of baptism and theology.  Because it's true that if an unsaved man runs that CTOPP and BRIEF and screens for ASD and SLDs, he might just wave his hands over your kid and send them to hell or give you advice that screws up their brains forever and leaves them willful, rebellious sinners.  Nevermind they already WERE.   :smilielol5: Oh no, that secular psych will give you bad advice.  So even when they finally agree to go, they won't pick the most qualified person.  They'll drive way out of their way and bend over backward to make sure it's someone sorta from their stripe, someone who's willing to reinforce what they already think maybe and not give them bad bad advice like meds or CBT.

 

I agree that people *in those circles* might be opposed to evals. I'm just saying that not everyone who refuses the evals is a member of one of those cults groups.

[Bluegoat]

Paranoia is what I see here. Personally I've not seen diagnosis shopping (and I'm in the camp that finds that offensive since there aren't clear cut tests for a fair amount of these things- there is still some left to opinion). 

 

People say they don't want their kid hampered by a diagnosis but in the end hamper their child because they miss out on remediation and further accommodations that would help their child. They also operate under the idea that such things don't really exist. I mean ADHD is just kids that need more outside time or haven't been disciplined properly. I've even seen profoundly autistic children brushed aside without diagnosis due to not wanting to be on some government list, even when it was apparent from a very, very young age. I've been that person that said that behavior is not normal - I guess no one else had had the guts to do so- despite the profoundness of it but although I'm sure plenty would chastise me for it it helped them to stop denying it and stop punishing for things beyond control the child's control. So, if that makes me a bad guy so be it.(fwiw we are very good friends and I've only ever received thanks for being the one to speak up- it made them feel crazy that everyone else acted like it didn't exist)

 

I've been on the other side too. I've been the one to say adhd is just because we don't let kids play outside enough and then reality hit me upside the head. And although I could accomodate the spiderman antics we hit a wall with executive function deficits that were related unbeknownst to me. Now, we still have some issues that I've yet to have a good answer for, his last eval showed a failure in one area but no recommendations, because he is operating at or above grade level in all areas except spelling and unfortunately I live in an area where even the experts aren't always up to date so I'm stuck. I'm not diagnosis shopping. I'd like to find someone who has up to date knowledge because I want to make sure my son has just the same chances to succeed as anyone else. I don't want him labeled with anything and anyone who has gone through the process knows that despite the relief you experience at knowing that there is a reason your child is having difficulty there is a mourning process as well. I've not seen anyone happy they got a diagnosis but rather they are relieved to have answers and maybe have a way to help.

 

I would say as well that I celebrate diversity in a lot of things and we do a good chunk of our school in unconventional ways but that still doesn't eliminate all the problems. I can give him the gift of time to mature, as it is quite often there is a delay in brain maturation, but there are some things this will not help and for some time is no remedy at all, waiting only leads to more and more problems.

 

I think the problem is that it isn't just paranoia - we do have many kids being given inappropriate diagnosis, I don't think that is even controversial among professionals.  And we can look at other countries with different schooling practices - things like later starts and a lot more outdoor time - and see those kids are less often diagnosed with things like ADHD.

 

We know that our culture is very ready to try and medicate for problems of all kinds, we like those simple solutions.

 

It has the effect of calling into question all kids and all diagnoses though, which is very unfortunate.  People don't feel they can just trust experts, and don't always have the capacity to make a good judgement about who is being sensible and who is talking from their buttocks.

 

[wintermom]

I hear you, but this isn't a very young child we're talking about.  What I'm describing is a mom who is ASKING for advice.  And she's laying out some pretty serious struggles for her 10 year old child.  Her child is a bright, sweet kid, but has deficits in certain "kindergarten-readiness" skills, and yet we still have people in the group saying, "late bloomer," and "they'll be fine."  Um... no.  not without an eval and intervention.  It is (slightly) possible that somehow things will click and she'll make up for lost time.  But at this point, at this age and with these skill deficits mom is playing with fire and needs to hear the truth in love not a bunch of ridiculous outlier stories.  

 

I have some serious problems with a child's personal issues being casually discussed in a public forum. If a parent has concerns about their child, they should be privately dealt with a trusted, trained professional. There are privacy issues and rights of the child that would be violated.

[FairProspects]

You hit the nail on the head, here.

 

I've liked all of your posts on this topic, but to me, this is the crux of the matter. 

 

I have often wondered how much the push to early learning has impacted the early labeling of kids.   If 40 years ago a child wasn't expected to read until he was 6 or 7, and today we expect that at age 5, or even 4,  does the child who can't read until 6 or 7 today really have a problem?  Or is it just that society's expectations for that child have changed?  

 

I often think of a little boy in my son's public Kindergarten class.  He was still four when school started, and he barely made the cut-off.  I overhead his mother telling the teacher that she was a little worried how he would do, because he was so young, but she needed to put him in school.  This little boy had a whole lot of problems in school, and I know he got in trouble a lot, and I'm guessing he was probably labeled or held back, because he had aides at times.  I always wondered that if he had waited a year to start Kindergarten, if he would have had a better experience because he was clearly too young for an academic Kindergarten.

 

Unfortunately though for most of us who have been burned, I don't think we are talking about reading at 6 or 7. Clearly there are a fair number of those kids that are well within normal development. We're talking about 8-10 y.o.s who can't read simple sentences strung together or who clearly have dyslexic markers and someone pops out the story about their self-diagnosed dyslexic kid who couldn't read until they picked up Harry Potter at age 11 and then went on to become a National Merit finalist and Rhodes Scholar without any interventions or remediation. Having watched 2 dyslexics at home daily and seeing many more through our various homeschool communities, I can tell you from experience that is NOT the typical trajectory or outcome of an unremediated dyslexic.

[Tsuga]

I agree with the others that it is largely a reaction to over-medicalization and early academics.

 

We had an experience of that when my eldest was an infant with regard to her weight. She began to lose ground on her growth curve when she started to be mobile - quite typical for BF babies I've since found - and they sent me to a ped for assessment. She ordered a bunch of tests which came back fine, and started counceling me about getting more calories into her. I went for a few months, I was supposed to be fattening her up, but i didn't have much in the way of results.

 

I enetually lost patience with her and said "Look, there is no evidence of a problem from your tests, she's doing everything normally, she looks just like I did and my dad did at that age, she eats well. So I don't see an issue." The peds response was "Well, kids who are underweight are more likely to have problems and deficits later." Well, ok, Ms. major-logical fallacy and doctor who doesn't understand how to apply statistics to individuals."

 

I think it was at that moment I realized what utter bs a lot of people who were supposed to be experts were spouting - they actually didn't really understand what they were talking about more than any snake-oil salesman. And I've seem the very same approach with things like learning disabilities, behavior issues, you name it.

 

So - i think a big component is that people just don't trust professional disciplines to give them really very good information or to recognize problems in an effective way.

 

Phone quote sorry!

[momma2three]

These threads come up every once and a while, and it really bothers me that the reaction is the exact same thing that the person is complaining about.

 

Original person: I know a couple extreme cases, and it's awful to watch and they drive me crazy!

A bunch of people: This is just like my case, which I will describe, and which isn't an extreme case at all, and kinda only tangentially related to what OP is upset about.  Are you saying that I'm a bad person/mother/homeschooler?

Mob: OP is clearly a terrible busybody and says that a bunch of people are are terrible people/mothers/homeschoolers.

 

I find it pretty upsetting, tbh.  It seems pretty clear that OP isn't talking about 6 year olds who can't read at a high school level yet, or about over diagnoses, or about unrealistic expectations.

 

And as someone who had 2 kids with delays, who was told by everyone that it was no big deal, that I was an overbearing helicopter mommy, that "that's just how boys are," that I was just comparing him to my older daughter and needed to let him develop at his own rate, and a bunch of not-actually-true stories about what a late bloomer Einstein was, I get really angry when I hear people say that discounting and disbelieving aren't actually the norm when children are clearly having issues, and that it's no big deal to enable situations where earlier identification and appropriate therapy will help.  I'm really glad that for my 3rd child, who also had similar delays, I ignored the people who rolled their eyes, and said "It's just because she has 2 older siblings to do all the talking for her!", and got her the therapy she needed right away.  It made a huge difference, I think.

[Minerva]

These threads come up every once and a while, and it really bothers me that the reaction is the exact same thing that the person is complaining about.

 

Original person: I know a couple extreme cases, and it's awful to watch and they drive me crazy!

A bunch of people: This is just like my case, which I will describe, and which isn't an extreme case at all, and kinda only tangentially related to what OP is upset about.  Are you saying that I'm a bad person/mother/homeschooler?

Mob: OP is clearly a terrible busybody and says that a bunch of people are are terrible people/mothers/homeschoolers.

 

I find it pretty upsetting, tbh.  It seems pretty clear that OP isn't talking about 6 year olds who can't read at a high school level yet, or about over diagnoses, or about unrealistic expectations.

 

And as someone who had 2 kids with delays, who was told by everyone that it was no big deal, that I was an overbearing helicopter mommy, that "that's just how boys are," that I was just comparing him to my older daughter and needed to let him develop at his own rate, and a bunch of not-actually-true stories about what a late bloomer Einstein was, I get really angry when I hear people say that discounting and disbelieving aren't actually the norm when children are clearly having issues, and that it's no big deal to enable situations where earlier identification and appropriate therapy will help.  I'm really glad that for my 3rd child, who also had similar delays, I ignored the people who rolled their eyes, and said "It's just because she has 2 older siblings to do all the talking for her!", and got her the therapy she needed right away.  It made a huge difference, I think.

Yes!

 

Thank you for saying this. 

[SparklyUnicorn]

I don't know.  I mostly encounter caution when recommending anything.  Meaning, people say stuff like, it's possibly nothing, but you should look into it just in case.  I've also encountered people who think that every slight variation indicates a problem needing intervention.  I remember sitting among a bunch of mothers at a gymnastics class as they each discussed which services their kids were getting at school.  It was a given that one's k aged kid was getting extra services.  One mother talked about pulling her preschooler to "homeschool" him because he couldn't sit still.  Because ya know, it's so unusual for a 3/4 year old to not be able to sit still for long periods of time (cough).

 

One of those situations where, when it doubt check it out.  If you ask people with no real BTDT, they can't tell you what the deal is. 

 

 

 

 

[Heathermomster]

OP, I hear you. I get very frustrated too.

 

Over nine years ago, I approached the local ps system about helping DS and they were about as unhelpful as could be. With about 40% of Caucasians and about 20% of minorities reading proficiently, the system was not knocking down any doors to assist my family. I have never witnessed a rushed diagnosis. In fact, I met a high school math teacher from NYC who strongly suspected a maths disability with one remedial student, and he was told specifically not to mention the possibility of an SLD. I recently met a reading specialist from my district who had taught for over 20 years and only recently learned about O-G style remediation. Like, "Hello!" What kind of ignorance is that? This gal paid for her own O-G training because the district wouldn't.

 

Within my limited association with homeschooling community, I have spoken to fearful parents and have given them resources and answered questions about testing. I have been told by moms that they would never do such a thing as testing. When asked, I have mentioned my son's use of accommodations such as a keyboard or audio book. Some have remarked that my suggestions were positively unthinkable. This a free country, and I am OK with that. They ask, I tell, and they are free to either use or discard my input. At the end of the day, I am accountable to my family.

 

Three moms actually took their kids to an np and received evaluations. They were very hush hush and told me later what they had done. There is fear of the unknown, and all that we can do is try to assuage concerns and acknowledge that there is no guarantee of testing outcomes. I am encouraged by the fact that more families in my neighborhood are seeking helps.