Asperger’s

TRH Goes To D.C. – Part Two


PublicSchoolOptions.org
MY STORY – MY VOICE
by Sherri Caldwell, Parent Advocate

Also see: The Rebel Housewife Goes To Washington DC (Part One)

My husband and I raised three children in Midtown Atlanta, in Atlanta Public Schools since 1999. We graduated two successfully, in 2013 and 2015, amidst funding crises, re-zoning battles, cheating and accreditation scandals.

Our older son graduated from Grady High School in 2013. He was the lead cadet of the Grady JROTC. He enlisted in the Navy from high school, and is now serving in Guam (8000 miles away from home).

Our daughter graduated in May (2015) from the Biomedical Science Academy at Grady High School. She is starting her Nursing Degree at Georgia Southern University in Statesboro, Georgia, in just a few weeks.

Although our older children made it through our neighborhood public schools just fine, through all the ups and downs with Atlanta Public Schools over the last decade, it has been a very different journey for our third child.

Our youngest son, Tiger, just turned 15. He is going into 10th grade with Georgia Connections Academy, a virtual public charter school. Tiger was diagnosed with Asperger’s/Autism Spectrum Disorder at the end of 3rd grade, after struggling in Atlanta Public Schools from Day One. Our neighborhood public schools were never a good fit for him. He is a brilliant kid, but autism is characterized by anxiety, sensory overload, social challenges and difficulties with communication; oftentimes, he was bored and frustrated, which could lead to crises and meltdowns. In my experience, Asperger’s/ASD can be more of a Superpower than a disability, but our public schools are not yet prepared to handle this exceptionality.

In the middle of an incredibly difficult 4th grade year, just before Winter Break, I received a postcard with the simple question, “Is your child happy in school?” I broke down and cried. No, he was miserable. Every single day. By the end of the break, we had transferred him to Georgia Cyber Academy, the only public virtual charter school option we had at the time in Georgia. I think that postcard was heaven-sent.

Tiger has been in and out of Atlanta Public Schools– he wanted to try again, in 6th grade and 9th grade, with his older brother and sister, but he prefers to go back to the virtual option to finish high school and start on early college through Georgia’s Dual Enrollment Program.

The virtual schools in Georgia — Georgia Cyber Academy, Georgia Connections Academy, and Georgia Provost Academy — are online public charter schools; not private schools, not home school. Students have the same curriculum, attendance, and testing requirements as their counterparts in the brick & mortar public schools. Textbooks and materials are provided, and Title I students are eligible for free computers and internet connection. Each student has a primary teacher or team of teachers (middle & high school), including Special Education and IEP services, and they attend live classes online. Parents (or other designated adults) serve as Learning Coaches, and work with the teachers and the school to support the student. Although they are primarily online at home, cyber students enjoy a wealth of opportunities for social interaction, both with school — sports, field trips, study groups, in-person events and activities — and extracurricular.

Virtual school has given Tiger the opportunity to come into his own — to succeed, to develop his strengths, to explore his own interests, to build confidence and skills toward a bright future in technology/cybersecurity: toward INDEPENDENCE.

It is essential to have options and support when the local public school is not a good fit for your child — public school options that are accessible to families who cannot afford private school.

I went to Washington D.C. with PublicSchoolOptions.org to protect and promote school choice and public school options for all students. As another issue in the mix, how grateful we would be if federal funding followed our child to the public school of choice– the school that works for him, when the neighborhood school does not.

PublicSchoolOptions.org is an alliance of parents that supports and defends parents’ rights to access the best public school options for their children. The Coalition supports the creation of public school options, including charter schools, online schools, magnet schools, open enrollment policies and other innovative education programs. Additionally, we advocate for free and equal access without restrictions to these public schools for all children.

Autism Awareness: 250 Words

This is Our Autism (in 150 words):

Our 14-year-old son was diagnosed with Asperger’s/Autism Spectrum Disorder when he was nine years old. Our Autism is a Superpower, although it definitely has its (social, sensory and communication) challenges.

Our son is brilliant, but quirky; interesting and extraordinary. He has a great sense of humor, but he is very shy. He is a techie genius–loves computers, technology, programming and video games, and lights up about his strengths and interests. He is extremely helpful with anything computer-related.

We worry about our Autism future and independence. The world does not always appreciate quirky. We know, with the right encouragement, resources and support, with a pathway, our son will be completely self-sufficient. We know he fits in the tech world, that he will be happy and productive in a technical, creative environment.

We often worry about how to help him get there.

99(+1) Words about LiveCode, Indiegogo and Empowering Autism Through Coding:

THIS. This is what we need, for our techies with Autism: LiveCode, with support from international autism organizations, will provide an extensive online training program to help young adults on the autism spectrum develop employment skills in programming.

I encourage anyone to consider this worthy project for donation to support Autism. Please share the message and encourage your friends, family and network to get involved. Contribute and participate, if you have or know a young person on/near the autism spectrum. $99 is a very small contribution toward independence.

(Thanks!)

Also see: CNNMoney: Teaching Autistic Kids to Code


Autism Awareness – For My Teenager


Autism Awareness – For My Teenager
by Sherri Caldwell – Asperger’s Parent, Author and Learning Coach

I am Aware. As a teacher, as a writer and researcher, as Mom to a brilliant 14-year-old son diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome six years ago (now included as an Autism Spectrum Disorder/ASD), I am hyper-aware of the differences, challenges, and unique blessings of Autism. It is a vast spectrum of ability and disability, and there is enormous controversy and fierce debate within the Autism community, and those trying to help. I am Aware.

At first, I didn’t understand how closely we were aligned with the members of the Autism community. After the initial four-year struggle through public school, after a cursory diagnosis of ADHD and two years testing medications and behavioral strategies, none of which worked to resolve anxiety, frustration, regressive communication and social skills, and spectacular school-day-ending meltdowns… after all of that, my son was diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome. Boom.

“Is that a degenerative condition?”
We naively and fearfully asked, when it was first suggested by the school psychologist, after several years of exhaustive evaluation. I think she may have mentioned it was on the Autistic Spectrum, but at the time, the roaring of the ocean in my head drowned out everything else, along with any clear memory of the other details of that meeting. From there, I started researching. I read everything I could get my hands, library access or internets on about Asperger’s Syndrome, and how this fit my son, how it explained so much, and how it changed our lives, as we came to understand our brilliant, but quirky and extraordinary kid.

Six years later, our then-little third grader is a six-foot, fourteen-year-old ninth grader in high school. He has been in and out of public and private schools, both traditional brick and mortar and virtual public charter school online at home. He has done well– he is an A/B student, but he does not like school. Our current educational system, even with Special Education and IEP/504 services, does not have the flexibility, understanding, training, resources or support to help these amazing kids succeed on their own terms, embracing their tremendous strengths and abilities.

In many ways, we celebrate Asperger’s/ASD as a Superpower. This kid is scary smart: technical, logical, detail-oriented, he is amazing on the computer and with anything to do with technology. He is a gamer, of course. He has a great sense of humor, an insatiable curiosity, intense focus and fascination with a wide variety of topics, especially technology. He interacts online with friends and acquaintances all over the world. He likes structure and routine, he likes peace and quiet, and while he generally prefers to be safe at home, he will venture out for family adventures and activities. He likes going out for meals, and road trips, and he really, really likes vacations on big cruise ships. In his element, I tend to forget about the Asperger’s, what some people call High-Functioning Autism. But it only takes a few minutes in the confusion and chaos of the outside world, for his differences, his anxiety and communication challenges, to become painfully obvious. This is Autism, out in the real world.

This is his future. We know our child has the potential for independent living; he will be fine, on his own terms. But with structured support and training in an area in which he is truly gifted and highly interested—he could be the next Bill Gates, or Steve Jobs, the Facebook guy or Elon Musk. He is a techie geek with some social deficits.

What my son — and others like him — needs to succeed, to find his passion, develop his career possibilities, and achieve happiness and independence, is an opportunity to learn valuable skills in a supportive environment, structured to embrace his strengths.

We have an amazing opportunity to provide job skills, career potential and future independence in a highly supportive environment, with the technology company Live Code and their April 2015 Indiegogo campaign, Empower Individuals With Autism Through Coding:

Together with LiveCode, the National Autistic Society, Specialisterne & Autism Initiatives, our goal is to train 3000 young adults on the autism spectrum, across the world, how to code. We will provide an extensive training program with specialist support to help these young adults develop employment skills or gain self-employment in the app business.

I hope you will join me in supporting Empowering Autism Through Coding in every way you can: by donating to support Autism; by sharing the message and encouraging your friends, family, and network to get involved; by participating, if you have or know a young person on/near the Autism Spectrum.


Asperger’s Syndrome & A New Normal (2010)

Sunday, April 18, 2010

Logging into my blog account today, I was shocked to discover…
it has been many weeks, months, in fact, since I have finished and published a blog article on RebelHousewife.com. Oh, I’ve started many thoughts, on paper, on post-its, in my head, in TextEdit and Word. There are several waiting patiently on the blog as “unpublished” — wonderful starts about kids, Aspergers Syndrome, homeschooling (kind of), the teenager, the learner’s permit (driving?!) and banishing the XBOX 360 from our home. There are others about books, events, recipes and cost-cutting strategies for family financial survival in tough times.

I seem to have a problem, of late, finishing what I start. I’ve never been a non-closer before and yet here I am…

It has been an eventful couple of months.

I actually logged on today to write a thought about Iceland and Vanity Fair and NPR, volcanoes and economic meltdowns and such, only to make this horrifying discovery. I am going to finish this, and fix the Twitter link on the website and then maybe I can get back to that thought about Iceland…

And maybe that’s the answer. Why can’t I finish anything I start lately? Maybe it’s because, every time I start something, something else comes along to take my attention and focus. The constant distractions of life with a busy entrepreneurial husband, three children and Mocha-the-dog. I don’t work outside the home. I can’t imagine how I would. We no longer have the big house or yard to manage, having downsized to our midtown condo and our one-mile live-work-school-play radius (and loving it!). What excuse could I possibly have to be such a slacker?

We started this school year with three kids in three different schools: 15yo Puberty Angst Boy in 9th grade at the high school; 12yo Drama Queen in 7th grade at the middle school; and 9yo ADHD Phenom started the year in 4th grade at the brand-new elementary school.

Ah, there’s another clue to what’s happened: Turns out, our very bright, very ACTIVE 9yo ADHD Phenom is not ADHD at all (okay, well, that’s a whole ‘nother start that I do need to finish, kind of controversial). He has Asperger’s Syndrome, which is high-functioning Autism, so he is our 9yo Aspy Phenom. Not a lot of people know what that is, or have any idea what Asperger’s Syndrome is (we didn’t), so I have some explaining and education to do on that point, I know.

But before I can explain, educate or crusade for a better understanding of Asperger’s Syndrome, I needed to understand it better myself and live with it for a while.

* * An aside: If you are at all interested in Asperger’s Syndrome, please read the wonderful letter Especially for Grandparents of Children With Asperger Syndrome by Nancy Mucklow. It is appropriate and highly relevant for anybody close to or in the life of a child diagnosed with Asperger’s.

So what happened next: In January, we brought the 9yo Aspy Phenom home. The brand-new public school was on a shake-down cruise, getting all of their new-school processes, programs and procedures worked out. We were on our own shake-down cruise, trying to figure out and adjust to this new information and really-quite-remarkable aspect of our son — finally, we had understandings and strategies that were actually working and helping him, whereas the ADD strategies — including the medication he was on for more than two years — never served him well. The school couldn’t keep up, couldn’t meet his needs academically or provide the structure and stability he needed.

He now attends school from home, although he is not technically a “home schooler.” We enrolled him in 4th grade in the Georgia Cyber Academy (GCA), an online public charter school supported by the Georgia Department of Education. As a public school, the schedule and curriculum is established and GCA provided everything we need to attend school from home: books, workbooks, novels, math manipulatives, even all of the materials needed for science experiments! We have a teacher we work with, mostly online, who monitors progress and administers his IEP (yet another complicated issue for another time). We have an abundance of opportunities for social interaction, with field trips and meet-ups and activities all over, all the time.

And there it is: I haven’t been able to finish a thought in months, or devote the time I used to have to lose myself in reading, researching, writing, reviewing or blogging, because I am teaching and experiencing the 4th grade all over again with my 9yo Aspy Phenom. It has been amazing — not EASY, as this has been a HUGE adjustment for both of us and for the entire family. It has been a very challenging transition, but worth it to have the time and opportunity to work with and get to know this brilliant child.

Now then, that’s not such a bad reason to be a slacker, after all.
I’m glad I was able to finish that thought.
I am hoping there will be more!

The Rebel Housewife on Asperger Syndrome

I published a two-part article about Asperger Syndrome on The Rebel Housewife blog because I needed to write this information for my son’s school and also to provide a resource for other parents and teachers. When I first heard the term Asperger’s, I had no idea what it was. My first question: “Is it a degenerative condition?” (No, it isn’t!)

I had a lot to learn, as my son’s diagnosis was confirmed several months later and my personal investigative journey into Autism and Asperger Syndrome began. I read everything I could get my hands or Internets on; I talked and worked with other parents, doctors and experts. I took my son out of an elementary school that wasn’t working for him and home schooled (through Georgia Cyber Academy) for two years.

I have since come to see Asperger’s as a gift — a unique personality: quirky, but brilliant. I see Asperger’s as a child, with love, support and guidance, destined for an amazing future, someone who can and will change the world.

Not easy, though. Never easy.

I like to think challenges build character, strength and resilience. I have a lot of faith that will prove to be true.

Although I have loved home schooling with my Aspie Phenom, as he enters 6th grade and Middle School, we both need more regular interaction with other kids and supportive adults. He is going back to public school and I have my hopes and concerns, optimism and pessimism in equal measure.

I needed to share my experience and what I have learned with my son’s teachers and the people who will be working with him. I learned before that not a lot of people in our schools know much, if anything, about ASD/Asperger Syndrome, so I have tried to share some information, without deluge of technical detail or information overload.

Feel free to copy, link, reference, share and use this information as a brief introduction to ASD/Asperger Syndrome from an amateur expert. I hope it helps!

Part 1 – Helping Students With ASD/Asperger’s Succeed
Part 2 – 10 Easy Ways to Help ASD/Asperger Students Succeed

Helping Students With ASD/Asperger’s Succeed – For Teachers

Helping Student With ASD/Asperger’s Succeed – For Teachers


By Sherri Caldwell, Asperger’s Parent, Researcher, Author and Learning Coach
For more information, contact Sherri@rebelhousewife.com.

Asperger Syndrome is a neurological difference and is classified as an Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). Every child is unique and Autism is a spectrum with wide variation. In my experience, Asperger’s kids are brilliant: sometimes scary-smart, logical and honest, with intense concentration, ability to focus and specialized interests, often in highly-technical areas: computers, science, math and defined aspects of history (i.e. WWII).

With so much brain specialization, it should not be a surprise that ASD/Asperger’s kids (also known as “Aspies”) can exhibit deficiencies in other areas:

  • Emotional immaturity: Although often academically advanced, emotional maturity — their understanding of self and others — is typically about 3/4 their age: A 12-year-old Aspie behaves and responds to the world at a 9-year-old level.
  • Social interaction/trust: A marked characteristic of Autism is extreme inner focus; kids seem to be preoccupied in their own little world much of the time. They have great difficulty seeing anyone else’s perspective or showing empathy. These kids must learn social awareness and interactions that we often take for granted.
  • Sensory issues: Aspies see and experience the world very differently. Their five senses seem to be constantly under attack and overwhelm from noise, chaos, visual stimulation, touch, texture, hot/cold, etc.
  • ANXIETY: Aspies have a high need for routine, structure and consistency.

Key areas ASD kids need to work on and need help with are flexibility, managing frustration/anxiety, social skills & interaction. They are easily overwhelmed, which can lead to dramatic meltdowns, from not knowing what to expect or how to respond and react in an often (to them) hostile and confusing environment.

Another marked characteristic of ASD/Asperger’s is the inability to look other people in the eye, which can be very frustrating to teachers, but should not be, if you understand why. As an extraordinary 13-year-old Aspie* author explains: “Sometimes it is too hard to concentrate on listening and looking at the same time.” The sensory overwhelm of trying to process and understand both visual and auditory cues at the same time is extremely challenging. So they listen. Eye contact improves as the Aspie child learns to trust the person who is speaking.
* Luke Jackson – Freaks, Geeks & Asperger Syndrome: A User Guide to Adolescence.

Supportive adults empower kids — not only to recognize and manage challenges, but to value individual strengths and very special abilities, too. The key to success for any child is self-improvement through self-knowledge and learned strategies for self-management and interaction. ASD kids get upset very easily and recovery can be difficult. Very often, they simply need a break from the constant bombardment of sensory stimuli and confusion — a quiet place to regroup. Most of all, they need supportive adults to accept them, love them and help them figure themselves out at school and in the world.

See Part 2: 10 Easy Ways to Help ASD/Asperger Students Succeed

Sherri Caldwell is an amateur Asperger’s expert, with extensive personal experience as a parent, researcher, writer and teacher with an Asperger’s son, diagnosed at age 9.
For more information, contact Sherri@rebelhousewife.com.

Part 2 – 10 Easy Ways to Help ASD/Asperger Students Succeed

10 Easy Ways to Help ASD/Asperger Students Succeed

By Sherri Caldwell, Asperger’s Parent, Author and Learning Coach

See Part 1 – Helping Students With ASD/Asperger’s Succeed

  1. ASD kids respond to positive reinforcement and calm re-direction, non-verbal cues as much as possible. The student will be more successful if seated near the teacher and away from distractions, where he can be quietly re-focused or re-directed through proximity, touch or a signal.
  2. Silent signal/understanding when a break is needed – designated safe place and person(s) to visit when necessary.
  3. Sarcasm, humiliation, shame, anger and physical restraint are counter-productive and will escalate a meltdown.
  4. Transitions and unstructured time can be difficult, especially if sensory overload (noise & confusion of cafeteria, hallway, etc.). ASD kids need structure. Use written schedules, early warnings & time to transition.
  5. Offer clear, limited choices and clear consequences: “When you (behavior/task)…then (consequence/reward).”
  6. Break things down to one clear and specific instruction at a time. Written directions or checklists are helpful (also maps), if they are not overly complicated. Aspies will forget a long list of verbal instructions and get easily distracted and off-track, which leads to everyone’s frustration.
  7. Allow movement in/around classroom without distracting other students. Be sensitive to sensory needs and challenges. Aspies can be quirky, but there is usually a method to their madness, so to speak. Repetitive movement or behaviors (often called “stimming”) are self-calming and should be accommodated (ignored), whenever possible, or re-directed, if necessary.
  8. Use purposeful missions – jobs, tasks, assignments, responsibilities, especially making use of special skills, talents and interests. (Chances are, your Aspie student will be able to help you and other students with computer and IT issues!)
  9. Ignore minor emotional outbursts (verbal). Initial response to anything/everything is NO due to anxiety; calmly move forward. Student will usually go right along after initial verbal outburst.
  10. Be direct: “You are (making me happy/sad, helping me, annoying me, making me angry, etc.) because (specific reason or example).” Aspies don’t generally read facial expressions and they are not very good at subtlety. Let them know what you are feeling, help them identify emotional states and the reasons. Adults must stay calm, supportive and positive to be most effective.

    Sherri Caldwell is an amateur Asperger’s expert, with extensive personal experience as a parent, researcher, writer and teacher with an Asperger’s son diagnosed at age 9.
    For more information, contact Sherri@rebelhousewife.com.

Camp Mommy: 2010

July 2010 – Forgot to mention there is a NEW Rebel Review up:
BOOK GROUP REVIEWS [new feature!]: The Lost City by Henry Shukman

The summer is ambling along at a fairly quick pace, for summer. The kids are all three active and busy in various activities and we are actually going on a REAL vacation this year (as opposed to tent camping in Talladega, Alabama and our other “value-conscious” family vacation misadventures over the past couple summers!): We have rented a condo in Cocoa Beach for the 4th of July holiday – woo hoo!

Now that the kids are older — 15yo Puberty Angst Boy, 13yo Drama Queen and 10yo ADHD Phenom — Camp Mommy is not as active or in demand. That’s a good thing, on the whole, but still…I kind of miss my cute little campers. The 15yo is either sleeping; on the couch watching TV; on the computer playing World of Warcraft (sometimes both at the same time!); off with his friends; or, last week, away at Army Camp at Fort Benning, Georgia, part of his JROTC program in school, which he loves. The 13yo has herself hooked up with a great job this summer, as a Summer Camp Counselor for a day-camp program in Piedmont Park, which is right across the street, so she, too, is fairly independent and over Camp Mommy. Fortunately, I still have the 10yo, my brilliant, quirky, very bright, very ACTIVE boy. He still loves and appreciates his Mom! (The others do, too, I know.)

The Young One and I have been spending most of the summer at the Georgia Tech CRC (Campus Recreation Center) which is, in a word, amazing! We are very fortunate to enjoy membership and use of the facility (hubby is hooked up like that, since his company is affiliated with the Georgia Tech ATDC – Advanced Technology Development Center). The 10yo doesn’t much care for summer camp programs or crowds, sensory overload in general. He *loves* the CRC, especially the indoor recreational pool, with a big ol’ waterslide (!!!) and, perhaps even more, the separate Olympic Competition Pool & Diving Well (built for the 1996 Summer Olympics hosted in Atlanta), where he can dive to his heart’s content from the low & high diving boards. He loves to dive, go figure. He’s also savvy enough to “join” (kind of) the summer camp program for kids at Georgia Tech — timing our visits to the recreational pool during swim time, so he can play in the pool with a huge group of kids — or not, if he’s not feeling it — and he can leave anytime, go over to the diving well and have the place to himself after the campers leave. Genius. So we spend hours at the CRC and it is wonderful. (There are adult-only hot tubs at both pools and comfortable lounge chairs and a sundeck at the recreational pool — excellent for reading!)

It’s a good summer, 2010, after a season or several of change. I guess that’s what Life is all about, after all.

Asperger’s Syndrome & A New Normal

Logging into my blog account today, I was shocked to discover…
it has been many weeks, months, in fact, since I have finished and published a blog article on RebelHousewife.com. Oh, I’ve started many thoughts, on paper, on post-its, in my head, in TextEdit and Word. There are several waiting patiently on the blog as “unpublished” — wonderful starts about kids, Aspergers Syndrome, homeschooling (kind of), the teenager, the learner’s permit (driving?!) and banishing the XBOX 360 from our home. There are others about books, events, recipes and cost-cutting strategies for family financial survival in tough times.

I seem to have a problem, of late, finishing what I start. I’ve never been a non-closer before and yet here I am…

It has been an eventful couple of months.

I actually logged on today to write a thought about Iceland and Vanity Fair and NPR, volcanoes and economic meltdowns and such, only to make this horrifying discovery. I am going to finish this, and fix the Twitter link on the website and then maybe I can get back to that thought about Iceland…

And maybe that’s the answer. Why can’t I finish anything I start lately? Maybe it’s because, every time I start something, something else comes along to take my attention and focus. The constant distractions of life with a busy entrepreneurial husband, three children and Mocha-the-dog. I don’t work outside the home. I can’t imagine how I would. We no longer have the big house or yard to manage, having downsized to our midtown condo and our one-mile live-work-school-play radius (and loving it!). What excuse could I possibly have to be such a slacker?

We started this school year with three kids in three different schools: 15yo Puberty Angst Boy in 9th grade at the high school; 12yo Drama Queen in 7th grade at the middle school; and 9yo ADHD Phenom started the year in 4th grade at the brand-new elementary school.

Ah, there’s another clue to what’s happened: Turns out, our very bright, very ACTIVE 9yo ADHD Phenom is not ADHD at all (okay, well, that’s a whole ‘nother start that I do need to finish, kind of controversial). He has Asperger’s Syndrome, which is high-functioning Autism, so he is our 9yo Aspy Phenom. Not a lot of people know what that is, or have any idea what Asperger’s Syndrome is (we didn’t), so I have some explaining and education to do on that point, I know.

But before I can explain, educate or crusade for a better understanding of Asperger’s Syndrome, I needed to understand it better myself and live with it for a while.

* * An aside: If you are at all interested in Asperger’s Syndrome, please read the wonderful letter Especially for Grandparents of Children With Asperger Syndrome by Nancy Mucklow. It is appropriate and highly relevant for anybody close to or in the life of a child diagnosed with Asperger’s.

So what happened next: In January, we brought the 9yo Aspy Phenom home. The brand-new public school was on a shake-down cruise, getting all of their new-school processes, programs and procedures worked out. We were on our own shake-down cruise, trying to figure out and adjust to this new information and really-quite-remarkable aspect of our son — finally, we had understandings and strategies that were actually working and helping him, whereas the ADD strategies — including the medication he was on for more than two years — never served him well. The school couldn’t keep up, couldn’t meet his needs academically or provide the structure and stability he needed.

He now attends school from home, although he is not technically a “home schooler.” We enrolled him in 4th grade in the Georgia Cyber Academy (GCA), an online public charter school supported by the Georgia Department of Education. As a public school, the schedule and curriculum is established and GCA provided everything we need to attend school from home: books, workbooks, novels, math manipulatives, even all of the materials needed for science experiments! We have a teacher we work with, mostly online, who monitors progress and administers his IEP (yet another complicated issue for another time). We have an abundance of opportunities for social interaction, with field trips and meet-ups and activities all over, all the time.

And there it is: I haven’t been able to finish a thought in months, or devote the time I used to have to lose myself in reading, researching, writing, reviewing or blogging, because I am teaching and experiencing the 4th grade all over again with my 9yo Aspy Phenom. It has been amazing — not EASY, as this has been a HUGE adjustment for both of us and for the entire family. It has been a very challenging transition, but worth it to have the time and opportunity to work with and get to know this brilliant child.

Now then, that’s not such a bad reason to be a slacker, after all.
I’m glad I was able to finish that thought.
I am hoping there will be more!