#school can't

[littleprincessfawn]

Biggggg post about my kiddo and his troubles with school

Okay my kiddo is home today (school refusal) 😭

(Oh I wanna say a little about it, apparently. )

My kid has been struggling with school refusal, being unable to get in to school or having panic attacks when there, for a few years now. It's getting to the point I'm close to pulling him out to homeschool him. School refusal is very misunderstood. I used to have days as a kid where I didn't want to go to school and chucked a sickie. But with school refusal it's way more than not wanting to go to school, it's like a huge dread, like anxiety or panic attacks I think maybe, and it's very complex.

Here's a link to a great doco about it which mirrors my experiences:

(More words under the cut)

Later in the week I'll be going in to have a chat with the school and see what help they can offer, apparently they do have things they can do e.g. counseling/psychology sessions? The old inclusion support teacher has moved on to another school and the new one is actually really proactive and communicating with me and my kids dad and trying to help find a solution, for which I am VERY grateful because yes I will homeschool if needed but gosh it would be better for my child in SO many ways if we could make school work for him! Let's at least try something before throwing in the towel, and the old inclusion teacher seemed to just kinda... shrug and then the other teachers said I needed to be more positive and made out everything was my fault like no, my child is curled up a ball on the floor whimpering and repeating 'I hate school, I hate this, I hate everything, I can't, I can't do this anymore, I can't do this anymore,' that's not a me thing, that's an autistic and struggling kid thing.

I loved school as a kid (it was my refuge from an abusive childhood) despite being bullied as a kid, so it hurts that the school staff sometimes are trying to treat me like an enemy rather than work together as a team for the good of my kid. This new inclusion teacher seems great so I'm holding hope out. My kids classroom teacher this year is also amazing, but obviously my child needs extra help that currently he's just not getting. She's a great teacher though, she mentioned to me her main goal is improving his confidence which I was thinking YES this is the way. She gets it.

My kid is incredibly bright, is autistic, is extremely gifted in mathematics, has an IQ of 146, struggles a LOT with spelling and low confidence and perfectionism. He just needs to be extended in maths/engineering/science areas (which he does himself via YouTube but I'd ideally like to get a tutor in) and needs to be supported with his spelling to get over the issues he's having so he can communicate and participate in the classroom! He knows I love him, and he loves feeling 'safe' and staying home with me is his comfort zone. He's an only child (that wasn't how I planned it 😭 but it's how it wound up) and he doesn't socialize much with other kids, they like him but he's aloof, not in a mean way just in an autistic 'I don't really wanna socialise the way the other kids want to' way. I need to get him hooked up with more autistic peers. He's got a couple of school buddies with ADHD and as always the ADHD + Autism friendship trope proves true (me being ADHD and having MANY autistic buddies). His kindergarten teacher used to fondly call him her 'little engineer'.

He's the absolute light of my life and my favourite human in the galaxy. He and I have this amazing bond, we giggle together, 'thick as thieves', are creative together, give hugs often, and just straight up love each other. So please don't read this post and think I'm saying my autistic kid is a burden. He's not at all a burden he's my ultimate blessing and he is my reason I don't give up and keep fighting my own battles, and fight his too when needed. One time he said 'You're my samurai, Mummy,' and that's awesome and that's what motherhood is.

I'm gonna fight for him to have a school environment he can learn in, and do everything I can to get him the help he deserves. If after that school still doesn't work, I will home school him, but I want to try for school to work for him first, it'd be so great if we could. And on the days he's home with me I will help him with his spelling, his confidence, let him to follow his special interests and make his complex puzzles and maths problems. He's my everything.

[nariarts]

Spent a ridiculous amount of time last night obsessively editing my hand written zines in Photoshop to take away any tiny blemishes so they were definitely readable.

Whatever. Understand or don't.

[marypsue]

Keep seeing that post where OP starts like 'Thinking about...grieving the undead' and then adds on about like. Real life situations where people have not died but have left your life and you would have reason to grieve them.

All respect, that's an important concept, but that is not what I am thinking about when I read 'grieving the undead'.

[ionomycin]

Maiden of Light

[pearlore]

@eydilily 's gempearl designs r so gorgeous i had to draw........ also a swap?? ft. some nzsl bc i was briefly possessed by the spirit of. hands.

[theabigailthorn]

"Good" Acting

i have a theory that a lot of people say acting is "good" when they're emotionally moved by it, and a lot of cishet white people have a lifelong habit of not listening or empathising when minoritised people speak, so minority actors get called "bad" even when they display some pretty fucking amazing technical skill

[lowpolyanimals]

Sheep from Old School RuneScape / RuneScape 2

[wardingshout]

apple season

[vykerr]

I was watching a video on youtube from an Australian current affairs documentary type program, when I was suddenly blindsided by this screen.

[fu-cough]

adrien's coming out post on Twitter

[thund3randrain]

"I respect you and won't stop you from being who you are" and "I'm not ready to call you by a new name and pronouns because it hurts me" can not co-exist when the speaker is your parent who has a huge amount of control over your life.

[littleprincessfawn]

Well, looks like I'm home-schooling my child.

This isn't an abrupt decision it's the result of a gradual eroding away of my child's ability to function within the school system. Of me considering all the options and working with the school as best as I can. Of reading about how teachers in the Australian education system are burning out at lighting rates, leaving the profession in droves, and choosing to home-educate their own children.

My child can't do school anymore. He just can't. He tried so hard. He's brilliant and not being challenged in maths. He's struggling and not being given help in spelling. Going to school isn't what's best for him and it hasn't been for a few years now.

This is going to be hard. I literally have leukemia.

But it's going to be worth it. It's going to be good for him. I can finally stretch him as far as he can go with his maths skills. I can finally help him 'get' spelling. Because he's been going to school, there hasn't been enough time for me to teach him at home.

The main downside is the lack of social opportunities. So for that I'll find groups, after school activities, coding clubs, chess clubs, for him to join and socialize with. I'll get better myself so I can organize playdates for him.

When your kid explains school using the metaphor of Loki's torture with the water dripping on his head for eternity (that he picked up on YouTube, and which I believe was actually venom, and I told him everything I remembered about that myth, so hey, we're learning more things already) I feel that's a decent indication that the schooling system is not working for them.

[collophora]

Do yourself a favor and go read the entire fanfic work of @fanfoolishness

(In order: Under sun and shade, Blind Side, and Breathless (patching up is one of my fav too, I just had no cool sketch idea for it)

[dlartistanon]

You grew, but some things never change

[quantumshade]

can anyone explain to me at what point rose tyler was "unbelievably stupid". was it when she was inventing transdimensional travel

[inkskinned]

it is totally okay to be hurt and tired and fed up with the american schooling system but i need you to understand that we need to be better about loudly and routinely defending public education.

yes, many teachers suck, many schools utterly suck. i also got bullied and was absolutely not given the right support for my needs. i am not defending public education because it was kind to me. i am defending it because it needs to exist.

right-wing republicans do not want an educated population. they want kids to be homeschooled or in private school. there is a huge religious undertone to this.

the most common argument is that despite high costs, the "result" is not "good" enough. they point to failing schools as proof that public education is just never going to work out. there will be arguments made here that you actually agree with: that teachers can be bullies, that we taught online for 2 years and still charged the same amount of tuition, that we have no recourse for students to actually have agency or a voice, and that schools are now unsafe for kids due to risk of illness and gun violence.

these are all placing the blame in a fraudulent way, one intended to get your parents to homeschool you. the less kids in a school, the less federally-awarded funding for that school, the less any school succeeds. they will not mention the fact it is their legislation that takes away important funding opportunities, that teachers are living at or below the poverty line, that buildings are not kept up to code, that administration is overpaid and forces specific curriculums, that corporations like (my personal enemy) Pearson Education control certain classroom goals because teachers can't afford other options. they pretend to be ignorant of the gun violence and say "oh just get a gun" - but these are the same people who will be sending their child to a private school with a bulletproof backpack. they don't care if your kid dies, though. they "don't believe" in covid, but they did get their kid vaccinated, because of course they did.

it is a closed loop. conservative parents hear the fearmongering and remove children from the system. frequently these parents are also deeply religious. the kids are raised without access to other media & learn to parrot their parents. you have now created a new generation of conservatives. additionally, one of the parents/caregivers must stay home and homeschool the children, usually for free. i will give you 1 guess which parent tends to stay home to homeschool the children. these parents are encouraged to have many, many children. those children are most likely not getting access to safe sex ed.

we might laugh at fox news suggesting teachers are forcing children to use kitty litter but: first of all, there is kitty litter in the classroom. it's part of an emergency kit in case children are locked in due to a shooter. so that's fucking dystopian, and the fact they've completely reimagined the scenario to somehow make the teachers look bad when it's instead a fucking huge symbol of our failure as a country to protect our children.... it feels a little intentional.

secondly: don't just dismiss the situation. because, yeah, obviously, no teacher is encouraging kids to be a catboy. but the actual undertone that fox news is trying to sew is an outright distrust of teachers and of public education. they rely on the dehumanization of trans people as a common touchstone to hide the fact they're pushing two agendas at once. (which is ironic. because the thing they accuse teachers of. is pushing. an agenda.)

whenever someone tells you they want you to read less, you should be suspicious of that. when someone tries to separate you and your education, you should be suspicious of that. i don't even like incel rhetoric nor would i want my kids exposed to it - but i would not take away my child's (age-appropriate) access to the internet. i would just provide more educational materials, not less. the difference here is that i believe we can resolve ignorance with knowledge; whereas conservatives believe that ignorance is bliss.

they misappropriate funding and demonize teachers. they pull the same trick each time - the same thing we are seeing with anti-trans rhetoric. they do not want you to have access to safe sex ed, so they act horrified, claim sex ed teaches you how to thrust deep, claim that we have no idea what "age-appropriate" means. since the mid-nineties, the united states has spent at least 2 billion dollars on abstinence-only education, even though to quote the above link: "a preponderance of studies has found no effect of abstinence education at reducing adolescent pregnancy". conservatives want you to think less of any person struggling with addiction so they can continue their racist "war on drugs", so they spend up to $750 million dollars a year on the DARE program which has absolutely no effect. acting like teachers "must" be "grooming" children is just the same thing - so they can demand that funding either goes to their causes or the funding doesn't "exist" ("i'm not paying for our kids to learn that thing!")

and they want you to feel uncaring about this. they are aware that you will hate some parts of your school experience. pretty much everyone does. they want to lean into the parts that you hate so that you don't put up a fight about it when they take it away for not being "good enough."

i know i maybe sound like a conspiracy theorist. but truly. truly. it is beneficial for conservatives to reduce your faith in the american public schooling system.

one of the explicitly stated campaign promises of the conservative party: to axe the Department of Education in 2024.

i know we are all tired and burnt out and there is so much else wrong with their entire platform. but maybe just - pay attention to this one.