Begin at the beginning

After 16 years on the Internet and one personal blog after another, I've decided to just focus on my life's main work from now on: raising my two kids alone.

I've home educated my youngest daughter, Sophia, since April 2008. Sophia has just turned 11 as I write, and has Asperger Syndrome. Perhaps her greatest curse is that she just copes with it too well for some people to be able to quite comprehend or believe that she actually has it. Friends and family who get to spend a lot of time with her at home soon concede the point, but to a teacher who sees one thirtieth of her in class for a few hours on weekdays, she's neither disruptive, violent nor intellectually backward enough to be worthy of extra support!

After many battles with the local school, I started looking for another school that would be more supportive and sympathetic. All the schools within travelling distance from us were full, but I couldn't in all conscience keep sending her in when it had reached a point where the word "traumatise" was no exaggeration of what the place was doing to her. And by proxy, to us all as a family. So that's when I decided to home educate her.

I only planned for it to be a temporary measure - just until we found a space for her in another school. But as the months went by and I noticed her confidence and curiosity coming back, her whole attitude improving and so many of those behaviours that I'd been told were "her autism" turned out to actually be the fault of the school environment, I became less and less diligent in searching for another school place for her.

After only 2 weeks out of school she completely stopped wetting the bed. Her pickiness with food decreased as well, and she became increasingly relaxed as time went by and it sank in with her that she'd never, ever have to deal with that place again. And so for me as a parent, dealing with her became easier.

I also found that, with my one on one tutelage, she was achieving things way more in line with her high academic abilities, and I could see just how much the school had been holding her back.

Two years on now, and I know that nothing could persuade me to send her back to school. Tomorrow I'll talk about my other daughter, then a little about myself, and then I'll just write about what we do and how it goes. I hope that this blog will be of some use, maybe even inspiration, to other parents who feel they relate to our story on any level.