princessdee20012001

have a few questions .
first i want to say thank you. i have spent the 3 hours reading
from one link to the next on unschooling. I may have just stumbled
on what i have been looking for.
We have a 12 (13 in two weeks))year old. That we have adopted last
year.(she has lived with us for 3 1/2 years)who had sever pts. and
adhd.she was abused in every way and under feed and had been
dionosed with reactive attachment disorder at the age of five (we
did not know this till she was almost 12). She has come a long long
way and had grown a lot as now she gets feed (she was 55 lbs and
wore a 6x in clouthing, when we got her and now wears a womans 6
tall and weighs 120.(giggle she wore a size 4 in childrens shoes then
now a 10 in womans)she trys very very hard and is recently wanting
to frow more. she loves to learn and is determined to get past the
RAD (reactive attachment Disorder). her and I have both desided we
need to work harder on the bonding as the theropist thinks we need
to work on the adhd part and use more drug theropy.( we have tryed
this over and overusuly makes it worse) we have agreed to try time
relised this may however we have refused the if you want to give
another to counter the first routine we wont do it)and we are both
asking why is it more important to do the grade thing any way
i have spent 3 years fighting the school. and trying to make them
fallow the iep, They have insisted that we fix the not turning in
homework problem and fix the behavior also. The behavior is usuly
social problems and she is the kid every one picks on the kids and
teacher tell me this. Lisa has very very poor social skills.so my
question this last year to them has beenyou belive i need to keep
her in here for social reasons and what i see her learning is how to
be a door mat and you say she is eager to learn but you dont have
time to teach her because she ask so many questions and in the
classes she has only 3 other students she does great even helps
explain to others once she has had all her questions answered. and
she is still flunking because she dont turn in her homework and if
she dont do the homework it is usualy because the teaches have
failed to expline it in small steps so she can understand. And i keep
her in school why? then they point out my spelling and math
problem and math is one of her problems.We dont have a lot of money
and they know it, know i could not afford to hire a bunch of tutors
and they said i would have to turn my home into a mini school to
make it work and hire people to do it and if i didnt have the
money no way i could do this. i have spent 6 mounths looking. have
found that maybe they are wrong. there are lots of places i could
open enroll her and as close as a 1/2 hour away there are places
that have home school resorese rooms. and as for spelling her and i
decided together that it could be a game and we write down words we
spell wrong and we keep list short and play a game to teach both
of us.I stared with telling her i think it might be a idea for us to
do home school stuff this summer when u get out of school end of
may and i expected the school in summer thing. to my surprise she
had ideas and is excited about the idea and even said this is a way
we can work on the bonding issue mom, but what about math i told her
of the other types of school she said gee then not every one will
know me and maybe i could make friends?
We make biweekly trips to junk stores usualy she hits the
clouthing fast last 2 times she has went to learning area and found
cd's and books she would like to learn from.
Her counsler now says she will fall behind and that there is not
enough social interreaction for her . Her and I belive that this
can be handled and I think learning low self esteem and flunking
even though ya know the materal is silly. The teacher dont fallow
the iep at all we once had it set up to sigh a paper if she had
turned in home work and for every day she got full day of
signutures she got computer time . if she didnt get them she didnt
and then if she missed 3 in a day she got a 1/2 hour in her roomthey
all sighned every day for months. then sent home a your kid is
flunking because she didnt turn in homework . The poor girl went into
tears. they had told her she was doing fine and this took us both
by surprise. i marched in to the school and getting nothing but run
around called a iep meeting they told me they didnt have heart not
to sighn the paper and as time went on they felt she handt turned
it in because they didnt have time to teach her in small steps and
she was behind/ I stoped the sighing thing told them what i was
thinking about home school and they told me i lacked the skills and
that i would be doing her a "grave dis service" if i did that and
quoted both her poor social skills and the time it would take to do
it. I shook my head social skills? she is made fun of (granted
sometimes she causes it) and has no friends (small small towns dont
forgive and have long memorys) and as for my skills well i pionted
out to them i took a kid they told me would neve bond and couldnt
feel and that would end up in instatutions the rest of her life and
she not been in a single instution, and now we are trying to get her
to stop crying in school when she is made fun of.I think i keep
hesatiting because so many tell me i am wrong i cant do this one
that she will be at 7th grade level forever, if i do. except in
reading where she reads at level 12.I think they dont know my kid
and my determation. I think ok so we both hate math and have what
they call a math disorder. so what we are integelent and read well
and she has so many questions and willness to find the answers. (oh i
probley forgot to say this child is related to me by blood and other
reason they said with RAd kids bio related not a good idea asked me
to give her to system after we found out after a year and a 1/2)
So my questions are any one know if this is bad idea for a teen Rad?
and is it to late as she is almost 13 to start ?if her and i choose
what she does why is that wrong? I kept saying so what she learns
what she can or wants in math and i dont turn my home into a mini
school. we will find things she does want to learn. and she does want
to learn . heck she out and out flunking sience and those are one
the areas she keep picking up at the stores she wasnts to do it on
computer the woman i have do my taxes say in Iowa there is a tax
break and fed she says if i keep track what i spend for learning I
can claim 25 hundred on taxes. I didnt know that. with that break why
cant i hire out what she wants to learn?save 2 grand from income tax
this year and use it and keep track?she wants to plant a flower bed
this year want to learn about how the roots work and wants to read
the books school wont give her time to she reads there books and
dont like them and when she dont do there book it usualy because
she been reading her books.she is excited about summer school with
mom and older sister says she will help her in oreas and lisa is so
excited . I however dont want a mini school setting have been looking
for alternitives . hands on lets learn this together ways of
teaching.
I stumbled on this site when looking in yahoo groups for attacment
disorders is there a reason it was listed here? are there others with
a Rad child? Can someone that has poor math and grammer and
spelling make this work?
I have decided not to do spell check just to let you know how poor
the spelling realy is. and get advise from those that live it.
Thank you in advance for your advice and I am sorry for the lenght
of this post.
Dee