flhomeschooling

I was wondering what you guys thought about the increasing prevalence of dyslexia in today's kids and dyslexia in general.

On the one hand, I KNOW dyslexia is over-diagnosed, and not even for kids who "aren't developmentally ready to read." My Eli, now 12, is autistic, and I have no doubt he taught himself to read when he was 3 or 4 by sight. Being a highly visual-spatial sort, he memorizes the "spelling shape" of words ("that has an H in the middle, because I remember it's short-tall-short!") as a way to more easily remember spelling. He didn't speak in complete sentences until he was 6, but I remember him being 3 years old and saying "PIZZA!" when we walked by a new pizza restaurant with him in his little stroller. He had never seen the restaurant before and didn't already know what they sold there. I stopped and looked up, and sure enough, there was a large "PIZZA!" neon sign in the window. Incredulous, I said, "Where's the pizza?" and he pointed to the sign and said gleefully "In there!"

After that he started doing things like that with words like "Stop" (on stop signs), "Pets" (he loves animals) and of course, "toys." *g* And so on. I read him stories, but I had never made any effort to teach him to read, nor did he watch any shows that taught him about letters, like Sesame Street, which he didn't get into until later when he was already reading. He just intuitively understood word-shapes have verbal and conceptual equivalents.

I also remember that when I first started homeschooling him when he was 5, I had no idea what I was doing and one of the things I bought were some phonics flashcards from Amazon.com. I decided to do one per day with him to "teach him to read". The first day I showed them to him, he grabbed them from my hand and took off with them. He ate them up and he was reading Dr. Seuss level books by himself in 3 weeks. I knew even then that I totally had not "taught him to read." I gave him some flash cards that he found useful in unlocking alpha-numeric literacy. I didn't even get to explain to him how the damn flashcards were supposed to work! lol.

Yet... over and over, he was diagnosed as dyslexic as a child, when in retrospect, that has clearly never been the case. I think maybe people thought he SHOULD be dyslexic because most autistic people are thought to be dyslexic, or they would see 3 other people before them had put "dyslexic" on his charts so they would just assume it was accurate without seeing for themselves.

Now, Eli does have severe large and fine motor delays and he still struggles to draw and write, something that frustrates him because he loves to draw, so the other "comorbid" diagnosis he got, dysgraphia, is probably accurate, but he is NOT dyslexic. He's actually turned out to be a superlative speller! But at LEAST half a dozen psychologists and developmental diagnosticians diagnosed him as such, as recently as 3 years ago when he was already capable of fluently reading the front page of a newspaper out loud. I don't get it. When I pointed this out to the last guy, he actually IGNORED me, didn't respond, and wrote "dyslexia" on his little chart anyway!

When Eli was going through the rounds of testing for various therapeutic services, I heard a lot of things like "The vast majority of kids with _________ also have ________ so it's safe to assume your son has __________." I think this happens a lot when kids get diagnosed as learning-disabled. They just get stuffed into a diagnostic box that's easier to deal with than actual individuals.

I think there is a lot assuming and "most kids have this" going on, perhaps well-intentioned because if the kid doesn't have the label he doesn't get the services he may really need. One diagnostician told me the more labels that Eli was "able to get," the "better," because then he would get "a bunch of help" (regardless of whether or not he needed it?? I guess?? lol) There was this pervasive sense of urgency to diagnose the kid with as many acronyms and disorders as humanly possible. It was this weird sort of Munchausen by Proxy... by Proxy. Eventually I just gave up and decided not to get him any services. Somehow he's survived. Cough.

There are many stories of kids in the public school who NEVER "escape" the special education label they got as a 5-year-old even if they're doing calculus and independently reading Chaucer as a 14-year-old.

On the other hand, I have a very sweet acquaintance who is 30 years old and really is dyslexic, or appears to be. He is a brilliant man and listens to audiobooks every day. He CAN read, it's just a huge struggle for him, and he's an awful, awful speller. He uses text-to-speech recognition to read things the Internet; he will follow along visually but he gets most of the information aurally. He uses Dragon Speak to speak all his emails and typed things on the Internet, and does what the blind person in that article Jenny posted does - listens to the WSJ every day and things like that.

But he still feels limited by his dyslexia, and it has profoundly frustrated him his whole life. There is a lot of reading in his career choice and it takes him so much longer to do things like read reports than people who are alpha-numerically fluent, and he doesn't catch on to things other people might get just by skimming a document, something he can't do, and I think it causes him a lot of stress. Yet, I feel like I can hardly say he's illiterate as he's read the entire works of Austen, Dickens, Morrison, Fitzgerald, Hemingway and many other "greats" on audiobook, and he has an expansive and impressive vocabulary and is incredibly articulate, knowledgeable and eloquent when speaking. I don't think even the most conventional academic standards would judge him formally uneducated. But he is technically "illiterate" and self-deprecatingly describes himself as such.

So there must be some people who really want to read, but something in their brains just won't let them do it. But I don't think those people are anywhere near as ubiquitous as "special education" in school would have us believe. And by another token, what literacy is *must* be more than "being able to decode and understand written symbols as a proxy for verbal expression." Thoughts?

Andrea

Robyn L. Coburn

<<<< > On the one hand, I KNOW dyslexia is over-diagnosed, and not even for
kids who "aren't developmentally ready to read." My Eli, now 12, is
autistic, and I have no doubt he taught himself to read when he was 3 or 4
by sight.>>>>>

Here is what I believe.

Your friend is a profound example of the damage labelling can do. He is a
man, who has found a myriad of ways to function fully in society and follow
his own joy, yet he has been so damaged by the labels that attached to him
young, probably in school, that he cannot see his own achievements and
brilliance outside of those awful filters.

You are falling into the same trap with your son, all the while struggling
against it. You may want to deny that you are doing this, but it is there in
the words you are using.

You took your son to specialists over and over, who continued to diagnose
something that they count as a failing. Whether you wish to or not, these
labels are forming an insidious filter over your eyes that IS defining how
you are seeing your darling, wonderful son, and how you are speaking of him
to us.

I'll give you an example from your own writing - you say that he was 6
before speaking in complete sentences, then immediately give an instance of
him speaking in a sentence when he was 3 - "in there".

I think you may not realize yourself how much these awful shadow assumptions
tied up with these diaganoses of dyslexia (which you don't accept) and
autism (which you have proclaimed) are impinging on your view of your son.

What if, instead of looking at him through the lens of autism, you looked
only at his individual, personal traits, as being Who He Is today, without
doing any kind of mental characterization of "that is part of his autism".
What if you stopped ever using the word "delays" in reference to him, which
is a concept that is not helpful for unschooling - if anything it is a
schooly/medical term that is a barrier to unschooling with joy.

The words we use can direct our thoughts towards or away from compassion,
towards or away from new and better solutions and ideas, towards or away
from unschooling. For example instead of talking about "large and fine motor
delays" and his "struggle" and thinking even for the second it took to type
it out about a diagnosis that sounds so very permanent and awful - what
about describing him in terms like this - "My son loves to draw and is
learning how by practicing. He isn't always satisfied with his own work,
yet".

What new and interesting art supplies and materials might he be interested
in?

I'm so glad that you gave up on the services. Now it is time to "give up" -
release, let go of, purge from your thinking - all the baggage that you are
still carrying around in your head, which is escaping unintentionally
through your words. Even if you are not saying these words aloud to Eli, he
will feel their presence in his heart. He survived the process of all this
diagnosing. Now he and you have to heal from it, especially if you want to
see unschooling truly blossoming.

You are so close to that blossoming, and the stories you tell of Eli's
brilliance and determination are wonderful. I love the flashcard story - for
a moment I thought you meant he literally ate them (some kids like chewing
on cardboard)!

Here's an exercise for you, if you want. Go back over your stories and
translate each of them to leave out any and all references to any and all of
the conditions or diagnosis labels that pervade your thinking currently.

As for the original question, most of the time dyslexia only matters in
school because they have a timetable for reading and some kids per the bell
curve have to be behind. Dyslexia for an uncountable many is a convenient
label that makes it the child's fault rather than the teacher's or the
system's. Unschoolers' experience shows that people supported to read in
their own time and their own way, seem to "overcome" any early difficulties
that sound like dyslexia, that might just be a "not yet ready" brain.

Robyn L. Coburn
www.Iggyjingles.etsy.com
www.iggyjingles.blogspot.com
www.allthingsdoll.blogspot.com

Sandra Dodd

-=-My Eli, now 12, is autistic, and I have no doubt he taught himself
to read when he was 3 or 4 by sight. -=-

He learned to read.
I don't think "he taught himself to read" is a good thought to lead
toward understanding natural learning.

-=-He just intuitively understood word-shapes have verbal and
conceptual equivalents.
-=-

But when adults are looking at those "word shapes" and saying words,
it doesn't take intuition to know that they're deciphering symbols.
It's plain observation that the labels on boxes and the words on
buildings and street signs and in books are information normal people
use.

-=-Yet... over and over, he was diagnosed as dyslexic as a child, when
in retrospect, that has clearly never been the case-=-

I don't think there's anything there that's "clearly never" or
"clearly" anything. If you believe that "dyslexic" means "learning
later than the other kids," then you might think it was never the
case. If you were to see it as the testers did, from his responses or
speed on answering their puzzles or trivia questions, then it might be
dyslexia and they can get more funding at school for him.

-=-...but he is NOT dyslexic. He's actually turned out to be a
superlative speller!-=-

Dyslexia and spelling don't need to go together. Some people spell by
memorizing the list of letters, and some by the memory of the word on
a list of "right" words, and some with their own personal tricks and
memory devices. There is no one way to spell, and no one way to read.

-=-So there must be some people who really want to read, but something
in their brains just won't let them do it. But I don't think those
people are anywhere near as ubiquitous as "special education" in
school would have us believe. And by another token, what literacy is
*must* be more than "being able to decode and understand written
symbols as a proxy for verbal expression." Thoughts?-=-

Special education, in school, has to do with extra funding. So let's
forget about it, for unschooling purposes. You're funding your own
unschooling.

Outside the need to "identify special needs," any focus on ideas like
dyslexia just take us further from seeing our children directly.

Labels don't help. This discussion has happened repeatedly over the
years, with some people insisting that labels won't hurt, or knowing
is important, and others saying once labelled a child goes into
adulthood feeling wrong, and less-than, and... labelled.

Then some of those who argued for labels come back and say we were
right, and they bemoan the fact that they didn't listen to us sooner.
And some (maybe all) of those who insisted labels were awesome, peachy-
keen, end up with their kids in school because they never were able to
detach from the idea that experts knew more about learning than
unschoolers did.

Sandra




[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

flhomeschooling

Robyn,

> Your friend is a profound example of the damage labelling can do.

I agree with you. I see this in my own grandmother, who was labeled outright STUPID because she couldn't read well in the 2nd grade and she's believed that her whole life, when she's a very bright woman. It's only recently that she's started saying things like "Maybe the teachers just didn't know how to teach me."

> You are falling into the same trap with your son, all the while struggling
> against it.

I was going to elaborate more on our situation and how I see things now in the last post, but I figured it was already long enough.

Regrettably, I didn't trust my own judgment then. I had never been around babies in any capacity until I had my son at a very immature 21 and I was 100% clueless about child-rearing. Still, I saw him as totally normal until his pediatrician told me, when he was 2, that he was "markedly" delayed and needed "intervention services." He made it sound so matter-of-fact and dire. The earlier he got these services, he told me, the better his chances of living a normal life. The implication was that he was on the fast track to having a miserable and abnormal life. I was very naive and found this terrifying, but I did not have the resources or confidence to contradict him.

Autism discussion/support groups exacerbated this. A lot of the discussions that happen there are all about controlling your child's behavior to a MINUTE degree. Starting with the ubiquitous insistence on extreme food restriction. A lot of "treatment" for autism involves extreme subjugation of the child. It never sat well with me so fortunately I think I "failed to follow through" with the vast majority of the expert recommendations we got.

I sought out services for him out of fear, ignorance and a sincere desire to see my baby happy. But mostly fear, that I wasn't equipped to parent him well, which is also what I heard from EVERYONE at the time.

I don't see autism as a disability at all anymore. Usually I only bring it up for context about (and in) very specific situations, such as this conversation about learning disabilities. I almost never bring it up in "real life" to other people; I used to, in the hopes that it would make people less judgmental and mean about certain unusual behaviors, but it invariably made people MEANER toward him.

>you say that he was 6
> before speaking in complete sentences, then immediately give an instance of
> him speaking in a sentence when he was 3 - "in there".

Besides a few instances like that, he truly didn't talk much, if at all on some days, until he was 5 or 6, so it was often very hard for me to figure out what he wanted. I'll admit sometimes I didn't figure it out, and then the crying became about me not getting it. Usually, he wouldn't point or gesture to anything, he would just cry.

He started to say one or two words once he hit about 3 years of age. "Juice." "Toy." "There." "Play." "No." But he didn't say things like "I want juice"" or "Give me that toy" until he was much older. This mattered, because sometimes he would say "toy" or "juice" and I would think he meant "give me the toy/juice" and he really meant "I vehemently LOATHE that toy/juice, put it away RIGHT NOW" and he would scream and cry when I tried to give it to him anyway, or vice versa. It reinforced all the second-guessing I'd been doing. :/

He still does not enjoy chit-chat (lots of people don't), still speaks slowly and will often start a sentence over 4 or 5 times until he gets it "just right." I do not allow people to tell him things like "Just spit it out already!" or allow people to finish his sentences for him.

> I think you may not realize yourself how much these awful shadow assumptions
> tied up with these diaganoses of dyslexia (which you don't accept) and
> autism (which you have proclaimed)

While I think that he does fit the criteria for the diagnosis, in our day to day lives, everything he does is normal to me. I have gotten better at being able to tell what he needs; he has more tools for communicating his needs now, too. Other people notice his more uncommon behaviors. Most people are cool, but sometimes people are really rude about it.

> What if, instead of looking at him through the lens of autism, you looked
> only at his individual, personal traits, as being Who He Is today, without
> doing any kind of mental characterization of "that is part of his autism".

I definitely think that is a wonderful ideal and am working toward it, thank you :)

> What if you stopped ever using the word "delays" in reference to him, which
> is a concept that is not helpful for unschooling

Reading that over, I regret that I don't have a more positive way to talk about his frustration with this and that I made it sound like it's a shortcoming when it's not at all. He draws all the time and he's rarely happy with anything he does. I have gotten him so many "how to draw" books and resources that he's asked for. He found a lot of those very tedious.

I don't think he wants to learn how to draw. He wants to ALREADY KNOW how to draw, so he can get out his ideas RIGHT NOW. It's not unlike the frustration he had with language when he was younger. He wanted the tools and skills to already be there so he could just get on with expressing himself the way he wanted to. The fact that they are not there to a degree that meets his immediate needs causes him a lot of stress and anxiety.

By "struggle" I mean "put in a lot of energy for something and still not get anywhere near a result you're remotely happy with, which you then find upsetting and frustrating." I think he gets really disappointed with himself.

> What new and interesting art supplies and materials might he be interested in?

I am always on the look out for running cool stuff past him, suggestions are welcome :) I personally enjoy his drawings very much, but he doesn't enjoy that they're not to his standards and sadly I think he's starting to give up a little.

> He survived the process of all this
> diagnosing. Now he and you have to heal from it, especially if you want to
> see unschooling truly blossoming.

It is an ongoing process, for sure. I have a lot of regrets.

> I love the flashcard story - for
> a moment I thought you meant he literally ate them (some kids like chewing on cardboard)!

HA. I think he did literally eat the corners of some of them, FWIW. He never has outgrown putting things in his mouth. Yesterday he asked me why yarn tastes so bad!! :)

Andrea

flhomeschooling

> He learned to read.
> I don't think "he taught himself to read" is a good thought to lead
> toward understanding natural learning.

Whatever we call it, it definitely had nothing to do with anything I did! OK, except maybe buying the flash cards. I will take credit for buying the flashcards. :)

> -=-Yet... over and over, he was diagnosed as dyslexic as a child, when
> in retrospect, that has clearly never been the case-=-
>
> I don't think there's anything there that's "clearly never" or
> "clearly" anything.

There is no question in my mind that he has never fit any of the diagnostic criteria for dyslexia or any sort of learning disability.

> If you were to see it as the testers did, from his responses or
> speed on answering their puzzles or trivia questions,

Not even - in one test for an IEP when he was 5, the evaluator said he had scored out of the range of dyslexia on the test, but she put dyslexia on there anyway. "Just in case."

> -=-...but he is NOT dyslexic. He's actually turned out to be a
> superlative speller!-=-
>
> Dyslexia and spelling don't need to go together.

Right, but he has no symptoms of dyslexia. The tests don't account for kids who refuse to be tested. He speaks very slowly and doesn't always answer people who ask him questions, especially ones he sees as pointless (e.g., tests for dyslexia) and I think that is what affected some of the test results.

> Labels don't help.

I think the only time labels are SOMETIMES helpful is when you're working from a place of near-total ignorance, as I was, being a very naive, inexperienced young girl with a baby whose doctor was giving her lots of dire prognoses out of the blue. Then I had these labels and I would think, "Well, he keeps banging on the table not because he's trying to wake up grandma from her nap, but because of the autism, he seeks out this type of stimulus. It's something he needs." This is an improvement over "He keeps banging on the table because he's trying to get on my nerves/ be defiant/ be mean to grandma etc." But I would agree it's a very limited improvement.

Andrea

Alan Marshall

****Autism discussion/support groups exacerbated this. A lot of the
discussions that happen there are all about controlling your child's
behavior to a MINUTE degree. Starting with the ubiquitous insistence on
extreme food restriction.****

I think it is possible to attempt and largely follow some dietary alternatives that could be helpful for a child without labeling and without "extreme food restriction." You are correct that many conventional parents do this in a way that is likely to do more harm than good in the long run, but that has nothing to do with whether or not a gluten free or similar diet empirically can help a child feel better.

I don't say that to advocate for dietary and other biologically based alternatives, this would not be the place for that. I just want to point out that they are not inherently incompatible with unschooling. "Eat whatever is around without consideration" and "only eat what I say no matter what" are not the only two alternatives.

I actually first learned of the possibility of a gluten free diet at an unschooling conference.

Alan

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Pam Sorooshian

On 1/12/2010 5:14 PM, Alan Marshall wrote:
> "Eat whatever is around without consideration" and "only eat what I say no matter what" are not the only two alternatives.
>

What I've found is that unrestricted-food kids eat more consciously and
with more awareness of what they really want to eat than kids whose food
is controlled. If there isn't already a power struggle between parents
and children, over food, then some experimenting with foods that might
help someone feel better won't be at all difficult, it will just be
something parents and kids do, together, cooperatively.

Unschooled kids want to feel good...and if a food makes them feel bad in
some way, they will want to avoid that food (or have more of it when it
might help).

So - I think I'm agreeing with Alan, but my point is a little different
- more that it is the relationship between parents and children that is
paramount. If that's okay, then experimenting a bit with cutting out or
including certain foods won't be any kind of issue - no more than buying
certain kinds of socks or, in my case, not wearing wool because it makes
me itchy.

-pam

Sandra Dodd

-=-I actually first learned of the possibility of a gluten free diet
at an unschooling conference.-=-

I could actually probably guess which one. Not everything proposed at
every unschooling conference is equally valid, and not all unschooling
ideas lead equally to longterm trust and understanding.

Certainly if gluten is actually a problem, that might be helpful, but
to adopt a special diet in hopes that magical benefits will be
guaranteed is probably not as useful to unschooling as living more
freely and easily in the world without the fears and "guarantees" that
any superstition or religion tries to provide. Yes I do know some
people have problems from some substances, but I also know there are
fewer people with actual problems than people with imagined problems
or people with hopes of creating a superior child by sacrificing
certain activities, foods, drinks, substances, spices, colors, or
brand names.

Sandra

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Robin Bentley

On Jan 12, 2010, at 6:59 PM, Sandra Dodd wrote:

> -=-I actually first learned of the possibility of a gluten free diet
> at an unschooling conference.-=-
>
> I could actually probably guess which one. Not everything proposed at
> every unschooling conference is equally valid, and not all unschooling
> ideas lead equally to longterm trust and understanding.

I wonder why a gluten-free diet would even be discussed at an
unschooling conference?

Robin B.

Alan Marshall

Sandra wrote***I could actually probably guess which one.
***

Robin wrote ***I wonder why a gluten-free diet would even be
discussed at an unschooling conference?***



It was in Albuquerque
in 2006. It was mentioned in passing, and it was not presented as a part of
unschooling.



***Not everything proposed at every unschooling conference
is equally valid, and not all unschooling ideas lead equally to longterm trust
and understanding.***



One shouldn�t do anything of that significance just because
it was mentioned at an unschooling conference or because it is a so called
unschooling idea. My point was only that unschoolers could possibly do it
without destroying unschooling.



***Certainly if gluten is actually a problem, that might be
helpful, but to adopt a special diet in hopes that magical benefits will be guaranteed
is probably not as useful to unschooling as living more freely and easily in
the world without the fears and "guarantees" that any superstition or
religion tries to provide.***



It did not occur to me that someone would put a child on a
gluten free diet without some specific health related reason to do so. That
would be crazy and irresponsible, imo. Even more so to continue it without
strong evidence that there was a benefit.



***What I've found is that unrestricted-food kids eat more
consciously and with more awareness of what they really want to eat than kids
whose food is controlled. ***



Yes, control is a poor way to influence someone�s diet. But
since I have strong evidence that a gluten free diet makes my dd�s life
significantly better, my wife and I seek to gently influence her. And she has
been amenable, I think, because she does want to feel better.



It would be foolhardy to attempt a gluten free diet without
careful consideration, research, and a true understanding of the risks and
benefits for an individual child, but I think it would be equally unwise to
reject the possibility only because there are some people who do it for crazy
reasons or who do it in a coercive and ineffective way.



***So - I think I'm agreeing with Alan, but my point is a
little different - more that it is the relationship between parents and
children that is paramount.***



I agree that the relationship is more important by far. For
me it is similar to how we would handle medication or medical treatment. If the
relationship would be damaged at all, then keep looking for other options.



Alan


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flhomeschooling

--- In [email protected], Alan Marshall <alanlmarshall@...> wrote:

> I think it is possible to attempt and largely follow some dietary alternatives that could be helpful for a child without labeling and without "extreme food restriction."

Anything is possible, sure. I'm not talking about allergies or legitimate intolerances, for which there are lab tests and/or which make themselves physiologically apparent. I mean that 99.9999999% of the food restriction discussions that happen in autism parenting circles are a variation of "My kid is too hyper/ inattentive/ demanding/ argumentative/ disinterested/ defiant/ picky /etc. Do you all think if I take every food away except for organic steamed kale (or whatever), he'll magically transform into a child that's easier for me to handle?" And 99.9999999% of the responses will be like, "Definitely! Go for it!"

>that has nothing to do with whether or not a gluten free or similar diet empirically can help a child feel better.

Most of those diets aren't about making the kid feel better.

> "Eat whatever is around without consideration" and "only eat what I say no matter what" are not the only two alternatives.

But the opposite of "only eat what I say, no matter what" is not "eat whatever is around without consideration."

Eli made our grocery list for the week today, the whole list, for the first time without any help from me. He was very proud of himself for doing it all by himself. That "without consideration" stuck out to me, because I can assure you he pored over that thing like it was the second coming of the Magna Carta. :)

Andrea

Alan Marshall

***Anything is possible, sure. I'm not talking about allergies or legitimate intolerances, for which there are lab tests and/or which make themselves physiologically apparent. I mean that 99.9999999% of the food restriction discussions that happen in autism parenting circles are a variation of "My kid is too hyper/ inattentive/ demanding/ argumentative/ disinterested/ defiant/ picky /etc. Do you all think if I take every food away except for organic steamed kale (or whatever), he'll magically transform into a child that's easier for me to handle?" And 99.9999999% of the responses will be like, "Definitely! Go for it!"***

I think there is truth to what you are saying, but your description seems hyperbolic and emotional, which I don't think is helpful for thinking about this topic in an unschooling context. Many parents of so called autistic children (I really hate that label, by the way) completely reject bio-medical treatments of any kind and do only what their doctors say is proven to help. I think we agree that behavior therapies are quite damaging and do anything but help, but that is a lot of parents not forcing a change in diet.



I know that if my dd could communicate to her satisfaction and was happy I would never even consider influencing her diet in that way. My goal is to work with her to make her life better. I couldn't care less how hyper/ inattentive/ demanding/ argumentative/ disinterested/ defiant/ or picky she is.



I am the exception for sure, because parenting unconventionally and respecting children's choices is the exception in general. But unschoolers help their children to brush their teeth, take medication, go to the doctor or dentist, wear more comfortable clothing like Pam mentioned, etc. - while respecting their children and putting their relationship with their children first, and I believe it is possible to do the same in regard to diet if there is a good reason (not an arbitrary or ill founded reason) to do so.



Alan





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Sandra Dodd

-=-I think there is truth to what you are saying, but your description
seems hyperbolic and emotional, which I don't think is helpful for
thinking about this topic in an unschooling context.-=-

It's possible that the emotion is from the fact that this topic comes
up repeatedly. The third time a topic comes around, some of the newer
members get miffed, but for older members it's the twelfth time and
they're more calm. <g>

As to hyperbole, I don't think it's an exaggeration to suggest that
ALL of the behavior-modification-by-food-control is bunk.

In the 19th century there was a heartbreaking array of devices and
sacrifices and foods to require and forbid to keep boys from touching
their own penises. There were lies told and threats made and
punishments.

In the late 20th century, mothers loved to say that red dye or sugar
made their children "hyperactive." And the schools got into it too,
and rather than reforming schools, they started drugging children.
Is that any less heartbreaking than the anti-masturbatory crap? Is it
any less harmful? Is it more realistic or "right"?

Of all the people in the world who should be happy if a child is
active and curious and talkative, it should be unschoolers. So of all
the conversations in the world that should not be headed toward "my
child needs to be caused to behave differently," it might be this one.

If I give up wheat totally, at great inconvenience to me and my family
and my friends, at greater expense to our budget, I *will* find and
identify advantages, or else I did something worthless and
troublesome. I won't want to say "Oh, sorry; false alarm. I still
fart" or whatever it is.

People DO get colds, and they DO get the runs, and they DO fart.
People DO get headaches. Boys DO want to play with their penises.
Kids DO get excited about things sometimes, until the parents and the
school shame them out of it.

Sandra

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juliewinar

> > Labels don't help.
>

But sometimes they do.
Maybe not for a child, but it helps if you are having a hard time writing out a (or reading) some type of form at work. If you say you are dyslexic most people are willing to see that as not a stigma compared to saying "I can't read that" or "I can't write that down".
(or so my son has found)
It helps if your child wants to get a GED (or go to a local college) and they will need accommodations for testing and school work. So far it seems that to get these accommodations Josh will need to go though testing and get a diagnosis/label.

(My son is now 17, has decided he wants to be a firefighter. He has to have a GED or a diploma from an accredited school to get hired around here.)

Sandra Dodd

-=-> > Labels don't help.

-=-But sometimes they do.
Maybe not for a child, but...-=-

In helping a mother deal directly with her own real child in her own
safe home, with natural learning at a child's pace, labels don't help.
In helping a mother understand how learning works, a label can hurt.

Sandra

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flhomeschooling

Alan,

> Many parents of so called autistic children
> completely reject bio-medical treatments of any kind

The largest and richest autism-related organization, "Defeat Autism Now!" won't see families who won't consider food restriction therapies; the equally awfully-named "Autism Speaks", the largest fundraising charity for the diagnosis in the country, also strongly espouses food restriction as behavior modification. You may want to google "gfcf autism" and maybe prepare to be amazed. Food restriction is conventional wisdom as a treatment for autism these days. But I think we may be talking about 2 different things.

Andrea

Robin Bentley

>>
>> I think it is possible to attempt and largely follow some dietary
>> alternatives that could be helpful for a child without labeling and
>> without "extreme food restriction."
>
> Anything is possible, sure. I'm not talking about allergies or
> legitimate intolerances, for which there are lab tests and/or which
> make themselves physiologically apparent. I mean that 99.9999999% of
> the food restriction discussions that happen in autism parenting
> circles are a variation of "My kid is too hyper/ inattentive/
> demanding/ argumentative/ disinterested/ defiant/ picky /etc. Do you
> all think if I take every food away except for organic steamed kale
> (or whatever), he'll magically transform into a child that's easier
> for me to handle?" And 99.9999999% of the responses will be like,
> "Definitely! Go for it!"

Exactly. It's more about the parents feeling better than the child. Of
course, it's couched in being "for the child."

That is why I wondered about a diet being presented at a conference
(though Alan has clarified that it was "in passing"). And it's one
thing to start making gluten-free foods available to a child, to see
if they feel a difference, and to talk about possible outcomes than to
change a child's diet completely, saying "I *know* you'll feel
better." Followed up with (if only thought), "It's for your own good."

The diets suggested by autism support groups are still controlling.
It's "doing something" about a child. Do autistic kids not have
preferences? Are they completely helpless and opinion-less? Not in my
experience. Their perceived lack of "acceptable" communication skills
seems to bring out the need for parents to override their kids "to
help them."

I have done this myself to my daughter, in the guise of "helping
her" (though not about her diet). She told me to back off and that
she'd figure it out better herself. She needed me to point out an
issue, then give her time and space to come to her own conclusions. It
has worked so much better than my interference. Just because kids with
autism might not be able to say "back off" doesn't mean they don't
want their parents to do it.

Trust and respect works, no matter what a child "has" or who the child
is.

Robin B.




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Robin Bentley

>
> I am the exception for sure, because parenting unconventionally and
> respecting children's choices is the exception in general. But
> unschoolers help their children to brush their teeth, take
> medication, go to the doctor or dentist, wear more comfortable
> clothing like Pam mentioned, etc. - while respecting their children
> and putting their relationship with their children first, and I
> believe it is possible to do the same in regard to diet if there is
> a good reason (not an arbitrary or ill founded reason) to do so.
>
But the first three are things adults believe are the right things for
their kids to do or for them to do to their kids. Wearing more
comfortable clothing is something a kid wants.

I remember urging my daughter to take antibiotics to prevent strep
throat (because the clinic doctor said so) because my husband had it.
She refused. And she didn't get strep throat. But when she *is* sick
and I suggest taking a natural remedy, extra vitamins, or cough syrup,
she is totally agreeable. She trusts me because I haven't forced her
(or even jollied her) into taking stuff she didn't want or need
(except for the above lapse in judgment <g>).

So I'd like to ask: what is a good reason to change or control a
kid's diet?

Robin B.

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Sandra Dodd

-=-That is why I wondered about a diet being presented at a conference
(though Alan has clarified ...-=-

I'm a little miffed that after "I heard about it at a conference" it
turns out to have been some side conversation. Had that not been
questioned, the assumption would have easily been made that someone
speaking at a conference was recommending food restrictions as a way
to help unschooling work better.

Honesty and clarity make or break a discussion and make or break a
person's value within a discussion. I'm kind of attached to this
list. Everybody sit up and think, or don't post.

Sandra

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Pam Sorooshian

> > But
> > unschoolers help their children to brush their teeth, take
> > medication, go to the doctor or dentist, wear more comfortable
> > clothing like Pam mentioned, etc. - while respecting their children
> > and putting their relationship with their children first, and I
> > believe it is possible to do the same in regard to diet if there is
> > a good reason (not an arbitrary or ill founded reason) to do so.
> >
>
I agree with the above. I put a fairly large amount of effort into
finding toothpaste that Rosie liked and I'm careful to buy the kind she
likes, still. Roxana doesn't take pills - she gags on them. So I buy her
liquid tylenol from a drugstore near "Leisure World" - a retirement
community. And I bought a pill crusher a long time ago and if she has to
take something, she'll crush it up and put it in applesauce or
something. It really isn't a big deal to do these things and life is
much better for it. We can put that kind of effort into finding foods
our kids really like that don't hurt them IF there is a real need for it.

We had visitors from out of the country, staying with us, once. The mom
was forcing a pill down her little girls' throat - the girl was probably
6 years old or so. And the mom was forcing the pill down - literally
holding the child's head back and shoving the pill down her throat. You
can guess what happened - the girl threw up all over the place, gagged
on THAT and choked and it was a huge mess with a hysterical child and
furious mom and it pretty much ruined our whole evening. It was awful.
Roya was about 3 and she was very very shocked and upset. There's just
no need - there are other ways to do things.

I think that we can kind of support our kids in eating pretty healthy
foods by just having the healthy foods they like around and offering
them. Slicing up fruit and serving it with bits of cheese and crackers
was always appreciated around my house. On cold days I'd make sliced
apples with some cinnamon sprinkled on them and heat them up in the
microwave. But, if they wanted something else - something "less healthy"
- I'd just provide that, too, without distinction.

It is interesting, sometimes what we grow up with is what we really
like. Sometimes what we didn't have as kids seems like a big treat. My
kids don't like whole milk, because we always had nonfat milk. To them,
whole milk is so thick and creamy that it only tastes good when just a
bit is poured over something, but they wouldn't drink a glass of it.
But, we also only ever had dense thick dark bread - because that's just
what "I" like and so, when they were little, it is what I bought and
that's what they thought of as "bread." Turns out Roxana loves that kind
of bread, too, and it is also what Roya prefers, but Rosie would much
rather have lighter, airier breads. We didn't eat fish at all, because
"I" don't like it - but Roya turns out to absolutely LOVE fish and eats
a lot of it, now, while Rox and Rosie don't like it, either.

I don't think we're shaping our kids food choices for life the way some
parents seem to think. They are going to end up to be individuals - they
will have their own tastes and preferences and those aren't really all
that predictable based on their childhoods.

But, there are parents who seem to actually have some kind of want or
need for their kids to have food issues. They seem to be looking for
those issues to exist. Beth, your kid already has all kinds of
food-related problems - why on earth would you want to add another one
to the list if it wasn't absolutely life-threateningly necessary? You
and your husband are worried about him getting fat, and your first
reaction is to find some additional food to restrict? Have you found
ways to get more active? Do you go out and do stuff together - run and
play? Do you have a Wii Fit? A mini-trampoline? Bikes, skates,
skateboards? Do you go skiing or swimming? I'm going to be blunt and say
that I think the two of you probably have food issues, yourselves, and
you're projecting those onto your son.

In fact, my recommendation would be to try your best to down-play the
other issues to the maximum extent possible. Try to ignore them. Try to
find other solutions to the problems he has. Question question question
whether the food is REALLY the culprit and whether restricting foods is
really doing more harm than good. My heart is going out to this poor kid
who has, in his his short life, already been experimented on so much
(which is what those rotation diets, etc. are - they are experiments on
a child). Let everything that isn't actually life-threatening go (and I
don't mean that he might have high cholesterol in 30 years if he eats
something now, I mean immediately life-threatening). OFFER foods that
are healthy for him, but don't deny him other things he wants, either.

-pam

Pam Sorooshian

On 1/15/2010 9:39 AM, Pam Sorooshian wrote:
> They are going to end up to be individuals - they
> will have their own tastes and preferences and those aren't really all
> that predictable based on their childhoods.
>

Ha - that read funny. So - they ARE clearly individuals now with their
own tastes and preferences. And that will continue as they grow up. We
don't control what they like now and what we feed them now won't control
what they like later.


-pam

Pam Sorooshian

Sorry - last two paragraphs of my last post were really responding to
someone on the AlwaysLearning list, not on this list. Both lists are
talking about food issues at the same time - confused me.

-pam