Carol Koessel

Shelly, no I have not met any "radical schoolers" but I did attend a dinner last night with other parents of special needs kids. Three of them ganged up on me trying to convince me I should put my children back in school, specifically my special needs son. It makes no sense to me. He is 12 and has cerebral palsy. He is a very young 12, still believes in tooth fairy etc. If I were to put him in school in the rural town we are in, he would have to go to the high school (there is no junior high here) to receive "services" which is 40 minutes away for one (so tack on two more hours to his day) He would be in a special day class (which as I recall from school was commonly called the "retard class" on campus by other students). They conspired ahead of time to try to push me to get him in school because I am "robbing him of the experience." Oh, you bet I am. An experience we could do without.

I do have to remember that these are the same type of people who think homebirth is child abuse, while I personally feel many hospital births (not all) are child abuse and mother abuse. I just let it go... it's like arguing religion, politics, or abortion. No one wins.


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

Shelly G

--- Carol Koessel <carolkoessel@...> wrote:
> Shelly, no I have not met any "radical schoolers"
> but I did attend a dinner last night with other
> parents of special needs kids. Three of them ganged
> up on me trying to convince me I should put my
> children back in school, specifically my special
> needs son. It makes no sense to me. He is 12 and has
> cerebral palsy. He is a very young 12, still
> believes in tooth fairy etc.

Yesterday, my 12 year old son and his friend spent a
rainy afternoon playing legos on the front porch. As I
looked out the window at him, I was feeling grateful
that, relatively speaking, he's a "young 12", too.
With so many 12-year-olds having sex, smoking
cigarettes, drinking and doing drugs, there's Andrew
playing legos and being a kid. That makes me very
happy.


They conspired ahead of
> time to try to push me to get him in school because
> I am "robbing him of the experience." Oh, you bet I
> am. An experience we could do without.

Rob away! Their poor children are being robbed of a
wonderful experience learning at home!

Shelly

=====
"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever does." -- Margaret Mead

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