The fact that my younger child has ADHD was what initially led us to consider the possibility of homeschooling. We struggled with everything! Poor grades, breakdowns while completing homework, less than ideal behavior at school, etc. We quickly realized that our outgoing, feisty, ADHD girl did not fit into the box that public school expects students to conform to.
As a 6 year-old in the first grade, she DREADED school, but was extremely vocal about not wanting to attend on Fridays—test days. Every morning was a challenge, but Friday mornings were nothing short of a war. And it broke our hearts to see our little one feeling so much anxiety and defeat each week. Let me also add, neither my husband or I were straight A, overachieving students, and we have never expected these things from our children. My 6 year old’s motto became “it doesn’t have to be perfect, just do your best.”
It was made clear at the start of the school year that reading was the primary concern for first grade students and reading would determine if they passed or failed the grade. My girl caught on pretty well and was consistently improving with each evaluation.
Spelling was altogether different. She struggled so much with spelling, and her speech issues only made spelling worse. Of course, I worried. Nothing was taking hold in spelling—none of it made sense to her, she couldn’t remember the “rules”, and it was being taught based on phonetics and sight words with no lists to memorize. While in my mature, adult brain, this makes sense, in her 6 year old, ADHD, unclear speech brain, when she was asked to spell “truck” because “tr” was a rule they were learning, she spelled “chruck” because that is how it sounds when she says it and “ch” was also a rule she’d learned.
When we requested a parent teacher meeting after the first 9 weeks, we were assured and reassured that she was doing fine in reading and spelling would come. There were no concerns because she was excelling in reading. We were told spelling would not hold her back and not to be worried because reading was going well.
So we trucked on. With no improvements. In December we got the official ADHD diagnoses, hoping this would help secure an IEP or 504 plan to force the school to supply resources and test her according to what worked best (typically, she could spell pretty well for us reviewing them orally while she was able to stand, move, skate, etc.).
When school started back in January, we requested another parent teacher meeting, this time with plans to discuss her diagnosis and what would be available for her. We were told basically that the school would not do anything to help her aside from what the teacher was willing to do on her own in the classroom.
As you can imagine, this was extremely frustrating. This is when I began researching more about homeschooling and really trying to figure out how we could make it work for her. I did not plan to pull her out in the middle of year, but was strongly considering starting second grade with homeschool.
Unfortunately there were things that took place at the school that prompted us to immediately remove both of our children from school right before spring break. But this was the push we needed to make the change and we haven’t looked back!
My girls are thriving. Especially the ADHD kiddo. With only needing around 2-3 hours a day instead of 8 hours of school, she has so much time to play and explore. She can complete her school work at her own pace and take breaks when she needs them. She can roller skate or help shell peas while reading or working on her math because movement helps her concentrate. She can listen to music in the background or find a YouTube video about her curiosities.
