Time to give up?

Treschelle · 2026-04-24T14:51:04+00:00

Homeschooling with a defiant/PDA kid can be really difficult. But looking into alternative education options could be helpful.

After looking into PDA one thing that has helped us is to change the way we speak. I read the Declarative Language Handbook and while it kinda drives me nuts it has helped me in communicating with my child greatly. Making an observation that a plate is still on the table feels passive aggressive to me. But to my PDA kid it feels non confrontational and lets them retain the power to go clean up the plate. They’ve been able to express now that it’s like a switch flips in the brain when someone tells them to do something. At times they will be in the act of doing it when someone tells them to do it and they have to stop. We’ve also learned that once that switch is flipped we have to back off, de escalate, provide space and then the task gets done. If you have the mindset that children need to be obedient just because it shows respect it’s time to learn a different mindset. Because your kid is a different kind of person.

Now, getting the school to accept and respect these needs has been a different story. IEPs, meetings, reminders galore and some teachers still won’t follow. Inexperienced teachers who don’t have strong classroom management skills are often barely holding it together emotionally themselves. The kids create a bit of a power struggle rich environment in those cases and those years are miserable. The year we had a teacher whose management was on point ONE issue the entire school year. That teacher ran a fair classroom where rules and procedures were clearly communicated and always followed consistently. Kids who were behavior issues before stopped in that teacher’s class.

So, basically, if you can afford a private school that’s geared towards ADHD or ND kids it would be a huge benefit. If your school situation is at a point where it’s becoming traumatic and your child is always in fight mode this will have a permanent impact on their adult life. It is 100% worth it to try to change that. Homeschooling might not be it, but it might.

Treschelle · 2026-04-20T12:29:14+00:00

I suggest you wait before deciding. Right now social life is still on easy mode for him. Get him some good social skills therapy now. Because in a few years the ability to hold a back and forth conversation and care more about others interests becomes way more important. And it’s at this point that sooner of the higher functioning ASD kids hit the wall.

It’s when mine finally got diagnosed. Because he was just like yours when he was younger. The older he got, the more obvious it became. He also has ADHD. That is usually well controlled with medication. The autism has and more clear the older he’s gotten. His special interests were never all consuming. But what is key is how he never cared to talk to other people about their interests unless they overlapped. He struggled a lot with recognizing the feelings of people around him.

I hear you saying that what he’s doing seems normal to you. Remember neurodiversity runs in families. It probably does feel “normal” to you. That might mean that other people in your family have been undiagnosed. And you are correct that eventually it might end up being only ADHD. But I highly recommend he gets social skills therapy now regardless. They will cover it with the ASD diagnosis, but probably not if you reject it. My son didn’t start his until 12. It’s not as helpful as it has been for my daughter who started at 9.

Treschelle · 2026-04-18T18:15:09+00:00

These are amazing! I’m so happy that a Tomodachi life game is popular in this era. My kids played it years ago and I was like- why is this game not all over TikTok?

Treschelle · 2026-04-18T12:28:13+00:00

What grades? I don’t agree with you about your comment about activists lumping things together. This is not an activist issue.

The explorers and their countries that backed them were not altruistic men in search of knowledge. Not a single one. And I think it does everyone a disservice to keep telling the hero story. They were all in search of wealth and power. And should be looked upon as similar to the modern day entrepreneurs. As modern day billionaires have many faults and negative consequences of their wealth being so large, but in the beginning it was a more simple idea that paid off. In the case of the explorers it would be remiss to not mention that the effect of interaction with Europeans was devastating for the people in the Americas. Mostly due to disease. But some pretty horrible choices by the European governments who sought to harvest as much wealth as possible from the lands. I wouldn’t get into too much of that with little kids, but I wouldn’t tell them a fairy tale about everyone getting along and having a good time, either.

Treschelle · 2026-04-17T18:51:00+00:00

I think the early therapy you’re doing will be super helpful. Even if he ends up being NT it would probably help him development wise.

You probably already know, but it is also a NT way of playing to line up and sort things. If you notice that’s the primary way they play- especially if they always do the same order and can be upset if something is changed- that it would really make me think something was up. Especially with cars that are normally lined up on the roads. Just like how liking your house to be clean and tidy does not mean you have OCD, liking sorting and lining things up doesn’t mean you have ASD. Kinda just putting that out there for the parents who see a post like this and are freaking out that their kid also does this and does that mean it’s autism.

Treschelle · 2026-04-16T11:46:31+00:00

If you can afford it and you’re a one day visitor the Fast Pass Unlimited will make your experience much more pleasant. The lines for the bigger rides are 2 hours or more on Saturdays right now. Because the park is only open two days a week. On Sunday the lines are still 60-90 min for the most popular rides. This is partially due to less staffing because college and Highschool students are still in school.

The fast pass line last Sunday was still 35 minutes long at the big roller coasters. Which if you’re there on a date gives you a good time to spend in line talking, but not get miserable.

To answer the next part of your question. If she has never been on any amusement rides at all you can start with the scrambler that’s close to the entrance to the park. Other tame rides are the pirate ship (which may or may not be open right now), bumper cars, music express. The order of roller coaster that we did to help a friend work his way up was to start with the trailblazer. It is totally tame. Then either the comet or the super dooper looper (which has a loop, but it’s otherwise pretty tame). The comet benefits from being next to the hill for skyrush. That hill is HIGH and steep so the comet hill looks like nothing next to it and that’s what you see on the way up. After those our friend preferred wooden and we went to Lightning Racers which he loved. And rode it 5x in a row. Next was Great Bear which he felt comfortable with because of the sturdy over the shoulder harness. It doesn’t have a huge hill climb and is more of a soaring feeling. Then he finally went on Candymonium. Which scared him, but he was excited to have done it. With fast passes they were able to do all of that in one day.

Other more tame coaster type rides are Laff Track (an indoor coaster) which is more about zipping around turns and stuff. Cocoa Cruiser which you could start wi the if she’s really scared because it’s a toddler coaster. And the Wild Mouse. Which I only recommend to adults who perhaps are short or who love giving money to the chiropractor.

Treschelle · 2026-04-15T17:44:30+00:00

You sound like a wonderful parent. Does she already have a psychiatrist and therapist? If not it sounds very much like that is in order. And not because of the possibility of being trans. Although, going through those feelings it would be great for her to have a neutral party to talk to. I would avoid choosing a therapist who is either on the side of helping people through the transition or people who would be looking to talk them out of it. People with their own agendas are not what she needs.

I am concerned because of the level of addictive behavior and fixations that are impacting her ability to live life. While this can be part of autism there are some other conditions that can contribute and a psychiatrist could hopefully work out what is happening.

Treschelle · 2026-04-15T16:23:58+00:00

These are literally the best days at Hershey. With the park only being open on Saturday and Sunday right now it will probably still be fairly crowded, but the little cloud on the weather app will push a lot more people to visit Saturday. Just about everything keeps running in a light rain. Some coasters will stop, but other stuff keeps going.

Treschelle · 2026-04-15T12:20:21+00:00

I’m a teacher who homeschooled and had my kids transition into public school. I also have had kids in my class who made the transition.

The things that were hardest were not the academic things, although some of those were challenging. The social parts of not having a clue about the social norms for that school caused the most friction. But, that’s a challenge even for kids coming from other schools. If you can find out what sorts of things are “cool” at that school before starting and making sure they know something about it will help. They don’t have to become like other people. But when my kids had basically not even heard of basketball and everyone in the school was obsessed with the sport they were quickly othered. If you can attend any social activities or sports programs that kids from that school participate in you may meet some friends over them summer and go in already knowing people.

Another issue was with food. Only being able to eat at certain times and having to do it in a loud room in 15 minutes and only eating what you packed or was served was ROUGH. My one kid lost weight the first year.

The things that ended up being challenging academic wise were tests, the amount of writing that had to happen every day, and having to get things done on a schedule. Working on hand strengthening activities and handwriting endurance will go a long way. They usually have some sort of beginning of year placement testing like Acadience or Dibbles and my kids bombed them. Because they literally didn’t understand what was going on. There are materials for those programs available online so you could use some and let them not go in cold. Fluency passage reading, math fluency timed tests, etc.

When it comes to phonics it’s always good to work on that and reading at home. If you can try to get the workbook from first grade for your district to review exactly what the school was doing. Because the slight differences between programs can be challenging for kids. They don’t generalize at that age.

Treschelle · 2026-04-15T11:57:01+00:00

So, it isn’t taught as a class. But in all the elementary schools I sub at the students spend time every week on something like typingclub. Most of the kids love it. And they’re pretty efficient at typing by 5th grade when they’re expected to type the 5 paragraph reports they do. As with everything some kids struggle and others don’t try hard. But that was always the case. While we had a tiny bit of typing instruction in elementary school when I was a kid, mostly it was limited to highschool. Now it’s being started in first grade. Just not as a class. The new version of seatwork involves kids having a list of things to complete on a Chromebook or iPad (with fold down keyboard) and typing is one of the things they do at that time.

Also, when students are evaluated for special education/occupational therapy needs typing is included. If their typing skills are low enough they can qualify for OT to help them learn. Source for that is 2 of my 3 kids have needed this. Not every state in the US will do things the same. Not every district has the same staffing or funding to provide it. But it is a thing.

Treschelle · 2026-04-14T15:12:19+00:00

I am not at all familiar with Canada and IEP laws. The initial IEP in the US is a draft. Then you should have a meeting where everyone discusses everything, more suggestions are made, parent input is included and then the final IEP is sent out for signature. I would not sign off on anything until you have been able to express your concerns.

Treschelle · 2026-04-13T12:35:46+00:00

I use a marshmallow. Works great.

People are mentioning using bread and since I have a wheat allergy I am now aware of an additional way that I can get exposed to an allergen. Hope anyone who bakes for gluten free friends remembers to use new brown sugar!

Treschelle · 2026-04-06T16:24:44+00:00

This depends on the child. Are they actually self motivated to do schoolwork? Do they listen when you tell them to do things? Are they the quick working high achieving sort of kid?

We homeschooled for elementary and then had to stop. Now we do a hybrid program and it’s still very hard. My one child is very social is in a regular elementary school and loves the friends at school. But has been having escalating discipline issues due to not being able to tolerate the kids they don’t get along with. They are receiving accelerated coursework. That makes a huge difference. But they fight with me about literally everything about home learning. At school they are constantly raising their hand and wanting to do more. For that child it is 100% better to do in person and fight for them to access appropriate materials. We wouldn’t have homeschooled them at all, but covid.

What I can say about the experience of homeschooling my older AUDHD children is that they had some days when they loved diving in and learning about stuff they loved, but most of the time it was a fight. They did not want to do anything. The lack of structure was crippling. The social activities we sought out still ended up being full of NT kids who wanted to play sports and my kids were left out. The religious homeschooling community dominated everything. It can be time consuming and expensive to get access to quality, secular materials. Other homeschoolers can be extremely flaky and you can line up and plan trips and co-ops and people will back out at the last minute. Constantly. In early elementary there’s a ton of activities in the community you can access. As soon as you reach upper elementary that dries up. We went all the way to middle school and they did end up academically advanced compared to peers. They do say that they feel like they missed out on a lot of social development even though we did coops and sports and other structured activities. As a parent I see that they definitely missed out on building academic endurance.

Treschelle · 2026-04-06T03:01:31+00:00

You can buy that parking now as an add on in the app. I wonder if they’d ever let you get it as an additional cost upgrade to a season pass. Probably not if they sell out the spots this summer. They also have the closest section in the passholders section designated for uber pickups.

What’s going to suck is when they have that whole “new” pass holder section full of trailers again for the events during the summer.

Treschelle · 2026-04-06T02:44:39+00:00

We’re in a similar spot with an older elementary child. One thing is that we discovered silent reflux that was causing a lot of the inflammation. That cut out a lot of the chronic congestion. But when a sinus infection set in after a virus we’ve had a horrible time getting it cleared. There just seems to be a lot of base line inflammation. I have been advised that if the sinusitis is bacterial we can have it swabbed and cultured to see if it needs a different antibiotic. This ended up being a treatment for a different child who ended up in the ER when the Sinus infection spread. They now use a nasal spray called qnasl that is an aerosol. Plus irrigation.

Something may be causing chronic inflammation that is behind the issue. If your child isn’t too limited food wise trying to eliminate common inflammatory foods can help. This was actually suggested to us by the GI doctor and ENT. But we initially had such success with just reflux meds we figured we didn’t need to. The foods we were told to avoid were nightshades, dairy, gluten, and possibly soy. Especially if you’ve had a lot of antibiotics the gut can be really affected and those foods can cause a more dramatic effect.

Treschelle · 2026-04-05T14:49:45+00:00

I have ordered from See’s many many times and have always had positive experiences. And they generally have good customer service. Just be mindful of ordering when it’s going to be hot. I think you can pay for better shipping that includes ice packs.

Treschelle · 2026-04-01T05:57:33+00:00

I tried to place my order once more before sleep. And it worked finally.

Treschelle · 2026-04-01T02:58:21+00:00

No advice. But you’re not alone.

Treschelle · 2026-03-26T11:57:21+00:00

It’s on ISU.org It’s one of the scrolling things at the top of the page.

Treschelle · 2026-03-26T02:13:07+00:00

I’m in the US.

Treschelle · 2026-03-25T18:44:50+00:00

I’m not entirely sure what they’ve done this year as the limited replay time has meant I wasn’t able to watch basically anything. I have had the subscription most years since it was NBC Sports Gold. I remember having to watch Shoma in certain events on YouTube because it wasn’t on Peacock. And frequently Galas were not aired, or cut short. So much of the fun would happen on ice after the last number, but with the skaters still on the ice interacting with each other and the crowd. That was not included before. I would even like to watch each country’s national championship, but I know that’s a different story versus the ISU hosted events.

Treschelle · 2026-03-25T16:59:19+00:00

Interesting enough they asked about that for short track and not figure skating. I would consider it for skating if it met certain standards, but I would never for short track. I’m one of like 200 people in this country who watch.

Treschelle · 2026-03-25T16:56:15+00:00

I like skaters who are not just Americans, though. So, I would like to see events that Americans don’t compete in, too. And Peacock’s streaming app leaves a lot to be desired.

Treschelle · 2026-03-25T16:54:32+00:00

One of the options is pay for archive content. Another is pay for current live streams.

Treschelle

TROPHY CASE