This month is getting Crazzier…even for me. In addition to this commitment to share our home education journey, I am also blogging and writing a whole book on Pathological Demand Avoidance…and getting seriously started with all the work on #HomeCrazzyHome now that the electricians are finished and things are back in MY control…as much as they can be anyway.
So a couple of changes on this one…my posts may or may not be shorter depending upon time and what is happening on the home ed front. And two…there won’t be so much about Awe-tism…Pathological Demand Avoidance…as I will be covering that elsewhere. But of course it will still come up in conversation…it is impossible to segment the two for us.
Yesterday was a blast with April Fool’s Day. PanKwake loves her pranks so she took great joy in celebrating this one. No, I still have not managed to find ALL the coffee she hid. But I have enough to survive for now. And I will be working on touching up the paint, organizing and decorating PinkTopia this week so I am sure I will run across it then.
Today though I want to talk about that SOCIALIZATION myth. You know the one that everyone demonizes home ed with…Isolation.
PanKwake is anything but isolated.
She goes out to shops, parks, the beach, Joe’s, Potato Man, home ed groups…just about anywhere she wants.
But home education makes one huge difference…
PanKwake goes where she WANTS…WHEN she wants.
And that is important for a child with demand avoidance. Having that control makes ALL the difference for her.
In fact, the times when I do not have the luxury of giving her that choice…like the dreaded doctor’s appointment…are the worst. Almost certain meltdowns.
Perhaps some people feel that giving a child such control is wrong. But let me talk for a moment about one of the hardest things for many adults…
Saying NO!
Have you ever gone out with your friends…just so you won’t hurt their feelings? Talked to a relative…because you ‘have’ to? Even accepted a job you hated…because it was ‘expected’ of you?
Did it make you Happy? Was it the right thing to do…in the long term?
For most of us…the answer is probably not. But we have gotten so caught up in what other people want or need…what is expected of us…that we have forgotten what we need…what makes us happy.
I got to thinking about all this when PanKwake decided to passed on a home ed group activity on Friday. And on Wednesday too. Now these are usually things that she LOVES doing. Especially seeing her best friend. So of course it caused me to pause and ask the most important question of all….
WHY?
But as always…the moment that I did…the answer came to me immediately…
After six weeks of almost daily loud noises, dust to revile a minor volcanic eruption, and the ever important disruption of the internet…the electricians have finally FINISHED (well…99% we are still finding the small odd thing here or there). My child had the sense to do what I could not…
To stop. Rest. And recharge her batteries.
I had trained her to consciously or unconsciously know what she was capable of handling…how much stimulation…how much PEOPLING she could handle.
Not so with me…I was still slaving away with all those things…that HAD to be done…NOW! Of course, if I had taken a moment I would have realized that they did not. But I was stuck…into the way I had been trained to think.
I have consciously made a decision not to do that to PanKwake. And home educating is the biggest one of that. I mean isn’t school the ultimate demand…
- Getting up early…having to be there on time or getting punished.
- And being forced to endure PEOPLING whether you can handle it that day or not…and being punished if you can’t.
Of course, the logic is that ‘they’ are preparing you for adult life…jobs. But the truth of that is changing. More and more jobs are home based. Cookie Monster works almost completely from home…rare trips abroad…like once every two or three years for a few days. It is a trend that is just beginning.
That is the future that I am preparing PanKwake for…one of choices. And making the decision NOT to People today is better than forcing yourself to go into town shopping, standing in the shop panicking because you have lost your bank card and having the nice young cashier smugly reply…Is that it in your hand, madam?
PanKwake and Cookie may be ahead of me on this curve.
Besides…who knows what this week will hold? PanKwake may want to go somewhere and do something every single day this week! Then I will be forced to People!
Self-Directed Learning & Neurodiversity 