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Madeline's avatar

This is blowing my mind. Never thought to flip the script and ask if the SCHOOL is ready for my child. When my kid becomes school-age, how do you recommend evaluating schools through this framework? What questions are most useful to ask to find out if THEY are ready for my kid?

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Halima Mjahed's avatar

Every time I read your articles or attend your webinars on school problems, I feel there's still a lot to heal in me and my children. There's no real democratic schools in my country, ther's only hope and childhood in our home.

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Amy Peggs's avatar

A teacher wrote a post like this on Reddit and I asked for genuine advice about how I can better prepare my child who is delayed in several of these areas. He is already starting school three full years later than he would in the UK but we've reached a crunch point where we either give MS a try or opt for specialist which seems (anecdotally from experienced professionals) to be a one way street and homeschooling is not legal where we live.

Anyway her advice was to not drop demands to avoid a tantrum. How helpful. I am usually quite robust about online conversations but this one really upset me for some reason. I'm not doing this for an easy life. I might drop demands if it makes sense (no point demanding something several levels above their current ability) but it's not to avoid discomfort for me. The reason I'm asking advice is not because I'm looking for a magic solution. I'm genuinely seeking support from experienced people. It's the first time I've done this (my second child, but the first was more than ready for school) and they have done it many many more times.

It's extremely frustrating to have professionals make these assumptions about me constantly.

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Kristen Malcolm's avatar

This stuff really does worry me. I've got a 2-year-old with Down Syndrome, and obviously she's going to be considerably behind on a lot of things. But if she's taught me anything, it's that she will do and learn things on her own time, and trying to rush her does nothing but harm. In my country we have Head Start programs to help get her into a school environment early (as in age 3), but I don't think I want that for her. Or me.

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I Know Nothing's avatar

Our society goes out of its way to harm children. Thankfully, I'm not a parent but i dont understand how there isn't society wide push back against the school system.

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