Kid 1's behavioral coach checked in with me this morning. We talked about some difficulty Kid 1 is having with self-expression, but mostly we touched base on how very well he's doing.
This time last year we pulled our son out of school. He is autistic and does not do well with other people's sounds, smells, or proximity. Being inside the school building was a form of torture for him. He was constantly in defense mode, emotionally shut down and ready to fight. He was sent home from school almost daily even though he wasn't going full day. It was very stressful for our whole family.
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He also stopped learning.
That was a shame because Kid 1 is ridiculously smart. He's also unusually physically coordinated and active. We brought him home, moved to the house we're in now which has a huge yard, and gave him a checklist of things to complete on his own each day.
He does it. We worked a bit on his homeschool goals and schedule this morning, but he has generally been great about getting all his work done daily and making leaps and bounds in his comprehension of all subjects. It's a relief. This isn't a humble-brag, but Kiddo was ahead in every area of learning until last school year. When he slipped to "grade level" in his assessments, we knew something was really wrong. Basically it meant that he hadn't learned anything in a year.
We don't do assessments at home in any standardized sense, but we do talk to our child. An look into his mind are these goals he set for himself:
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To learn more about the forms of torture used in the Holocaust and the way the human mind responds to them.
This is for a Fiction novel he's been working on which has demons and genetic torture. The genre is horror, and he chose the Holocaust because it is a topic he can research and write a Nonfiction essay about.
To learn more about Nuclear Physics, Particle Physics and Military Science.
He later added nuclear winter as a topic to this list with the goal of creating a solar-powered generator.
To create an encyclopedia for the world of his novel.
This is so he can make more forward progress in his storytelling. He tends to write and rewrite passages rather than generate new work.
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Read more about how the mind perceives fear and pain from a medical standpoint, and to learn about conspiracy theories.
You may have gleaned he's very interested in horror. In fact, he's just come out of a severely anxious period. His choices to research the why behind fear is a very rational approach to understanding his own mind.
*To learn the math for Astrophysics and chart planet rotation."
I periodically take him to the library to check out books related to these topics. He picks from the adult section. He is able to absorb quite a lot for an eleven year old. It's good to see him excited about learning. It's wonderful to see him self-directed toward achieving goals he is able to set himself.
I'm very hopeful for his homeschool semester ahead. A goal I have is to support his advance in writing. He only enjoys writing Fiction, but persuasive and personal essays as well as documenting research are very important skills. From his behavioral advances, I can tell we'll get there.
Do you have any learning goals this year?
