I would really just like to hear from as many other moms as possible. Doesn’t even matter if you are homeschooling now or not – at least I don’t think so.

Would your mom, or any other significant relative, disown you (as in remove you from their will, refuse to take your calls, and when no choice but to speak to you say “I’ve got nothing to say to you!”, etc) because you are homeschooling their grandchild?

Do you need more of the story? Back in November my mom learned that we are homeschooling my niece. Mom lives nearly 2000 miles from us. Back in 2004 she sent my sister (five yrs younger than me) and her almost 3yo dd up here to live with me because she (mom) “could no longer deal with her” (mom’s exact words). My sister has some severe learning disabilities and makes some really poor choices in everyday life – she needs a lot of guidance and support for some of the simplest things. To make this as short as possible – they now live with me and sis & I expect that arrangement will last for many years yet.

My niece, Delle, is now 6yo – but she turned 6 after the cutoff date for mandatory attendance this school year. Delle is very bright – we brought her in to the school district for testing due to some behavior and speech concerns just after she turned 3. The report from them was that she could use some help from a regular psych of some kind but not from the school yet. They suspected ADHD and/or a few other problems. We moved on to an early childhood development center that’s connected with our pcp. After several appointments for different types of testing they determined she does in fact fit the profiles for ADHD, ODD, and is very gifted (IQ of 126 and this is prior to any formal education).

We opted to put her on the waiting list for the Montessori Preschool program run by our school district. She joined that program at the age of 4; turned 5 during that school year. During that school year the teacher & staff repeatedly had problems with Delle’s behavior – more the ODD than the ADHD.

We also learned with all the testing that this kid has tons of food allergies! She’s allergic to beef, eggs, all dairy, lamb, citrus fruits, mustard, shellfish, and more but I don’t have the list in front of me. I know she can’t eat most of what’s on the regular school menus. We spent several hours back and forth with the food supervisor to get a menu set up for her. This also affects snack time in class – and combined with allergies of other classmates that left very little that all could share – but hers was the most restricted.

The behavior problems increased. Delle began acting out more at home, returned to wetting herself (3-6 accidents a day), ate less, slept poorly, and seemed depressed more often. Then she began physically attacking others at school – sometimes with provocation, sometimes not – which resulted in her being isolated from others more and more parts of each day. By the end of the school year she was spending 3 hours or more (combined time) in the isolation corner playing by herself and rarely was allowed outside to play at all.

My sister and I discussed these issues all summer… until Sis finally expressed the wish that she was smart enough to homeschool her daughter. Then I suggested I could homeschool her – even working out ways that Sis could work with her dd under my direction. We tried it a few weeks before school actually began and decided to not send her back to school – back to the Montessori program she was in. We didn’t officially switch to homeschooling as the state doesn’t even require her to be in school yet. That point will come next September (2008).

Until then, or for now, we are homeschooling her. She loves to learn! She’s reading – probably a mid-1st grade level. She’s is understanding basic math concepts; learning Spanish; knows over 50 colors (names from a box of 96 crayola crayons); knows alphabet forwards and for fun, backwards; counts easily to 100 and with small reminders up to 1000; she loves science projects. She’s also very active and can be very oppositional but we are learning to work with that. Routine, consistency, schedules, are all very important to her. Decisions for the 2008-2009 school year are being made soon – February is the month to get it done here… and Sis and I are leaning to keeping her homeschooled.

The past few weeks mom has called and talked to my sister, threatening to find a way to get her back there, move her back in to mom’s house, calling the authorities saying we’re not letting Delle go to school even tho she wants to go, threatening to file for custody of Delle, etc. Sis has been very upset over these threats but we (me, my kids, others near us here) have tried to assure her mom doesn’t have any grounds to stand on. The situation hit a high(low)point after mom’s 3rd call in the same morning – talking about the same thing – and me even talking to her again explaining how it’s not an issue. The child doesn’t even HAVE to be in school yet… and asking her stop threatening Sis as there really was no point to it. Mom didn’t call back any more that day.

The next day my niece, V – who lives with mom right now – called us to find out more about this situation as ‘grandma’s gone nutso about it’! According to V, Mom is ranting to anyone who will listen about us homeschooling Delle, and saying she’s having her will rewritten to take us all out of it – me, my kids, sis & her kids – all because we are homeschooling Delle right now – against Mom’s wishes (she firmly believes that Delle needs to be with other kids her age and the school district must just deal with all the problems a kid has).

When I tried to call Mom the next day she hung up on me; I tried a little while later and she picked up, only to tell me, “I’ve got nothing to say to you!” and promptly slammed the phone down.

And yes, I’m very aware of the district’s responsibilities here – as well as special ed concerns – IDEA, IEPs, 504s, etc, etc, etc…. all six of my kids spent years in special ed for various reasons! I also homeschooled 5 of my six kids at various times because it was what was best for that child at that time and never got this kind of reaction from mom. Plus, Mom’s repeatedly telling Sis and myself that Delle doesn’t have all these allergies (we’ve shown her the 3 pages of lab results); isn’t ADHD, or ADD even, and isn’t ODD either (we’ve also shown her those test reports) and that we are just making all this up so we can keep Delle away from others! (That is so irrational – I know)

There’s been other stuff too – like conversations we’ve had in the last several weeks that she has absolutely no memory of later; like getting upset for trivial matters (both there where she lives and here where she really can’t do anything to change things); denying various events ever happening in the past years; heightened irritations – the kind of stuff we know has bothered always her now seems to bother her even more than usual. I don’t have a good feeling about things right now but I don’t know what I can do about them either.

Mom’s an RN, who worked for a number of years as a regular school nurse, then this school year switched to a school for severely handicapped kids where she’s doing caths, and tube feedings, and lots of serious meds to give in precise ways and times… lots of stress there. When she began she did not understand why these kind of kids were even in school – what could they learn? I sent her a bunch of info for online sources to learn more about various types of disabilities and websites about kids that were doing amazing things. She began to see that even kids that can’t talk, can’t walk, can’t hardly communicate, CAN learn and find joy in doing so! But – Mom has had a number of health issues (took a year off of nursing to get some control back over some of these) recently and in November she told me they found some tumors in her meninges (outer brain area) but they are nothing to worry about – she won’t tell me the name of her neurologist… tho she’s often mentioned her pcp by name.

I’m worried.

I’m sad.

I need to talk to others who have dealt with any of these types of things.

Thanks!