Well I Did It

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Buyerbeware,

My son has similar issues, and it is hard. I am sure many of the people at his school look at him much the same way as a bull in a china shop. They do not see the good things, and it is very frustrating.

Even when I was a child (a goodie-goodie rule-following child, mind you) I really did look at elementary school as mainly an exercise in killing a child's spirit. I didn't know how to hide what I did, like the NT kids so if I did something once, that the other kids did all the time (like talking in line) I would get caught, and I resented it. I was not very social, and if anything talking with peers was a thing that should have been encouraged (maybe not in line, but you know what I mean) As though adults go around walking silently through the halls... I understand that you can't have children doing a lot of what they would naturally do, but school suppresses so much of what is good and natural. Questioning becomes insubordination and creativity becomes subversive.

As far as structure goes, boy, do they over emphasize that. On the one hand, they constantly change things, increase expectations when it may or may not be developmentally correct, for a given child, etc. but yet at the same time bleat about structure and consistency. I never understood that. They have it backwards.

The only time my son really -needs- structure is when things are overwhelming or unpleasant, or sensory -related and unpleasant. Otherwise he would be very, very happy to do what he wants, when he wants to, just as most people would. What he does not like is telling him he has to do reading when he would like to do math etc. So yes, at school he needs structure to get him into the habit of having to do what other people (arbitrarily, in his mind) want him to do. Yet, that is where there is the most chaos. How do you even know how to balance promoting flexibility and providing structure, without knowing the child. All they do is provide generic, and hence useless advice.

Yes, I am in a bitter mood. this week, and I am really not saying that people can do what they want all the time. I think it is odd though, that kids who have less self-control than adults are expected to have more self-discipline than adults do. Is it about "earning" freedoms, or is it just what makes it easier for the factory-system educational process?