It's probably the best thing for the child, but it might kill the Mom. Our RAD child would have used going out to school each day as an opportunity to scam and fill her tank on strangers, and come home to "dis" Mommy. But on the other hand, homeschool just becomes another place to assert the control battles. I think it can jump-start attachment in a huge way, but it is tremendously wearing on Mom to never, ever get a break, and to be responsible for absolutely EVERY aspect of the child's care and development. So it definitely has its pros and cons. After homeschooling our bio children for 14 years, and homeschooling our four adopted children immediately upon homecoming, I can say I definitely have a love/hate relationship with the whole thing!

We homeschool, if you can call it that. We have had the brother and sister we adopted together out-of-country for four years. We tried public school (and it would have been the same which ever school we went to) and as Scraps said, it was an opportunity to scam and the rages I had from our daughter! Our son was unmotivatable by the school, which, naturally, was blamed partially on us. His teacher was great and I can't think of a better one, but 5 months into the year, the teacher had given up and school was a holding tank. Not that the teacher trying helped either, because our son saw it as a great time to provoke everyone and everything and no consequence the school had meant a hill of beans.

So, we considered the time that the children were in school as "information for us" and despite our son's feeble attempts to learn here, I have to say that he is doing much more than he ever did at school. He is beginning to care more and wonders why I let his sister watch videos periodically and he can't--well, he can when it is a family entertainment-by-video night--by himself. I told him that I would be robbing him. Robbing him of time he could spend reading and writing and doing math. He messes mightily with all, but is, by a snail's pace doing more.

I would NEVER go back to public school or private school. Our son has absolutely no comprehension problems and we are able to read what we like, not the junk that the school had when there are all these great works of literature. We have gone through Uncle Tom's Cabin about 4 times and they love it. Especially Topsy who is certainly RAD. I don't worry about making it through schooling stuff. I work on behaviour and training. Our daughter is working hard and wants the free time in the afternoon--that, with school would be cluttered with homework--and I am loving reading to the kids books I wish I had read at their age.

John Taylor Gatto's books have been of uncalculable encouragement to me as have David H. Albert's.

The wonderful thing about homeschooling is you can do it your way, Nancy, and I can do it mine and the school is not breathing down our necks about our parenting! And we can spend the time we need to on what we believe matters.

We went to a camp this year to help with the end of the year maintainance and did manual labor and the kids learned about working. It was wonderful. Could we have done that while in school? Of course not. They would have wanted the kids to keep up on schoolwork. That can wait...Bonding time can't. And I am just grateful that our son is at the point where he was manageable enough to go...last year, definitely not. And if we hadn't pulled him out of school, I shudder to think where he would be.

patricia

Following up from my earlier post. I feel bad taking up your already precious resources, but I know you've probably been where I am now.

My DH is a football coach, we took in one of his 17 year old football players. DH has known this boy for three years now. He had leukemia when he was 15. The day after he found out he was in remission, his so-called Mom told him she was moving half way across the country to live with a man she met on the internet. When she told him this he flew into a rage and ripped the mirrors and bumpers off of her car.

He somehow avoided foster care, and in the last two years has lived in 6 different homes. No one has parented him...just given him a place to live. So he's had no rules.

When his Mom left him he started smoking marijuana to blunt the pain. He's used it ever since.

During the last two years, he's asked my husband three different times if he could come and live with us. I said no the first two times. The third time we said yes. That was two months ago.

We had a rocky first couple of weeks. Then things smoothed out and he seemed to be happy and doing well. His grades came up, he was playful and affectionate. One night I stayed up late with him watching a dumb movie. We started out sitting on the couch side by side. Before long he was leaning over so that his arm was pressed up against my leg. A few minutes later he had his head in my lap on a pillow.

We had a wonderful weekend, then on a Wednesday he came home with a lip piercing. We told him that we didn't want that example set for our younger kids, and he could not wear it in the house or at school. That started a downhill spiral.

He became angry, hateful, withdrawn. He wouldn't let me touch him any more. Even if I tried to pat him on the back he'd shrug me off and say "Don't touch me."

We caught him using marijuana again. I called his drug rehab counselor and asked what to do. She said she wanted a meeting between the four of us. And that she was going to force him to either start going to indiviual therapy to help him deal with his pain. He refused to have us involved. We made his curfew earlier as a consequence for the drug use.

He was 30 minutes late last night, and smelled like marijuana. So my husband told him that as further consequence he'd not be able to go out tonight at all. That if he left the house he might as well take his stuff with him. J told us last night that he'd be leaving.

I woke him up this morning to tell him goodbye. I told him that I love him, and that I hoped he'd make a good choice. Then I left for work. I really expected him to be gone when I got home.

My DH got up and took him out to breakfast this morning. J told him that "It's not your fault Coach. I'm just a lost cause." That softened DH up, and they worked out that J would get his regular curfew back. In return, J would go to this session on Monday with us and would try.

All these last two weeks he's been telling us that he does not want to quit smoking marijuana. Today was the first time in a long time that he said he'd try.

He said he does not want to wrestle this year. He just wants to concentrate on this rehab program and graduating.

I've talked and talked to him this week, trying to get through to him. I even hijacked him one night, LOL. We was going with me to pick up his Senior pics. I took him out in the middle of nowhere and parked on a dirt road. No TV, no phone, no Nintendo. Hard to ignore me out in the middle of nowhere.

He says that he's too old. That he wanted a family once upon a time, but now its too late. He says my other kids are very, very lucky. He tells me he's too old for hugs, kisses and touches and too old to be adopted (which we've offered).

He says he has no emotions and nothing hurts him. He said the only time he's been happy the last two years is when he's high.

He's very good with my other little kids. He's very kind hearted, and I think underneath it all very sensitive. The first time he saw me crying, he was very concerned about me.

We don't know where to draw the boundaries. I feel like if he leaves our home, he's committing himself to a long hard life. I don't think he really wants to leave. He has other places he could go live where no one would care what he does. But he hasn't left yet, despite the fact that we've been riding him hard the last two weeks.

I don't know if he's that desperate for a place to stay or if he really wants us to help him break down the thick walls he's built up.

We definitely believe in tough love, and we use alot of Parenting with Love and Logic on the younger kids.

Added to all of this, he had AML Leukemia. I have met with his onocolgist. Overall, he only has 40% five year survival rate. If he's still in remission by January (his two year anniv) then his relapse rate goes down to 15%. He may not live to see 20.

Bippette that is so sad, but it is great that he found you guys and will be given love. I hope some people on here have some help for you.

Bippette, a really difficult situation. Isn't it interesting that he is letting you set some boundries, surely his instincts must be telling him not to trust you. He shows compassion and caring, feelings are not dead, dspite what he says. He could leave at any time, and chooses to stay.

My experience with walls is, they come down very slowly. Life with him is likely to mean picking battles carefully and perhaps living for a while with behaviours that you normally wouldn't go with. It is likely to be a difficult go with him, but there is much positive in your comment. Keep banging away, he may not hear you for a while. Good luck. John