When parenting a PDAer there is so much inner work to be done in challenging our beliefs and accepting a different path to what we had expected. Education has been one of the biggest and most triggering aspects that our family has had to reconsider.
I am not saying that this has to be the path for your family, everyone’s journey is going to be different and that is ok.
Our beliefs and decision making have changed as we have learned more about our PDAer’s needs, had time to accept the extent of those needs, realised that school is not the only place for kids to gain an education, creatively found ways that we as parents can earn an income and complete meaningful work around homeschooling, and acknowledged that there is not only one way that our life is supposed to look.
The progression has looked like this over the last 4 years…
- Our child will attend the local Kindergarten and attend our State catchment school.
- Our Autistic child will be more supported at a small, Private Christian school.
- Our Autistic PDA child will be more supported at a very small, Independent school that encourages self-directed learning. (Whilst also knowing in my gut that homeschooling will likely be our path, it feels terrifying.)
- I see how self-directed learning could work, but it’s not what I had planned, it’s daunting and highly triggering, especially when others bring it up.
- I’m confident that home-based, self-directed learning is the best fit for our whole family.
If you want to read more this was the journey through those shifts…
We started our son at a small family daycare setting just a couple of mornings a week. The educator was inclusive, experienced and highly attuned, the sensory environment aligned with his preferences and it was a small setting with only 4 kids who he developed lovely friendships with. We were on track for the idea I had pictured in my mind that our child would attend our local kindergarten and mainstream school.
When our son’s neurotype was confirmed as being Autistic, we delayed his entry to school by a year to allow more time for him to be ready. We also considered that the local Christian school would be able to offer a smaller and more supportive environment.
Daycare went well for a year, however a series of changes lead to a loss of trust and he no longer felt safe there. Distressed behaviours accumulated over a few months. It became increasingly more difficult to get there and on the days he did we would often get phone calls to collect him early and I would dread the reports on pick up. There came a day when we said, “No more.” We stopped daycare. Burnout was the catalyst for discovering that our son fit a PDA profile.
I quit my job and didn’t think I would ever be able to return to my profession. I grieved. I was terrified at the concept of our PDAer’s schooling being on my shoulders and I was living and parenting from a place of immense fear. A few months later I was in carer burnout too and I couldn’t see how home schooling could ever be sustainable long term.
Those low points where the catalyst for making some radical changes to our lives. We put the supports in place to stabilise our PDAer’s nervous system. I did the work on myself with a counsellor. We adjusted and reimagined how paid work could fit around the possibility of homeschooling.
We looked at alternative school options but it was met with extreme anxiety from our PDAer. We knew in our hearts that it wasn’t going to pan out. We gave our PDAer a say in the decisions that impacted him. We told him that some kid’s brains learn best at home and some kid’s brains learn best at school and that we trusted him to be able to choose what was right for him.
Then there came another day that stands out in my mind. I remember the exact moment when I realised, this could work, that self-directed learning could work. My PDAer and I had a morning, just the two of us, we were on the other side of burnout and we had managed to get out for a bush walk to the creek. He was so calm, so happy, so interested in learning about everything around him. That was the day that I actually believed it.
2 years on from that day and I have continued to be amazed by how much our PDAer can learn when his nervous system is regulated and when I put my trust in him to learn in his own way and in his own time.
There is acceptance and acknowledgment that life can still be really beautiful when we let go of our preconceived ideas of what it is “supposed” to look like and find a new way.
