Thank you for the warm welcome!
As for how I manage homeschooling and life in general...with alot of preparations over the summer I can do it pretty stress free. This year has been the trickest though because we have a very active toddler in the mix..making somedays just simply hands on school instead of pen and paper school. But we work through it. I'd love to share more on my journey through homeschooling if you'd like. It's a real passion our family has and the kids all love being at home for school, but they haven't anything to compare it to but Sunday school and they both say they love that they can be together all the time and that they can be with me all day and with their baby brother all day. The both were shocked to learn that if they went to "The Big School" they would be in different classes and to them that seemed ridiculous.
My dd7 had ALL the signs as a baby but I didn't even know it until last year when I started to read more into SPD. Many of her sensory seeking things were so embarassing and mind boggling that I thought other things were def. going on but the more I talked to our pedi about particular things he related them to "something else". And now we've learned that "something else" is SPD.
DD is great at school. She is almost always fidgeting during her lessons. But she's overall a great learner. She's taken multipication this year by the reins and has proved me she heard me all along in showing her how to figure out the solution! Her handwriting is good but she struggles with making the lowercase letters hit the middle dotted line. She things they are WAY too big that way and insists on making them smaller and under the middle dotted line of her primary writing paper, so we do have to erase and rewrite that stuff but I handle that with gentle concern. Unlike alot of other things I've handled. I think with school I feared if I was harsh they'd learn to hate it and then homeschooling wasn't helping in the regard to love to learn aspect dh and I were going for. However she only fits over reading...but when she reads her lesson and is done she's SOOO proud of herself. Plus we've enrolled in the Pizza Hut reading program for homeschoolers so she earns a personal pan pizza every month for reading that month. Huge plus in our classroom! We do have a room that is made completely into an elementary school room. Because we have her in 2nd grade, her sister in Kindergarten and her little brother in Toddler school. I needed a room just for school to make it more "like the real thing" I guess. hehe!
My biggest embarassment for dd7 was her excessive need for arousal. I thought something seriously was wrong when she was a baby, she'd rub on your hip while holding her..then she'd rub on her pillows and such. As she got older it never went away but she'd do it in front of anyone on the sofa or her bed and I was mortified. So I asked our pedi and he said "it's somewhat normal". Then my second daughter was born and it never happened to her and my sisters daughter was born and she never did it. My dd7 would get upset if she was caught and told to stop. And I would get upset and angry and then I realize that I was making her ashamed. So then I allowed her to do it in "private" without anyone else in the room with the door closed and after allowing that it's diminshed GREATLY! It happens MAYBE once a month now! Whereas it was several times a day. I even considered something else more serious happened but dd is with me and has NEVER been alone but in nursery at Church...so I was so concerned. Now reading about SPD it's not mentioned directly but they mention similar things like their need for sensation and arousal. So I've hoped that this was part of it. That was the most most most embarassing EVER to admit! and to even TYPE! I've never said anything but to my sister, my dh and my pedi.
Here's a little list of dd's SPD issues:
-Very picky eater
-Can't eat meat. She insists she can't swallow it.
-Always asking for sweets.
-Is Very detail orientated with explaining all the texture issues with her food but never complains and tries to eat EVERYTHING but ends up spitting it all out because she can't swallow it. (This is the newest struggle and the one big red flag that made me DO SOMETHING about her suffering)
-She can't stand loud noises.
-She can't wear ALOT of her clothes because she insists they are too tight, falling off or poking her.
-She has an overly big attachment to her stuffed animals.
-She sucks on her fingers.
-She's constantly clearing her throat.
-She has to chew gum all the time.
-She has a hard time going for long car rides and sometimes even short rides.
-She washes her hands so much that they dry and crack, she insists germs are on her hands still.
-She can't swing very high.
-She can't turn upside down.
-Clipping her fingernails causes her pain.
-Brushing her hair makes her cry.
-She is ALWAYS creating creature and things out of socks and left over fabrics and materials and growing extremely attached to them.
-She is forever making costumes and wearing them and when they don't fit right or they don't look close enough she begins to cry.
-When she has a meltdown...she's not mean about it..she just cries and insists on being right and when she's told she's not right she'll go hide and cry.
-She touches everyone!
-When she cuddles or sits on the sofa with someone she nearly smothers them.
-She talks to everyone!
-She will interupt and not even realize it until we point it out then she apologizes politely and then seconds later continues to interupt.
-She tells everyone a story!
-She insists on talking all the time, even if she's not being heard by someone. She'll talk to someone across the house.
-She loves hugs and to be held.
-She likes to be the leader of everything. When playing if she can't have the control she cries.
-Every animal or creature she makes has to be a boy and named Max.
-She has a hard time making friends because she is so "smothering" and "bossy"...and alot of the kids don't understand her. She's very extroverted and loves people and new places.
-She is very sensitive to smells.
-When she see's raw meat, she cries and begins to talk about how she was going to name that animal Max and how someone could kill it and then eat it. She would then get the food on her plate and hold it and cry. So we stopped giving her meat unless she asks.
This is just some of what I've noticed the past year.
Her eating habits have gotten so bad that I was red flagged and realized that I must take action now and no longer sit on the sidelines "hoping it would go away"...because it won't. The only thing that made me realize she wasn't acting out was when she couldn't eat meat or swallow things...she was very calm and very honest and didn't cry....she'd get upset that she couldn't and then thought by telling me she'd hurt my feelings because I prepared the meal. When I went to open the "Out of Sync" child book I was floored to read that it's "normal" in a SPD child. So I read on how to handle it and now I give her options on food (even if it's her favorite a bologna and cheese sandwich)...and when she's done, she's done..and when she asks for her dessert to give her some because she DID try!
DH is having a harder time with "accepting" that it's SPD and not behavioral. He understands it's SPD but he has on and off again times when he says "she can stop it"...and knowing she can't..it's more because he's frustrated. So he lets me just handle it until we get it all figured out.
I did read about a "chewy tube" and a vibrating mouth massager and a corn brush. She wants them all. We sat down together and she picked out ones she wanted. I did have a brand new surgical tube in packaging that I never opened that went to my breast pump. So I cut the ends off that hooks to the breast pump and tied it into a knot on one end and attached it to a lanyard cord and she chews the tar out of that tube when she needs. Thats helped alot!
