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I was just looking at the news articles - Timothy Geithner looks an awful lot like "Mayhem" from the Allstate commercials! Probably not a good thing to have a Treasury Secretary that looks like Mayhem!
 
Camp Orkila just posted some photos. Here is Alex with his horse (they told me the gave him one of the tallest, but he is the oly kid who is taller than their horse! Alex is almost 6'4" and I'm sure he's even taller in his boots! He's 12 years old): Maybe I should get him his own riding helmet so he won't have to wear that shower cap nest time he goes back!

72609_camp_orkila_session_2_alex_and_horse_.jpg


And here is Olivia; front and center. She turned 10 on July 4th. Hard to believe she was a preemie and in the 30th percentile until after she turned 2; now she towers over most of the kids her age!
72609_camp_orkila_session_2_o_group.jpg
 
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That is unfortunate. I do know a lot of parents are hesitant to get their kids diagnosed because they don't want them labeled.

I did not want to put Olivia in a situation where she has to care for her brother. I think she has a hard enough time with him already. She does not always like it that kids in school know he's her big brother; and she seemed to be jealous of all the atttention he used to get with all his therapy appointments.
 
My kids are younger. DS will be in first grade this year. Kindergarten went fairly well. I wouldn't say he's extreme in any regard; he did okay in every subject they worked on. He is a little shy, sensitive, but then has a tendency to act overly wild (show-offy) sometimes. So far, making friends hasn't been a problem for him. That's my biggest concern, since I rarely had more than one friend at a time in school and didn't do well in group activities. DD is only 15 months, so it's too early to tell how it will go for her.
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The odd thing is that in Kindergarten, Alex had a lot of friends; he was one of the most popular kids there. It was when he enterd the public school that we had issues with ADHD and friends and stuff. Keeping him in every recess in first grade did not help any. He has a few friends now, all on the spectrum but very high-functioning. They run around at lunch time pretending they are Ninjas. I'm sure all the other kids find them odd, but the boys are having a great time, even if what interests them is not the same stuff that entertains most middle-school boys. In elementary school he mostly played by himself, pretending he was spiderman, slinging imaginary webs everywhere. The one exception would be when there was a kickball game going on. All the kids wanted him on their team because when he kicks the ball it goes clear to the neighboring school (the alternative high-school for our district). One of the boys who he is friends with now was not verbal until sometime in the 4th grade. He was on Alex's soccer team for a while, but the league did not make him feel welcome, so he now plays for Special Olympics. Alex became friends with him once he spoke well enough to hold a conversation. That boy has a wonderful mom and step-dad who do a lot to keep him involved in many activities.
 
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Sounds a lot like us. If that's true, our kids might in trouble.

Public school was he** until we got a diagnosis. He went to a Montessori kindergarten that was great. Unfortunatley, they discontinued their grade-school program, and there is nothing nearby. At the Montessori they could work on what they wanted, and he was doing division. In first grade they told me he was not so bright and could not even add 7+2! (This is a kid who could instantly covert Farenheit to Celsius and the other way around at 4!). They kept him in every recess for fidgeting in class, which only made it worse, and they would not follow instructions from his physical therapist. It took a diagnosis and a letter from UW Autism Center to get him an IEP and treat him decently. The school has some wonderful teachers who helped him after that, but they are way under-staffed and under funded. He has always been in a regular classroom, but he is supposed to have a 1 on 1 tutor to scribe for him as he has tremendous trouble writin. He is supposed to have 90 minutes of time with the scribe a day, but it has never been one on one; 1 per 4 is the best he's ever gotten and 1:8 is typical. The middle school is much better. They have been wonderful. He is is a remedial writing course where the teacher recognized his tremendous math and science abilities, so she worked with the teachers to move him out of the regular classroom and into some fast-paced advanced classes. It has worked out very well, Because the students in those classes are generally there to learn, they get down to work with little need for supervision, so the teachers have time to scribe for Alex on some of his assignemnts. They also made an exception for him in math - so long as he is scoring at least 80%, he does not need to show his work. He solves everything in his head, and it takes him as long to write out the answer once he has figured it out that it takes the other students to write out and solve the problem. This way there is no need for the teacher to provide any help. They also let him use an i=pad and "Dragon Speak" for writing essays and answering test quetions that require more than one sentence.

We have dragon speak at home too,but the ipad is easier for him to use. Unfortunately, my DH can be a complete a**. He will not allwo Alex to have an i-pad because he works on Microsoft's competing product! We don't have that tablet either because Donthinks Alex should just sit at his desk and use his computer like a normal person. Alex prefers lying on his stomach when he uses the i-pad. I think whatever works for him is best.



AMEN!

My boys are both ADHD, as am I. Fortunately, they were both smart enough to pass for normal.
 
as far as I can tell, I'm not ADHD, just a bit of OCD, hoarding variety (I know why but that doesn't help much)

however I was extremely bored in school -- once I learned how to do something, I was annoyed that the teachers kept trying to TEACH me how to do something I already could do quite well

I hated math workbooks; I was quite aware that 5+7 = the same as 7+5 .....

(no gifted-child classes available until I got to high school)

I took extra books to school and when I couldn't stand listening to "lecturing" any more, I just quietly put MY book inside of the standard textbook, and read, instead

others might have stuck comic books inside theirs, but I was reading L M Alcott and L M Montgomery and Bronte and the Ginny Gordon, Bobbsey Twins, Nancy Drew, and Anne Tedlock Brooks books

****

it's a good thing my little cockerel kind of sounds like a wild bird, because he has been sounding off about every 15 seconds for most of the day ... looks like it is starting to sprinkle now, so I am going to go let them out of the chicken tractor and back into the coop and covered run

I wonder if there will be another egg out there ...
 
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Public school was he** until we got a diagnosis. He went to a Montessori kindergarten that was great. Unfortunatley, they discontinued their grade-school program, and there is nothing nearby. At the Montessori they could work on what they wanted, and he was doing division. In first grade they told me he was not so bright and could not even add 7+2! (This is a kid who could instantly covert Farenheit to Celsius and the other way around at 4!). They kept him in every recess for fidgeting in class, which only made it worse, and they would not follow instructions from his physical therapist. It took a diagnosis and a letter from UW Autism Center to get him an IEP and treat him decently. The school has some wonderful teachers who helped him after that, but they are way under-staffed and under funded. He has always been in a regular classroom, but he is supposed to have a 1 on 1 tutor to scribe for him as he has tremendous trouble writin. He is supposed to have 90 minutes of time with the scribe a day, but it has never been one on one; 1 per 4 is the best he's ever gotten and 1:8 is typical. The middle school is much better. They have been wonderful. He is is a remedial writing course where the teacher recognized his tremendous math and science abilities, so she worked with the teachers to move him out of the regular classroom and into some fast-paced advanced classes. It has worked out very well, Because the students in those classes are generally there to learn, they get down to work with little need for supervision, so the teachers have time to scribe for Alex on some of his assignemnts. They also made an exception for him in math - so long as he is scoring at least 80%, he does not need to show his work. He solves everything in his head, and it takes him as long to write out the answer once he has figured it out that it takes the other students to write out and solve the problem. This way there is no need for the teacher to provide any help. They also let him use an i=pad and "Dragon Speak" for writing essays and answering test quetions that require more than one sentence.

We have dragon speak at home too,but the ipad is easier for him to use. Unfortunately, my DH can be a complete a**. He will not allwo Alex to have an i-pad because he works on Microsoft's competing product! We don't have that tablet either because Donthinks Alex should just sit at his desk and use his computer like a normal person. Alex prefers lying on his stomach when he uses the i-pad. I think whatever works for him is best.



AMEN!

My boys are both ADHD, as am I. Fortunately, they were both smart enough to pass for normal.

My friend Andrea wrote an article/memoir for ADDENDUM titled "Passing for Normal." Mine was called "My Family is an E Ticket Attraction."
 
Quote:
Sounds a lot like us. If that's true, our kids might in trouble.

Public school was he** until we got a diagnosis. He went to a Montessori kindergarten that was great. Unfortunatley, they discontinued their grade-school program, and there is nothing nearby. At the Montessori they could work on what they wanted, and he was doing division. In first grade they told me he was not so bright and could not even add 7+2! (This is a kid who could instantly covert Farenheit to Celsius and the other way around at 4!). They kept him in every recess for fidgeting in class, which only made it worse, and they would not follow instructions from his physical therapist. It took a diagnosis and a letter from UW Autism Center to get him an IEP and treat him decently. The school has some wonderful teachers who helped him after that, but they are way under-staffed and under funded. He has always been in a regular classroom, but he is supposed to have a 1 on 1 tutor to scribe for him as he has tremendous trouble writin. He is supposed to have 90 minutes of time with the scribe a day, but it has never been one on one; 1 per 4 is the best he's ever gotten and 1:8 is typical. The middle school is much better. They have been wonderful. He is is a remedial writing course where the teacher recognized his tremendous math and science abilities, so she worked with the teachers to move him out of the regular classroom and into some fast-paced advanced classes. It has worked out very well, Because the students in those classes are generally there to learn, they get down to work with little need for supervision, so the teachers have time to scribe for Alex on some of his assignemnts. They also made an exception for him in math - so long as he is scoring at least 80%, he does not need to show his work. He solves everything in his head, and it takes him as long to write out the answer once he has figured it out that it takes the other students to write out and solve the problem. This way there is no need for the teacher to provide any help. They also let him use an i=pad and "Dragon Speak" for writing essays and answering test quetions that require more than one sentence.

We have dragon speak at home too,but the ipad is easier for him to use. Unfortunately, my DH can be a complete a**. He will not allwo Alex to have an i-pad because he works on Microsoft's competing product! We don't have that tablet either because Donthinks Alex should just sit at his desk and use his computer like a normal person. Alex prefers lying on his stomach when he uses the i-pad. I think whatever works for him is best.

The funny part about your DH working on a competing project....Apple is like MS's cousin and having the competition around would be a good thing! How do you know how to beat it if you don't experience it? Engineers! They can't think themselves out of the box!

(We only have furkids, but really enjoying reading about parents that treat their children like capable humans and not spoiled mindless brats so that their children will love them back.) Love the picture of Alex with his camp Appaloosa. Sweet! He looks happy with his equine buddy.
 
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