2nd in-school suspension for SD in a month
SD is now in a special education program and is in constant conflict with the aide assigned to her. Most of the time SD ignores the aide and won’t even respond to questions and refuses to do what she is told. But every once in a way, SD loses her temper and blows up at the aide. Both of the suspensions are for cussing out the aide when she lost her temper.
Short backstory – SD is 15. DH and I have her full time. This is her 3rd school in less than 2 years. She was expelled from a regular high school and sent to an alternative school which was very structured and had a very strict set of rules which SD refused to follow. It wasn’t uncommon for her to have at least 2-3 write-ups a day. They almost immediately began the process to expel her, but she’s now classified as having special needs and an IEP so they sent her to a different school with a special education program. She doesn’t have any diagnoses like autism only a long list of psychological issues: depression, anxiety, ADHD, ODD, SPD. She has been hospitalized multiple times for suicidal thoughts.
This school situation is even worse than the last. I didn’t think that was possible. For two classes she is “mainstreamed” but the aide has to be with her and all other times she’s in the special education classroom.
She says her aide is a bully who is constantly saying derogatory things to do her and treating her like she is stupid.
SD doesn’t want to go to school and every morning is a war to get her onto the bus. I don’t see school getting better. She hasn’t had any friends in years and I don’t think she’s going to make any friends at this school. She’s on probation and can’t join clubs and doubt she would be interested. So pretty much the whole school day for her is this constant fight with her aide.
The best way to describe her is that she is so angry all the time and hates everything – school, her dad, me, even her half-sister (4). At least now I think she hates her aide more than she hates her father.
When she was at the alternative school, every night DH came home and had to deal with multiple emails about problems at school. We hoped that this new school wouldn’t have that problem, but it’s worse - now it’s the same - every day there’s at least one email about behavior problems, the school counselor wants to have weekly meetings with him (which he can’t do since there’s no way he can leave work and drive all the way over there) and they are wanting more testing and professional help for SD that we have no ability to take her to and they aren’t offering to help get her to these appointments.
I really want to just tell him to completely disengage with the situation – everyone at school deal with her crap there and just stop trying to involve me or DH. There’s nothing DH can do at this point. There’s no punishments that SD cares about. She treats going to school as torture. She doesn’t want to be there, she can’t stand being around the aide, doesn’t care if she graduates or not. I don’t know what DH can do to change the situation at all. He can’t get her to do anything.
I used to worry that everyone at her schools thought I was a bad stepmom, but I've stopped bothering what they think. But I don't like that they think DH is a bad father since he tries so hard and puts so much effort into disciplining SD but nothing works.
I’ve tried approaching him about home schooling SD but I’m not sure that would be an option since it would simply replace the fights SD is having with her aide with more fights with her father.
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What is her plan for the
What is her plan for the future??? I mean she is getting super close to drop out age. What if she drops out?? Then what? You guys are stuck with her forever?? UGH.
I really don't know. The
I really don't know. The whole future thing is something her therapist doesn't want us discussing because DH used to say a lot of things like "If you don't go to a good college, you'll never be able to get a good job" and telling her that if she just maintains a 3.7 GPA for the rest of her high school, she'll be able to average a 3.0 and be able to get into a good school.
Now SD is pretty much convinced it's pointless to even try at school. She's dug herself in such a hole that even graduating with a 2.0 GPA is impossible. I don't think she even has enough credits to be considered a sophomore. She has panic attacks any time subjects like that are brought up.
But once she turns 18, she'll be out the front door. She hates her father. There's no way she'll stay here. She'd rather be homeless than live here. DH has looked into having a conservatorship to prevent her from doing that, but I'd rather him just let her go.
what about correspondence
what about correspondence schooling? my older two siblings did that.
https://www.americanschoolofcorr.com/
i dont remember which one my parents used, but they'd mail information and a test, and my two sibs would mail the test back. if they passed, they'd receive the next segment.
not sure if it'd work for you guys, but it is another option.
I've looked into this and the
I've looked into this and the online variations. It takes someone being at home with SD and either a self-motivated student or someone making the student stay on task. I don't want to be that person and I don't think SD psychologically is able to do it.
Getting her out of the school environment would be for the best, but I don't think DH or I can be the ones trying to be the full-time school task master.
DH and SD's relationship on a scale of 0 to 100 is about -100. Both of them are to the point that they really can't be in the same room together.
that's actually why both my
that's actually why both my sibs did it, one because he was kicked out of school and the other sib to make sure bro was not home alone.
i'm guessing your sd is an only child?
She has a 4 year old
She has a 4 year old half-sister. On her mom's side there are multiple half-siblings in state foster care in another state.
OSD did high school through
OSD did high school through correspondence, because she was a speshul angry snoWFLAKE who kept getting in fights and lacked social skills. She is now in her thirties, can barely read and write, and still has abysmal social skills.
Why are you even considering homes schooling? Do you really want to be around your skid 24/7? Do you want your little one exposed to her even more??
The kid hates school because she's hateful. Don't reward her by allowing her to stay home making you more miserable.
I will give you my take on
I will give you my take on the online schools.
We agreed to let my YSD finish HS by taking the last 2 classes she needed online so she could graduate early and work. YSD was always a good student ie mostly honor role. The HS she was in was not a good school. We figured we had a good kid (no behavior, alcohol issues etc) on our hand who could easily do a couple of quick online courses.
Wellll. It turned out it was really 3 classes because her school didn't communicate the information. In any case, since dad worked out of town and her Grandmother refused to push her to do the work, it fell to me to prod her by phone, text etc...
Grandma wanted her to attend school full time at the local school, but that would have limited her work hours and she claimed she wanted to work too.
Anyway, this became her rebellion. I ask if she did work today and I got the wishy washy non-committal answers.
Ultimately she DID finish all three courses, to the detriment of my nerves! She took way longer than she should have and ended up snapchatting most of the time vs actually working on her school stuff. She got A's mind you, but it was an aggravating process for me!
So, unless you have a very motivated and smart kid, this really isn't the best option IMHO.
I've looked into wilderness
I've looked into wilderness programs and they won't take her. She won't comply with simple directions and has a history of suicidal ideation. She would first need some sort of residential program but she was in one of those for nearly a month and she was worse afterwards. They simply released her since they needed to give the medications more time.
She isn't going to cooperate with any sort of camp or school. She refuses to eat at school now to be a pain to her aide. At the alternative school, she had a habit of dropping down to the ground and refusing to move when she doesn't want to do something.
She can't be home all day. So school is essentially day care. That's all the classes she's in. I don't trust her by herself.
Is a psych ward possible?
Is a psych ward possible? They might have the resources she needs. Especially if there is a program for teens there.
She was in a psychiatric ward
She was in a psychiatric ward over Christmas and thru January for almost a month. It really didn't help. They swapped out several medications, but there wasn't a difference in her behavior. They said it might take more time for the antidepressants to work, but so far she's been getting worse.
She didn't cooperate there and there was issues with her refusing to get out of bed, refusing to go to therapy sessions or even eat. The staff there didn't seem to have any better time getting her to do anything than DH and I do.
Boarding schools aren't free.
Boarding schools aren't free. They are at least 75,000 a year and some are more expensive. DH has been contacting some trying to find some place that will fit SD, but it's difficult. There are boarding schools for troubled teens that are college prep and don't deal with special needs kids. Then there are special needs boarding schools that don't deal with kids with psychiatric issues. Finding one that will take a teen with both issues that has past hospitalizations for suicidal thoughts isn't easy. And the cost is astronomic. I don't know how we can afford this.
DH and I combined make far too much to fall as low income to qualify for any sort of scholarships and I've already checked with the insurance. They won't cover anything like that unless SD is diagnosed with something more serious like schizophrenia.
I don't like the influence she has on BD but what DH and I explain to her is that SD is very very sick. Right now SD pretty much stays in her room and doesn't leave much at all. She doesn't interact with us at all.
I'm really not sure there's any discipline that will work for her. She doesn't care. She doesn't watch tv or play video games or surf the internet. She hasn't had access to any electronics in well over a year. DH has set up all sorts of reward systems and she hasn't even tried.
Right now just trying to get her to eat and do things like brush her teeth is a challenge. She takes her medication because we threaten to take her back to the hospital if she doesn't. They forced her to take medication there and I don't think they were very nice about it.
She's on a total of 5 medications now and I do worry that's making her behavior worse and not better. She seems so completely out of it most of the time but what other choice do we have?
SD knows perfectly well... if
SD knows perfectly well... if she's the way she is, school expels her, and she does not want to go to school...
so she keeps on playing this card, you just need to find her currency...
send her to an all girls reforming school, see how she likes that.....
Have you and DH told her, fine if you do not want to go to school, you will start working and find her the most horrible job, talk to the owner who will employ her, tell him the truth, she's difficult blablabla he needs to be tough with her, dang she can clean kennels or farm yards or public toilets, what ever is the most disgusting thing...
maybe after a week or so of hard manual labor in real life she might change her attitude towards school lol... or she might become the best toilet cleaner in the US
We have tried to find her
We have tried to find her currency but anytime we try to use something, she decides she doesn't want it.
When her grades imploded in her freshman year, DH told her all the time if her grades didn't improve, she was going to end up working at Walmart or McDonalds or the TSA and that only if she was in the top 20% of her high school class could she get into a good college. The hole is too deep for her to get out of now and she knows that pretty much is the future for her.
She told her therapist she see no future for herself and doesn't think she has no hope for accomplishing anything with her life. She told her she doubted she lived past 20. That resulted in the second hospitalization for suicidal thoughts.
It's impossible to get her to do anything like clean toilets. She simply refuses and then other things like eating become battles. Her therapist doesn't want us to really force things too much so it doesn't get to that point again and to try to be more optimistic about things so she doesn't keep having panic attacks over anything school related.
Deigma played this game for a
Deigma played this game for a while, I agreed that he can leave school and I told him I already found him a job...
it was with the refuse removal company, collecting bins... he lasted a full day and went back to school the next,
never threatened to drop out again, I told him, drop out and this will be your life with no education..
SD's mom has been on
SD's mom has been on disability and welfare for most of SD's life. She knows she won't be starving in the street if she doesn't graduate. If she can't get a good job, she's unwilling to clean toilets or work at Walmart of McDonalds. She'll get herself considered disabled and collect money from the government. She knows that's the alterative to any low skill job.