I’m not going to write all the details as it’s too personal right still, but we have hit a bit of a blip in our home education journey and it has left me questioning whether this is going to a community that we can be fully accepted in.
I have to be transparent that we haven’t come to home education electively and it is an alternative approach to education that has come about after discovering the education system isn’t conducive to my children’s needs.
That means our home education lifestyle looks very different to everyone else as my children have education other than at school rather than being officially home educated.
We have a mix of tutoring, mentoring, therapy and supported access to community groups so that we can try to create social opportunities.
Sadly gossip can take over when people think they know something about your family and they get it completely wrong, and more so, when your approach doesn’t match theirs. They may also have fear of difference at the root of their challenges and sadly we become the scapegoats for that fear.
Right now the only way I can manage this is to retreat.
The person who led this tried to have a conversation about it last week (in front of my children) and I repeatedly told them I wasn’t prepared to talk to them.
Yet they invaded my boundaries and accused me of not being comfortable to address conflict.
The truth is I shouldn’t have conflict if the conversation had have been nuanced, supportive and less accusatory from the start.
Sadly this has happened in a community where I would have assumed it would be more supportive and accommodating of what a PDA family might actually need as support.
Yes, other parents can all do it all by themselves and they’re not me.
But they have no bloody idea what it’s like to live one day in my shoes. They can’t understand the before and after results from trying to leave the house as a family when so many members are demand avoidant and have executive functioning difficulties. Nor can they comprehend the reality of having mental health difficulties that have rendered one of those children to their bedroom for many months – and without support – they were unable to leave the house.
If they had have asked me about those circumstances then I could have told them.
One of the individuals said to my carers/mentors recently that their children don’t need helpers, they do these things by themselves.
And there is the stigma right there.
This person, as well as others who have joined forces with their rhetoric, can’t accept that I need help because they believe everything is fine and trauma can just be healed.
I’ve told them it’s deeper rooted than that. It shouldn’t be about who can manage or who has harder circumstances. We are all individuals and have completely different dynamics that we are managing.
Of course they never listen because they know best.
Helpers for me have meant we get to go out nearly every day in the week and access something during term time days.
Weekends and holidays look very different and we are once again housebound.
Helpers are like an aid for our disabilities – but because it is not obvious it has been discriminated against. These people are there for my children only and never once overstep their mark in their roles to facilitate social opportunities.
They are not going anywhere because they are there to help my children.
This person also ran a hate campaign against me because they felt I infiltrated home education by supporting the trans community on my social media post last year.
So let me leave this here.
I will continue to love and welcome everyone because I am a loving and inclusive person.
I would rather be excluded than be showing my children this is acceptable.
Sadly once again PDA families repeatedly face situations where we are misjudged and isolated as a result.
When our PDA support and accommodations are questioned then you have lost our trust because you do not understand the root underneath our struggles.
* To read some of the comments on our social media post about this subject you can view them here or why not catch our live back by watching this (available for 30 days only).
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