Just so overwhelmed and need to vent a bit!

The only other option that would be better would be traditional public school and I just don't see that working for him. He gets extremely agitated when he is out of the house for any length of time and I mean like 1/2 and hour to an hour. He starts breaking out in hives and literally scratching himself until he bleeds. Some things get better as he gets older, but his social phobia has only gotten worse unfortunately. 

He is considered public school. All of his therapies are contracted through them, I'm not sure how that would work completely homeschooling him. 







He does not qualify for respite care as of right now unfortunately






He did that last year when I would have doctors appointments and such and I also had 2 extra little ones running around the house. He helps a lot when he gets home, but it's just hard during the day, there isn't much that he can do when he is at work. He always tells me to get ODS to help, which sounds good in theory, but then he is being pulled away from school and I can't do that to him either. 






Our oldests school does the block scheduling and it's so nice. He just focuses on one class a day, but his school is for middle and high school only. YDS does not offer that. He does language arts and math live classes Monday-Thursday and has live for history on Monday and Science for Tuesday. I was a bit upset because I was told last year we wouldn't need to do live classes for those 2 and it could be done completely a-synchronously. I was holding on to that hope because I could easily cut his history and science time in half by doing it on my own without all the jibber jabber from 20 plus 3rd graders who are excited to learn and interject all their questions and theories and what not..LOL. 






His live classes are mandatory for the school so he has to attend unless something comes up like he's ill or has a doctor appointment or the teacher approves him not to attend, which may happen for history if I can't change his speech therapy schedule. I can combine some stuff and things like going to a museum on the weekend can be both art and history or whatever. But those lives classes just can't be changed. I manually put in his hours in a day, his OT, speech and other skills sessions go toward his daily hours. Thankfully he will not be assigned homework at all, all his homework will be completed in class with his teachers as per his IEP....so that is good news. I try to keep things short and sweet on Fridays to give him a break. All his therapies have to be done during normal school hours and because they are contracted they can make up their own hours and days that they work..which is cool for them, not so cool for me when they all decide Friday is a good day to take off and that is the best day for me to schedule them. Last year there were days he didn't even have time to get a lunch and was munching away during speech therapy or another class. I felt bad, but his attitude is definitely diet driven. He needs to have a decent amount of protein during the day. If he skips a meal he starts melting down more often. Even though he is Autistic we can keep his meltdowns pretty much non existent with the correct diet. 

He is definitely schedule driven and we rely on that heavily. I tell him the night before, right before bedtime what his schedule for the next day looks like. He also likes to know times...For instance if has a 10 minute break after one class before another begins I tell him as the first class is starting and then we set a time. 

We are blessed that all his therapies are done at home either via virtual or in person. That is my saving grace because we are a one car family and I could not imagine trying to get him to and from therapies in the midst of all of this! 

My husband is very good at helping when he  gets home. The only chore YDS has right now is cleaning up after himself and feeding the cats. So not too much there..he would vapor lock if he had too many chores on his plate...LOL. 

They all pretty much work the same way. Going out to play is considered gym class as long as their active...but they do have to learn about healthy lifestyles and such and I just kind of throw that in our every day life when meal planning and such. Art can be drawing a picture but there are certain lessons they want complete. I don't focus too much on those, but I still do them with him somewhat so he is not completely lost if he ever goes to a traditional public school. 

He doesn't care if the house is clean when he gets home, he is great in that way. He tries to help, but if I let him make dinner we would be eating hot dogs or pancakes every night...LOL. He will say he will clean the kitchen and when I go out he will have all the dishes in the dishwasher, which is fantastic, but he "soaks" all pans whether they need it or not and never wipes down the counters. So I end up washing the pans the next morning. But he tries, I can't take that from him...he's just "him". I do a lot of crock pot meals and things that don't take a lot of prep to make. Once he's home and takes over I'm so exhausted, usually from stress and from pain. I think this year will be easier on me physically with our a toddler and a preschooler running around, but now I'm stressed about finances...LOL. Always something. 

He totally doesn't do it to hurt himself, when he gets nervous he starts itching all over and complaining that he's so itchy, so itchy and then just starts focusing on the back of his neck, where hives generally pop up first and just keeps scratching. I try to keep his nails short, but you know, he hates anything that has to do with grooming period. Showers are a fight, hair cuts are a fight, nail clipping, tooth brushing..you get the pictures. 

He is considered high functioning in the fact that he is verbal and mainstreamed in school. However with his social phobia and learning disabilities he is labeled as mid range on the spectrum. He actually thrived this summer, he loved sleeping in, watching his youtube videos, going to the pool and not a whole lot of "real" schedule. But when he has a ton happening, he thrives on the scheduling aspect of it, he doesn't realize it, but he does..LOL. 

I need to get a job too and I would love to work out of the house, but we are a one car family and with the boys doing the cyber school it's just not possible. Yes, our school districts are great here with therapies. The county I live in is one of the best in the state for that, thankfully. Financially I'm just not sure what we are going to do, I've been babysitting for the past 10 years from home, this is my first time without kids. Healthy wise, schedule wise and stress wise, we need the break...but we still have put food on the table. 

This parenting thing is not easy!