Home Schooling a 6 year old with ADHD

Well we began home schooling in January.  It wasn't entirely unexpected.

This decision occurred for two reasons really.  First the administration at his public elementary school were giving me grief because of his "behavioural problems" and that he was missing a week of every month to visit his father who lives in Ottawa.
Second because the administration, though claiming to be willing to help work with his diagnosis, lost his paper work, stated he didn't need an IEP or anything because he didn't have any academic issues despite the fact his teacher had to report that he knows nothing, because he hadn't done anything to prove otherwise at school.

Now let me make it clear, his teacher straight up told us she knew he knew more then she could report based on his vocabulary, his sharing during discussions and shear knowledge he would just share at any time.  However he would not, could not do any work on paper unless an adult sat beside him keeping him on task the entire time because of the distraction of the others.  Clearly the teacher, in a class of 22 children, of which 3 are diagnosed with some form of LD or ADHD and no EA cannot do that.

We could get him to do the same work sheets at home that he never completed at school in 10-25 minutes depending on the concept and topic because we could minimize the distractions to nearly nothing. We could also get him to read age appropriate books (not necessarily at the level he should have been reading at) with ease.

The teacher was willing to work with his issues and help and support him where the administration wouldn't.  In the end it wasn't enough.

Home schooling has presented challenges in he has been flat out defiant over not being able to do something because "it's boring/too tired/wants to do it later."

I have had to resort to threatening to take away the much coveted Lego and occasionally revoke TV and video game privileges.

On the whole, there are more good days then bad.

Now we have found the wonder of Reading Eggs and Math Seeds (http://readingeggs.com/).  I use this as a supplement to break away from work sheets with regards to reading comprehension and reading.  It reinforces the concepts of breaking each part of the word into sounds to figure out what it is instead of guessing.  Though he was quite funny commenting on why it seemed to make him do everything almost the same but not quite three times.  He was amused when I explained that it's to help him remember it and that if he pays attention to Grandma and I at work, we do similar things when teaching First Aid to grown ups.

Due to not paying attention to what the instructions were being told to him he got placed at a much lower lesson level for his reading.  I have left it there as to reinforce what he knows.  Especially when it comes to constructing sentences and sight recognition of common words.

However when he did the test to place his math level for lessons in Math Seeds, he learned from his mistakes and paid attention to what was asked of him and is placed in the correct level for Math.

He fights having to do anything with regards to structured writing.  Despite the fact we are doing some follow up testing with the family doctor with regards to joint pain, I won't let him off the hook.
If he can play Lego and video games for hours, he can take 15-20 minutes each day to work on writing.
Otherwise how is he ever going to get better at it?
That has been the challenge, making him understand that the more he does it, the easier it will get.

Science... this child has no deficit in that area... and of course he loves any and all experiments and activities related to such.

Math also lends itself to breaking away from work sheets etc.  We tallied Mike n Ikes, did some estimation work before hand, and once sorted, counted and recorded ate them ;)

Fortunately the kid loves to play board games.  We have all sorts that fall into the Math/Language/Problem Solving realm.

The Library has become our new favourite hang out for many reasons.  BOOKS!  The fish, the toys, the computers, BOOKS!  The kid would bring home 10+ books every visit if I let him.

I have invested in a couple of books with regards to what is expected concept wise in grade 1 for Canadian curriculum.  I am still looking for more resources on things that are specific to our province.

His anxiety has decreased and increased at the same time.  How? He has stopped stressing over school, school work (unless he doesn't want to do it which is different).  However we have seen a spike in overactive imagination, including being afraid of the dark and not wanting to be alone on the bottom floor or upper floor of the house.  Currently I am stuck with him in my bed, but I have started to work on him about starting in his own bed, and coming to my bed when he wakes in the middle of the night.  He has agreed to this.
We are on a wait list for counselling on this, but unless he were to get much worse, we're in limbo.

I'd love to have a private full psychological assessment done, but at the tune of $2000 that isn't going to happen anytime soon.

How long do we plan to home school?

For as long as it works.

Socially, I have put him into a Parks and Rec program, he is in Beavers and will be trying to get him back into visiting his friends as much as possible.
The challenge is finding accessible (transportation wise that works with work schedules etc), affordable (I have a very limited amount of funds) that I am willing to pay and put him into and have him miss potentially half of it because he is at his Dad's.

His Dad doesn't understand why this frustrates me because he keeps saying they can do x in Ottawa and y in Ottawa.

That's all good and well, but how does that help me here?  I live in a small town that doesn't have near the resources or activities.

I think a tweak of the school time schedule will be my next project to try and lessen the refusal on some activities over others.  I thought breaking it up would go over better.  However it seems doing it in one big block with very short breaks to get up and move around etc works better.

It's trial and error at it's best!