Today, as I homeschool my son with Aspergers Sydnrome, I am happy and know I am right where I am supposed to be.

Deciding to homeschool my son Andy was one of the best decisions of my parenting life. However, if you had known my family years prior, I doubt you would have believed me, if I told you one day I would be homeschooling.

Please don’t think my road has been an easy one, and thus I can therefore homeschool with ease. I have had my fair share of challenges in raising three boys, and in the family complications that can arise when a child has Aspergers Syndrome. In addition, I have been diagnosed with multiple physical syndromes and ailments.

For several years in our home there existed a state of constant turmoil between my three sons. Several people told me our home was the noisiest house they’d ever visited. Not exactly the comment one hopes to hear in life.

The constant hitting and noise started as soon as my son Andy was old enough to sit up. My eldest son Michael was two-years-old at the time. As hard as I tried, there were times a flying block or Andy’s fist hit Michael.

In looking back, I now know Andy had typical autistic characteristics, but his speech wasn’t impaired, so I had no idea at the time Andy was on the autistic spectrum. (Andy wasn’t diagnosed with Aspergers Syndrome until he was over the age of five)

After a year of putting up with loud screaming, tantrums, rages, and hitting on his little brother’s part, Michael harbored much resentment and anger towards Andy. Soon, there was not one hour, except when they were sound asleep, that the two boys were not verbally or physically fighting.

At this time, Andy still had trouble sleeping, and would often wake up in the middle of the night frightened. (He was up every hour the first nine months of his life) And Michael, my oldest, was up most nights with asthma attacks.

The extremity of the situation, led me to read book after book, and attempt one discipline method after the next. Nothing much worked. The best I could do was separate the two. But that wasn’t always feasible. Taking a simple walk in the sunshine with the stroller, something most mothers take for granted, was nearly impossible. Andy would fidget and twist and turn so much in the back of the double stroller, he practically fell out. This, when he wasn’t screaming to be removed. And Michael was continually turning around to hit Andy.

I found, through the years, whatever discipline system or technique I tried (marbles in jars, behavioral ladder, point system, privileges/toys removed, spanking, time-outs – to mention a few) Andy soon grew tired of the system.

Today, I laugh at the books that advise, “If your child won’t remain on time-out, keep returning the child to the time-out spot.” This didn’t work for us, I had to hold Andy, and then he would head-butt me. If I sent him to his room, he tore things off of his walls or threw items. I was afraid he would hurt himself.

When my third son came along, Andy was three, and I, by then, had been deemed by several doctors “physically disabled.” I left my part-time teaching job and was now home full-time with three boys under the age of five.

My third born, Robert, soon proved to have his own hyperactive tendencies along with three to four tantrums a day.

And soon I had three fighting boys. Talk about feeling like a failure. I was one of “those” Mothers who couldn’t maintain her children. Guilt struck me like arrows.

Never giving up, even though I wanted to lock myself in a room and not come out, I sought help from a multitude of sources, from school personnel to Jesus. I know I traveled through my journey for a purpose, and continue to do so, but the knowing didn’t make the trials any easier.

Of particular turmoil, for me, was the fact I was intelligent, a woman of faith, a trained teacher, and well educated in child rearing, and still could not find solutions. At times, I held onto any glimmer of hope of “normalcy” I could. Everywhere I looked family’s lives appeared to be functioning at par where in our quality of home life seemed to be sinking like the Titanic.

In desperation, my husband and I invited behavioral specialists and psychologists into our home. Through trial and error, I implemented more behavioral modification programs and behavioral charts than I can remember. My husband and I were frequent visitors to therapists and support groups. We went through several respite people and caretakers who didn’t know how to respond to our sons’ behavior. They were not alone; neither did we.

Relatives offered advice and critiques. If we’d only spank him, things would improve. Based on my own life experiences as a child, I always said I would never spank. But I did, hoping spanking was the solution. When I spanked Andy, he only laughed, and the harder I spanked, the harder he laughed.

When I confided in my friends about my situation, they offered sympathetic hugs, but they didn’t understand. For the most part, my relatives named book titles for me to read, or reinforced the fact I needed to improve my discipline. Being a perfectionist who had dried up all of her viable options while seeking out every possible resource, I was hurt and defensive when others offered comments and advice.

The family dynamics were stressed and my husband’s and my own patience and resources maxed to the limit. Here was my husband, dealing with a disabled wife who barely had energy to move off the couch and three wild, unruly children. If we did not have faith in God, there is no doubt in my mind our marriage would have failed.

Once, when a trained psychologist visited our home, after observing two of my boys for ten minutes, he shook his head in bewilderment and said, “You need to tell the behavioral specialist what he suggested isn’t working.” This was the time in my life I was implementing the behavioral specialist’s program, which involved me complimenting my son every fifteen minutes all day long. The theory went, Andy couldn’t internalize on his own when he was behaving well. Being disabled, I was so exhausted after a week of continually stopping what I was doing every 900 seconds to verbally praise him that I could barely function. I’m certain the positive comments I offered boosted my son’s confidence but I didn’t see any significant changes in behavior or relations with his siblings.

Eventually, I found my way without anyone’s help. There was nothing that truly helped, except prayer and time, and removing gluten from Andy’s diet.

Through the years, I supervised my boys continually, unable to leave them alone, less I suffer the consequences of bloody noses and broken bones. I used redirection, distraction, and praise when needed. And as the children grew older, I could logically reason with them.

Today,I have made a lot of positive changes in our home by removing environmental toxins and providing healthy, mainly organic foods. We have weekly family meetings(A self-made plan I will share with you soon), facilitated by my husband and me, which help tremendously with the behavioral issues. Also, of utmost importance was providing supplements, monitoring the sugar, and limiting the amount of weekly activities/outings and television/video game viewing. Life is still not “typical” and probably never will be, but our family survived some fairly rough times, and we are the better for it.

Removing Andy from the public schools was one of the best things I did for the entire family. The stress on all of us has been drastically reduced. The few hours a day I homeschool is nothing compared to the hours of anxiety my entire family felt as a result of Andy’s stresses and constant anxiety from attending school.

My hope is that you can see, even us “atypical” families with our share of obstacles can still homeschool with success.

(This article was originally written for my homeschool website: spectrumhomeschool.com)

* I recognize homeschool is not always the best option or an available option for all families.  I think each child and each case is different, and a family needs to evaluate the pros and the cons.  Elementary school worked well for my son for the first few years, but I had to advocate a lot to make sure he received assistance.  Wherever you are on your journey, I wish you patience and support.

The will of God is never exactly what you expect it to be. It may seem to be much worse, but in the end it’s going to be a lot better and a lot bigger. –Elisabeth Elliot

Copyright, 2009 Marcie Ciampi. All rights reserved.