I have been feeling overwhelmed coming off last school year and thinking about preparing for the next.
I have 7 children ages: 14, 11, 8, 7, 5, 4, and 1
My 5 and 4 year old attend preschool, and my 8 year old is in foster care and attends public school.
5 of my 7 children are from trauma, and 3 of them came to me at school age.
My 14 year old is borderline intellectual functioning, ADHD, autistic and has Dissociative Identity Disorder. (Modified and struggling 5th grade level)
My 11 year old also has an autism Dx, ADHD, and has made great strides to integrate from dissociative identity disorder. (5th grade math, 6/7th grade English)
My 7 year old has ADHD (2nd grade level)
All three kids are adopted, and seem to require intense supervision and spoon fed instruction. They regularly need 1:1 support sitting and prompting/redirecting. There’s very little ability to face challenges, very low self monitoring, and very little self motivation, plus very low impulse control.
I have seen so much fruit from homeschooling, better learning outcomes, better relationships, and just overall a blessing to our family. However, it burns me out! I struggle a lot with feeling like what I’m doing is complete enough, and struggle to either make lessons globally available at all levels to do together, or being anything to anyone popcorning around if they are working independently at their individual level.
I have researched curriculum, and just feel overwhelmed and unsure. We’ve tried several, but I haven’t felt I’ve found the right fit for our very busy schedule and household.
Having a needy 1 year old that’s loud on top of everything else makes our instruction/attention window very small.
Currently, we have Speech therapy, occupational therapy, physical therapy, and ABA as well that usually come during school hours.
You had suggested Math Inspirations in a previous support call, and that has been an awesome curriculum! However I just feel overwhelmed in choosing curriculum, and managing all of the kids special needs, as well as appointments that come with these needs, and daily pick up/drop off schedule for the other 3 children.
Any input or advice is appreciated.