Krista, Darth Moose Shark
We talked about her switch to the more advanced math class and the fact that her best friend, who she has known online for 6 years now and is UK-based, wants her to teach him higher maths because he'd been dumped into the lower math course at the last minute to get his GCSEs done and is now studying for his A-levels and is missing some bits.
And all of a sudden, I have a child who has REENGAGED WITH THE WORLD.
On her terms.
And she... is happy?
Krista, Darth Moose Shark
And today, she was up before me, and we had breakfast together, and she told me more funny stuff, talked about her classes and which ones were boring and that her econ teacher is good but has a difficult-to-understand accent, etc.
Krista, Darth Moose Shark
And yesterday she was up before me, in a good mood, and basically kicked me out of her face and attended school all day, occasionally sending me screen shots when something funny happened.
Krista, Darth Moose Shark
So I woke up Monday morning to help N get online. She was up before me, in a good mood, and the only thing that went poorly that day was that the school had technical issues, which according to other parents happens the first day of EVERY year, and it was all "welcome to school" crap anyway.
Krista, Darth Moose Shark
And so she enrolled this year in a British online school, which she started Monday.
And now we get to this subconscious shit.
I had hopes this would go well, but I think I pretty much assumed this wasn't going to work out either, because even fighting all of that bullshit failure messaging from the Swiss and German systems, I had internalised ALL of it without knowing.
Krista, Darth Moose Shark
Thread:
Subconscious shit is weird as Hell.
My kid had huge struggles during the first three years of the pandemic, eventually declining to attend school because it wasn't safe, and then being more-or-less tortured by the state for that and being autistic (I'm really not understating that, though I don't want to get into it).
Krista, Darth Moose Shark
But she finished.
The "normal" track for her would to have gotten a socially-protected-due-to-disability internship and go to work.
But N wants to go to uni. And she's absolutely intellectually capable of uni. She's just not capable of the system here.
And for my part, I am not ready to just decide my kid is done with her education at 15, especially if she wants more.
That is ridiculous.
Krista, Darth Moose Shark
But I'm an immigrant, and suggesting that I was going to pull my kid out of the Swiss system to get her graduation credentials from another system was anathema.
And so, instead, they offered her individual schooling for a few months, which got extended to a school year so she could graduate in the Swiss system.
Fortunately, the teachers were great, but it was SO much stress getting her to show up every day, and they could only teach her math and languages.
Krista, Darth Moose Shark
And so I looked into this online school option about a year ago - it wasn't exactly legal for us to pull her out for that without permission from the school district, and the school district was clearly already fed up, having shelled out 100k to send her to a boarding school she couldn't cope with.
I figured it'd be an easy sell.
To be fair, the district head seemed to be pretty accepting and had to take it to his legal experts.
Krista, Darth Moose Shark
Which I actually DID, but more to say "I was advised to do this and it sounds ridiculous, but if you can do something that will help my daughter right now, I will do anything."
And their response was basically, "As long as there is a responsible parent available to take care of the child, we are not getting involved."
Krista, Darth Moose Shark
Which... wasn't really treatment for depression.
It was basically just a mirror of the school, just in the hospital, and that made her even more depressed.
Eventually she checked out of there, and their recommendation to me was to voluntarily contact social services saying she was a danger to herself so we could get help.
Krista, Darth Moose Shark
It did not go well.
It did not last for long.
She eventually wasn't going to school at all, and refused to return there after weekends home. And of course, exactly what she said would happen was what almost happened.
So it ended because even the school had to admit that there wasn't a way they could force her anymore.
She was so depressed we had to try to get her a placement in the hospital, where they basically just tried to make sure she was ready for the work force.
Krista, Darth Moose Shark
My kid, with social anxiety, who wanted nothing more than to be safe with her mother and her cats.
My kid, who was terrified of COVID, moved into a (admittedly very nice with a very nice staff) boarding school to be packed in with other students.
My kid, who was transitioning, being forced to do that outside of her family.
My kid, who made it clear she'd want to kill herself if she had to live away from home and who'd already had several attempts due to depression in the pandemic.
Krista, Darth Moose Shark
Turns out Switzerland was better at first, but... in the face of the pandemic... it turned out not by much.
And then when things got really bad because N simply could not show up to be infected - which was an explicit goal of the Zurich government, by the way, it slipped out several times (indirectly, but very clearly) - they put my kid in a special needs boarding school.
Krista, Darth Moose Shark
And even though my kid got into the university-track schools in Germany, it turns out that basically, if you aren't self-propelled and focused at 10 years old, you're kind of fucked. And if you have ADHD and autism, rather than telling you that they suspect issues, they would rather blame your parenting for not just making your kid like everyone else's kids.
And so SPECIFICALLY because of this, we moved out of Germany.
Krista, Darth Moose Shark
(The idea behind the half days, I eventually figured out, is the teacher teaches you for half a day, and then your stay-at-home parent (who is of course your mother) will do homework with you teaching you for the other half of the day. Which is one reason that immigrants and children of non-university-educated kids have such a bloody hard time getting into uni in DE later, because they start out WAY behind and no one explains this expectation.)
Krista, Darth Moose Shark
And I don't care what Germans say about their educational system, but missing that half day of school means those kids were WAY behind. And so my daughter was bored shitless. Especially because the teachers decided she should repeat 3rd grade because she hadn't learned to write in German. (This was the worst parenting mistake I'd ever made, letting them decide that.)
Krista, Darth Moose Shark
So as soon as it was legally viable - this school year - I put her into an online British high school. Her compulsory ed here in Switzerland is done (they literally give up on your kids at about 15 and push them into the job market)
Now, my kid is bright. REALLY bright. She skipped the first grade in France even though she didn't speak the language, did brilliantly in school there, and only started having issues when we moved to Germany... because those kids only have half day school.
Krista, Darth Moose Shark
@puniko <3 Thanks Puni <3 *kitten scratches*
I agree - honestly, the French system was really good in comparison, and as much as people bitch about British schools, she's immediately taken to the English-speaking lesson style (I think most of our education systems are pretty similar in terms of how a class goes).
N is a talented person and probably will be able to make the most of the situation no matter what happens later in life, but I am so happy to see her feeling good :)
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