It wasn’t until my kids started school that I realized just how different all three of us are from so-called “normal” society. The endless teacher phone calls and meetings started, each one telling me how my kid was “misbehaving” or failing to follow some complex rule that a first grader is expected to understand.
For years, one or the other of my kids spent half of every school year coming home in tears or the morning begging me not to send him to school at all.
That’s when I remembered a lesson that my mother taught me years ago. She learned something important when I was a kid, seeing a child psychiatrist in the first grade because the teacher 
threatened to kick me out of school. The doctor told my mom that little kids should be delighted to go to school, thrilled to hop on the big yellow bus and go see their friends and teachers.
But I, just like my kids, struggled. My teacher was cruel to me. She humiliated me in front of the other kids—I still remember this pain, forty-five years later. My parents did the best they could, and by second grade, we found a teacher who thought I was the cat’s meow.
So I did something terrifying: I called a meeting with the school principal and explained the situation. Make things better, or we have to leave. I wasn’t bluffing.
Guess what? We left. I figured out how to work full-time from home, and my kids began to homeschool. It was so, so hard at first.
The hardest part? The self-doubt. Was I harming my kids’ education? Their social life?
They were in third and fifth grade when we finally pulled the plug on “outside school.” They are a freshman and a junior in high school now, excelling in college classes, some they take online, some they take in person at a local college.
My kids happen to be neurodivergent. Maybe your kids are like mine: they have ADHD or autism or both; they have dyslexia or other learning differences; they have anxiety that makes it hard for them to be in loud and busy places. I promise you: they can succeed.
My research has shown that we can, as parents, make our kids’ 
lives better. The most important thing you can do, today, to help your kid is this: Affirm their experiences.
If they tell you about a bad experience at school, believe them. If they tell you something was hard with a friend, believe them. Say, “That must be so hard. Tell me more.” Never doubt what your kid is going through. Start by being on their side, no matter what.
We found our way by homeschooling. Your way may look entirely different. But never doubt that you will find it.
[Check out my new book Your Kid Belongs Here: An Insider’s Guide to Parenting Neurodiverse Children for advice on tackling these tough situations. You can find it wherever books are sold, including your local bookstore.]
