Sounds sane to me:) Follow your gut and dont give in:) Hope they love all the new changes well and progress nicely:) A new year always makes me nervous!
I think that is plently of time for preschool. Especially with all you are doing in addition. I also feel like the ABA is so much more important and they will get the skills there and then they can then generalize in school and other settings. Our district only offered 10 hours of preschool. We are going to stick with our ABA program and send him to a typical preschool for 5 hours a week (they accept a few kids on the spectrum a year) with an ABA therapist as an aid. My hope is that he will get social practice and gross motor opportunities at preschool. We will fill in the rest of the time with ABA, floortime and speech.Hold your ground. I know MANY families that did this in preschool to accomodate outside therapies. We even did a half day on Thursdays in Kindergarten because that was the only opening our private speech pathologist had. It isn't until they turn 6 that it becomes legal matter and they could be considered truant for not being in class. Is that true in all states or just Wisconsin? Just asking because ds is 6 and we may have to pull him out for appointments as well - not sure yet.Ok the boys will be starting their third and last year of preschool. The last 2 years they went full time, 8-2:30 5 days a week. I always thought it was too much, but the schools always talked me into it. Well the first few weeks of school the boys refused to eat or drink, which caused constipation in Nikolas, then it hurt to go, so then he would hide and cross his legs so he wouldn't go. Never had a problem before that. So now I have to give him a laxative so he doesn't have a choice but going. I do not want to go through that again plus I think too long of days was part of the reason for hating school so much and screaming and crying anytime we went near the school. so for this coming year I decided to pull them out right before lunch will be around 11:30/12:00, they're still working out the schedule. Nikolas' new teacher called me and I told her that and she said that was fine. Well they are also getting private OT and ST and ABA. The OT called and wants to see them Tues and Wed at 1:00, it was decided Tues at 3:30 and Thurs at 5:00. Well this totally messes me up, but she insists she has no other time. The ABA guy only has Tues and Fri free and basically before school lets out and he already knew I was going to pull them out right before lunch. So I am thinking of keeping them home on Tuesdays all together, they will spend the morning in ABA and the afternoons in OT/Speech and then Wed afternoon OT/speech and Friday afternoon ABA. What do you think the school is going to say to that? That will mean 3.5 hours 4 days a week. That sounds like plenty to me and it isn't like they will be sitting at home doing nothing. What do you all think? I am thinking the ABA is really more important than school, they will be getting 1:1 time instead of 2:9. Think the school will give me grief?Snoopywoman - You're right - The truancy laws can vary from state to state. In Wisconsin a child has to be in school full time at age 6.
We are actually pulling our 6 year old out of school an hour early each day to accomodate his VB/ABA. I held my ground and the school agreed to it.
I think it sounds okay. I know down here in my neck of the woods they wouldn't have a problem with it, especially if it was for therapy services. What are you going to do about the long school day when they hit kindergarden though?I think that is fine. Ali is 4 and will be going for the first time for 3.5 hours a day, 3 days a week.