October 2023 was very different from October 2024. My children were enrolled in public school in a small town in Connecticut, and we were all feeling miserable. My oldest son, Frankie, was in second grade and struggling tremendously. We had yet to have an IEP meeting after nearly two months of school. His anxiety was so overwhelming that he could barely sleep, often staying up until midnight every night, trying to process his feelings. He would talk to me at bedtime about his struggles.
The math homework, which was due twice a week, became a source of extreme stress, leading to tears of frustration, meltdowns, and increasingly challenging behavioral issues. My child wasn’t learning anything, and we were all suffering as a result.
“I raise my hand, but the teacher doesn’t help me, Mom. She says she doesn’t have time.
And the cafeteria is so loud; I just want to go somewhere quiet, but they won’t let me; they say I have to stay with my class in case there’s a disaster.”
I noticed that Frankie was having difficulty with handwriting, so I requested assessments for dysgraphia and dyslexia. Given our family history, I was aware of his susceptibility and could see clearly that he needed appropriate support. During his homeschooling the previous year, I accommodated his needs by using technology and providing one-on-one support. While waiting for the assessments and the IEP meeting, I sent accommodation tools for the special education team to try with him, including pencil grips, noise-reduction earbuds, and various-sized writing utensils. I also suggested that they allow him to complete his work on his Chromebook to alleviate the stress of handwriting, which was causing him so much anxiety that he struggled to focus on the assignments.
In response, his teacher sent home a handwriting workbook for him to practice every night. This was the last thing he needed to support his learning or reduce his anxiety. Understanding accommodations shouldn’t be this difficult for elementary school students.
I grew up in a unique environment as a child piano prodigy in the 1980s, which shaped my perspective in a distinct way. A significant part of my early education involved attending numerous concerts and studying how various performers approached their jobs on stage.
One of the first things I was taught was to use an artist’s bench rather than a plain wooden bench. An artist’s bench is cushioned with dials on the sides, making the seat adjustable. This allowed me to position myself at whatever height and relative proximity to the piano I needed to achieve the required sound to perform at optimal standards. People come in all shapes and sizes; to expect everyone to use the same type of bench to do something as physically complex as playing the piano is absurd. Accommodating our bodies to the instrument allows our brain to spend less energy on physical discomfort and more on making good music.
Some artists customize even further. For instance, Frederic Chiu, a brilliant concert pianist with whom I had a masterclass when I was fifteen, is known to prefer a high-backed chair instead of a traditional piano bench. Most famous of all is the late, incomparable Glenn Gould, who used a chair from a card-playing table set modified by his father, which he transported all over the world while he performed. One could argue that these are privileges, as they allowed artists of excellent caliber to perform at their best.
But if we apply this mindset to children in school, why shouldn’t every child be allowed to discover what works for them and perform at their best?
These artists can understand how their brain and body work and connect and what tools they need to excel at their craft. Isn’t that the whole point of school for children? Understanding what they need to thrive is an essential aspect of their foundation. It’s not enough for a team of professionals and parents to make those decisions behind closed doors without the child involved, either — the child needs to be part of the process.
Frankie chose to end his time at public school. He is autistic and fits the PDA (Pathological Demand Avoidance) profile, so I try to give him as much autonomy as possible. I told him I would support him when he was ready to return to homeschool, but it was his choice.
The day before Halloween 2023, he stepped out of our van at the school drop-off, where the paraprofessional was waiting to help him transition into the classroom he hated. He raised his hand to speak.
“Why are you raising your hand,” she asked, puzzled.
Frankie stammered slightly but quickly found strength in his resolve, “I’m not going to be here past tomorrow because I’m not getting what I need.”
I don’t think anyone in that school district was prepared to be given notice by a seven-year-old child. But it was one of the proudest moments of my parenting career.
On November 1st, 2023, we started the process of unwinding from the stress. There are no more tears over math worksheets—he does it all on his iPad. He learns according to his special interests, exploring videos about astronomy or engineering and building a curriculum around whatever he wants to learn. We don’t have meltdowns about schoolwork anymore.
This fall, I introduced my children to a new educational app. While my other two children loved it, Frankie struggled with it. After trying it for a few days, he came downstairs in tears, saying he couldn’t do it and that it was too hard.
“It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life, Mom. It’s just so hard, it’s like… fourth grade or something. Maybe even fifth grade, I don’t know. I just can’t do it.”
“Can you show me?” I asked him.
A fresh round of tears started up again. “No, it’s just… it keeps telling me I’m wrong, just like that school did.”
I was confused by his reaction. I had specifically researched this app because it was known to be effective for children who require learning accommodations. His reluctance to show it to me concerned me; Frankie and I share a close bond, and he usually opens up and shares things with me without hesitation.
He finally brought me his iPad and showed me the issue: in his increasing anxiety over the transition to the new app, he skipped the steps of reading the instructions for solving the problems presented. This is a common issue with those facing executive function problems from autism, ADHD, and dyslexia. I walked him through it, which took all of thirty seconds, and he was soon knocking out all sorts of schoolwork.
Before he took his iPad back upstairs, he stopped to say, “Thank you for helping me. That’s what they weren’t doing at school. I just needed someone to explain it to me, and now I know what to do.”
A child his age should have that support every time. That’s his right to a free and appropriate education. The fact that I could not convince the school district that he deserved that support and that it didn’t require massive amounts of financial drain on their part to implement was devastating.
Many people believe that making accommodations for individuals—whether it’s a child in school, an adult in the workplace, or someone with a disability in the community—requires a significant investment of time and money. However, if we take a moment to recognize the simple accommodations we already use in our daily lives, we can see that the reality is quite different.
My child wasn’t doing anything wrong. It’s common for kids to skip steps due to anxiety, and this is a crucial age for them to learn how prevalent that is, as well as how to troubleshoot it and develop tricks to remind themselves to double-check their work. I can imagine that if he had been in school, he would have quickly become dysregulated, especially if the lack of understanding about how his brain works had gone unaddressed. Instead of receiving support during a moment of distress, he would have faced shame for not grasping the connection between his brain and body, and his behavior would have been analyzed rather than understood.
Last night, we sat together on our patio in Southern California, looking at the stars coming out after a brilliant orange sunset.
“Mom, did you know the tallest volcano in the solar system is on Mars?”
“Is it really? How did you learn that?”
“I watched a video. I want to learn everything I can about the solar system.”
Regardless of my child’s future choices, providing him with the tools and accommodations he needs to learn in his preferred way will better prepare him for the real world.
