Should You Send Your Child to a Special School?

Hey guys, welcome to our Monday lives. And today I want to talk about whether to send your child to a special school. So I've gotten this question a lot of times when parents come to me and they say, oh, my kid is like this and this and this and that. Should I send the kid to a special school or quote unquote, like normal school or what we call just, you know, a mainstream school. Right? So what entails is that most parents have not seen a special school before. So let me just quickly describe what people do in a special school. Only to the extent that I know of from where I'm from. From Hong Kong, right? And in Hong Kong we have a slightly better situation is that we can grade the schools into because our population is dense, right? So if we can, we can grade them into like moderate, mild, severe, profound, whatever, right? And we can stick to those things. But in other countries such as, you know, Canada, America, Australia, where the population is more sparse, right? The level of, of special needs students, the skills will be like very varied. Because let's say in, in a town, in a small town, one special needs school, it might be already an hour drive away or like, I don't know, 45 minutes. But we're in, in Hong Kong, everything is within like, I don't know, like 30 minutes, 45 minutes reach at the very least. If not, it would still be within one hour. And you can get to anywhere in one hour in Hong Kong, right? So therefore we, we have the luxury to have the schools graded and have children of similar ability inside of a school. But any other country I cannot comment on. I know for a fact that it's not the case in western countries such as Australia or usa, right? Because just because how the population is distributed. Okay, so with that said, what does that mean for you? That means that if you, if your child goes into a special school, you have to underscore, understand that your child will be classified or like put into groups inside of their, like within their age groups. Instead of the abilities, which is fair and, and very fine, right? Which is very good. But at the same time, you know, like one person who is three or one people who like one child who's three, another at the same age, their ability gap might be huge, right? A person, a kid might be learning how to use like gestures to communicate, right? The other one might be already speaking on like two word sentences. And maybe it's just that their behavior has been really difficult and challenging. That's why they're there. So you have to remember that whenever you put a child into a special school depending on your geography, geographical location, right? It would be like that. And at the same time, if you think about, if you're in like a developing country like I am right now in Indonesia, then what. How much does the special school know about like developing a curriculum or whatever? Or is there going to be a time where you can re evaluate and allow you to think, oh, maybe this is the time where I can get my kid back into a mainstream. If not a mainstream, then maybe an integrated school. Okay, so just to give you this a little bit of, of information here, okay? If you go inside of a special school, you will know exactly that it's, it is a special school. It's very different. Okay, I, I don't want to sugarcoat this, right? The thing is about special schools is that I've worked in a few, all right? During intern without money for my master's program. I don't, I didn't get, I didn't get a job in a special special school because I like teaching children who are around three to six. If you go in a special school, it's like the whole primary school, it's just very different. So if you go inside, you will know because the students there are different. It's true. And they cannot do certain things very readily, such as going to the toilet independently sometimes, right? Sometimes they might not be able to eat very well. As in, they cannot really chew properly, they can't really feed properly. They might have really challenging behaviors in a class. As I said, the level would be very different, right? One person would be really good at something, the other like totally their skills, right? So that's just how it works there. So if you put your child there, you have to know that it's already. There's nothing else you can do. All right? Putting them in there in a special school can help, okay? If your child requires that kind of intensity in, in terms of their education, all right? But if your child is already verbal at around three or, you know, three and a half, and they have some words, I think it's totally acceptable to put them inside of a kindergarten first, like a mainstream one, and see how it goes, right? If it's still very difficult, consider either getting a shadow teacher, right, to look after the kid individually whilst he goes about like the group activities or whatnot, or you could just put them into integrated school. Now here's the problem. Here's the problem. Like most kindergartens, they will. They don't really understand the rep. Like the consequences are like the the level of, they don't understand the levels of like special needs children. Right. For me, when I look at them, I say, okay, like this kid is like that. I would put them this bucket and this bucket and I would think, oh, how is it like, is it worth it to put them in a special school? What? Rather than what? But you know, like kindergarten teachers look at special needs children, they don't see enough of them. That's what I mean, right? In order for them, if it's a little bit, how to say it's a little bit off, they already think that, oh man, this, they're not supposed to be here, right? That's what, that's how they think, unfortunately. So I would say either get them a shadow teacher and this probably needs to come out of your pocket for a lot of countries, right? They are some places in the world where, you know, you can get a special, I don't know what do you call that a special needs, like individual needs, whatever, someone to like shadow the kid during class. I had it when I was growing up because I was lucky enough to be inside of a, of an English school. So you know, there was a lot of learning. Support. That's the word for it, right? So that's what I'm talking about. Like you find a place where there's enough support. If there isn't support, then ask for one on one time as a shadow with a shadow teacher. If that doesn't work, then go to an integrated school. But the problem with integrated schools is that you never know the quality of the integrated school. Like how, what it's difficult. Like integrated schools are one of the most difficult places to teach as a teacher because you don't know, like you might be dealing with a bunch of typical students, right? And then suddenly you have a kid who is like disruptive, doesn't say much or whatever. Then it's, it's a little bit difficult for, for a child to learn. Okay, so at the end of the day, should your child go to special school, try out the mainstream stuff first. Okay? If you try the mainstream stuff, it doesn't work. Add more support as an add, shout out teachers, put them into integrated. And then if everything still doesn't work, you really have to like get someone to take a look, like a therapist, speech therapist, AB therapist, I don't know, clinical psychologist, that kind of professionals and see, hey, is this a good time to get into a special needs school? You know, get them to go on site at the school and watch them academically, how they interact with Other children, because I cannot. Like from what you tell me over the Internet, it's very difficult to. It's very difficult to tell you whether it's the correct thing or not, because last time I had a parent who consulted me about this matter. I'm like, hey, man, I really don't know. I really need to see that person, that kid right there right now, and, you know, just to take a look at how they're responding to everything. Okay, so let's go through it. Let's see if we have any questions. Right? So. Hi, Rose. What's up? Kuyan says wash hands. I guess it's like. Like this, I guess. Thank you for clapping. Heather says, good morning. Jesus healed our daughter. Autism level three. Okay. Hallelujah. That program is assisting us on the journey. Wanted to put on a special ed. I believe in God. Didn't want to put. Yeah, that's great. Yeah. Okay. Excellent. Very good. Dr. L says, Any tips for beginning autistic feeding therapy at home? You know what? My tip for beginning autistic, like, whatever, feeding therapy is not to force the kid to eat it or don't make them hungry or whatever, because most of the time when a child has a feeding problem, it's more of a sensory problem more than anything. Okay. There's a reason why they didn't like it, and we have to find out why. If we cannot find out why, we have to ease them in. Into, like, eating that thing. The more you push the child to do something that you think they can and they're just being, like, annoying, the more. The easier it will to actually upset them in the long run. Okay. And it will be very difficult to teach. All right. Oh, excellent, Heather. Thank you. Very good. Kuyan asked me. I know. What's the main function of a shadow teacher? Teaching? Guiding child during class, how to help. Okay. So on one. On one setting, the child will be able to, like, look at you and do things when you tell them to or whatever. But when a child goes into a group setting, the whole situation changes for the kid and they freak out. Right. So if you have a shadow teacher, which in Indonesia, most of the time, people. People like, if they have the luxury to have a shadow teacher, it's usually the mom because, I don't know, it's just like that here, which is a good, great thing. I don't know if, like, anyone has a luxury to do. So, like, I still have to work, right? You know, even my wife might have to work, and it's very difficult to find a sh. Teacher so what's the function of it is to bridge the gap between one on one and group. So I always tell parents that they need group therapy. In fact, that's what I'm actually thinking about when I'm doing therapy nowadays. Like during the pandemic. Right now everything's closed and I don't want to be open, to be honest. Although Omicron isn't very potent as a, as a virus, I don't want to go to the virus thing. I just sent an email all about it and I spelled Omnicron Roth. Omicron Roth. But anyways, so the, the thing about this is that the shadow teacher is supposed to bridge the cap. And even if your child goes through group therapy, they will still require a shadow teacher to bring them into a bigger group, right? To let them understand how like, things work. When a teacher gives instruction, the shadow teacher provides a prompt, Let them know what they're supposed to do. When the kid is like, throwing a tantrum, the shadow teacher is going to be the one who's like, moderating the behavior, soothing them down, whatever. And that's because, you know, the kid, the, the, the classroom teacher has like 15 plus more students to like, cater to. So you have to remember if you don't have a shadow teacher who's going to take care of her kid when they get into a tantrum, okay. Or when, you know, like to. If a shadow teacher is good, you won't even know that she's there because. Or he for that matter. And that's because when the tantrum comes, the shadow teacher should be able to spot it before it happens and stop it. Right? And also when they like, stop behavior, whatnot, they're also there to reward the kid whenever good things happen, which the classroom teacher doesn't have time to provide, right? Because she or he, mostly she would totally just be going on and teaching other children and telling a story. They don't suddenly stop and say, hey, good boy, nice listening, or whatever. Like, or, hey, I saw that you didn't bang your head on the carpet or whatever, or, hey, you didn't bite your friend. That's excellent. Don't have time for that. You know, like, everything is taken for granted at that point because no one does it. So that's why you need a shadow teacher to help you track their behavior, reward them, stop them from the behavior from happening, prompt them when they don't understand instructions, also help them to communicate with others, teach them what to say during what time, that kind of stuff. And this in general is just a really good helping hand. It's like, you know, like, you know, what's that called? You know, when you go to a museum, like this is a little far fetched, right? So when you go to a museum, you click on it on the thing and that tells you what's happening. That kind of like it's an instant translator. That's, that's kind of like a shadow teacher to me. Right? Because if the shadow teacher is good, that that's what's happening, like you, the child won't get lost because they're being guided by the shadow teacher. All right, Kuya, that's a great question. I hope everyone understood that. And yeah, let me know if you have any more questions. Sorry, that's my cat. On the other hand, during this year I am going to create the. What's that called? The social training. Social. What's that? Social games Training is still coming probably next on April probably. And then a new course is going to be out next month. All right. And that's pretty much it. I'm still like, I'm Chinese. So I'm like, I'm going to prepare for Chinese New Year and let me know if you have any questions. And that's probably it for tonight if no one's going to ask anything. All right, thank you. Say bye. Bye.