Baker's Dozen ~ public school!

[Deleted08]

bakersdozenandapolloxiv.com/2012/08/21/public-school/

I'm not breaking the link because there's nothing negative to say. I'm glad that the Mom realized public school will be better for her kids and she's using the option.

I hope Apollo's health gets better, that poor little guy :(

[Koala]

I wonder if 2 of the children are being put in intensive learning rooms because of homeschooling...either way, I'm glad she has the sense to put them in school now.

[JMF]

I'm not under the impression that the two being put into intensive learning are there because of homeschooling. Those two are both children who were adopted, and I'm pretty sure one has FAS and/or they both may have been exposed to drugs in-utero? One has been in PS for a year because homeschooling wasn't working for him.

Of all of the homeschooling families to be snarked on, I don't think the Baker's Dozen family is one of them. She takes homeschooling very seriously, and I don't think she does it primarily to shelter her children. It sounds like she's putting her kids in PS precisely BECAUSE she does take her kids' education so seriously, not because it has been neglected.

[chaotic life]

It's exactly why I had to choose to utilize public schools and why I did it. Severe stressors in my own life, coupled with a highly medical needs child meant I could put them in school or risk educational neglect of my children. Educational neglect has NEVER been an option for me.

When my son died in July, my intention had been to keep three children homeschooling and the others in public school. I immediately decided that my children NEED me to focus on helping everyone process their grief and I cannot homeschool three chidren now.

I am keeping only one child homeschooling this year. If his learning needs were not SO severe and he SO didn't fit the mold of the school environment, I would enroll him as well.

My newest adoptee's first adoptive mother faced a similiar situation due to a medical needs child. She refused to put education first and commited severe educational neglect. What he described (and his portfolio supports his assessment) is that those who were taught to read *before* the medical crisis were able to self-teach and continue their education. Those who were not strong readers never had a chance at getting an education. He wasn't a strong reader and is still fighting to make this up before he runs out of time now.

[Gil]

I’m not willing to make my older kids “raise†their younger siblings and I’m not willing to just do school “here and there†because we’re busy. My little ones are at an age where they are so willing and eager to learn.

:clap:

[SpeakNow]

Good for her. Children deserve the best education they can get.

[wendy-sparkles]

I'd never read her blog before, but as always am glad to see a fundie who'll put their kids in school instead of neglecting their education. I dug through her blog a bit though and it turns out she is into Nancy Thomas :roll:

[guidedbybobafett]

Of all of the homeschooling families to be snarked on, I don't think the Baker's Dozen family is one of them. She takes homeschooling very seriously, and I don't think she does it primarily to shelter her children. It sounds like she's putting her kids in PS precisely BECAUSE she does take her kids' education so seriously, not because it has been neglected.

Agreed. She is taking this very seriously and understands that with her child's medical needs she cannot be responsible for all of her other children's educational needs.

What an amazing little boy and what an amazing family. Apollo is adorable, and I can barely get through some of those posts without tearing up. Good luck to them.

[Witsec7]

I'd never read her blog before, but as always am glad to see a fundie who'll put their kids in school instead of neglecting their education. I dug through her blog a bit though and it turns out she is into Nancy Thomas :roll:

Always peel back the sheep's clothing and look a bit deeper.

[Burris]

...Nancy Thomas...

Oh God no; not another one. Thomas' methods are unscientific at best and deadly - as in, they will Fucking. Kill. Your. Kid - at worst.

ETA: And just to drive this point home for the some of the slower trolls and fundies who read here, this link is to the transcript of a videotaped murder - that of 10-year-old Candace Newmaker. If you still believe any of Thomas' fuckery after that, I hope you end up locked in a cell someday. And left to rot in a puddle of your own feces.

[terranova]

I like Renee. I've followed her blog for several years since her Liberian children were adopted. I like that she (appears) to give her children a lot of freedom of expression and choice and she seems to understand the difficulties involved in adoption. I also like that she doesn't want her elder children raising the younger ones.

But experiencedd is right. At the end of the day, she's still a fundie. She goes to above Rubies retreats and censors her doula daughter's text books.

I'm all for homeschooling but I agree she's probably made the best choice for her younger children. I hope they enjoy their time at school and that they get some answers to Apollo's health issues.

Avi and Mordecai were both adopted as babies and both have issues stemming from FAS or something similar I believe. Mordecai has been in public school for a while and she's blogged about him being the only "normal" child in a classroom where most children have severe disabilities.

[Witsec7]

Apparently the three oldest adopted kids are all off in Job Corps earning GED's.

[ILoveJellybeans]

They seem a lot more normal than the people we usually talk about on here-they stopped homeschooling when it was no longer possible to teach the kids at home (instead of just carrying on and leaving the kids to have no education), and they are allowed to read things that are not the Bible (and they had a Hunger Games themed party which sounded so awesome!) and looking at their pictures, the girls are allowed to wear normal clothes, and they have an unmarried older daughter who lives away from home.

Ive heard about the Nancy Thomas thing before though, and the deaths which happened cause of it, which is some scary stuff.

[Sola]

:clap:

+1

Are you listening Michelle Duggar?

[Deleted03]

I like Renee. I've followed her blog for several years since her Liberian children were adopted. I like that she (appears) to give her children a lot of freedom of expression and choice and she seems to understand the difficulties involved in adoption. I also like that she doesn't want her elder children raising the younger ones.

But experiencedd is right. At the end of the day, she's still a fundie. She goes to above Rubies retreats and censors her doula daughter's text books.

I'm all for homeschooling but I agree she's probably made the best choice for her younger children. I hope they enjoy their time at school and that they get some answers to Apollo's health issues.

Avi and Mordecai were both adopted as babies and both have issues stemming from FAS or something similar I believe. Mordecai has been in public school for a while and she's blogged about him being the only "normal" child in a classroom where most children have severe disabilities.

Thank you! Last time we talked about her no one would listen to me.

I like her as in: she has a very sick boy and I feel so sorry for her. She homeschools seriously and obviously loves her children. She's not quiverfull I think she has said since she had Appolo that it was her last. so good point. But the Above Rubies, and the missionary stuff not so much.

Hopefully her kids will get a lot of choice once they get out.

I don't know what happened to her older kids adopted from Liberia, one of them was shipped off in another family even before starting Job Corps.

I do wish her the best though and I hope they will see the dark sides of stuff like Above Rubies and other fundie approved programs.

[emmiedahl]

I have met Nancy Thomas and her oldest daughter, who is the shining example of her method. I helped to run an event at which she was the keynote speaker for a local foster care agency.

Sigh, I had no part in choosing her, I knew nothing about her at the time. But I did meet her and got kind of a weird vibe off of her. It was right after a death from her methods and she insisted they were doing it wrong.

[chaotic life]

The deaths *were* because they were using Thomas' methods wrong.

That's the real problem with her methods. The methods themselves are good for attachment and therapuetic parenting. HOWEVER, they have a dangerous flaw to them (well two). One, if you don't recieve your training directly from her and her organization but just read her articles and books, you will not understand the properly. Second, even if you DO understand them properly you have to walk a fine line using her methods that most parents already struggling CANNOT accomplish.

You have to be disengaged and completely emotionally removed from the child's behavaiors BUT you have to stay very, VERY attached to the child themselves....a child whom you are using the methods on in the first place because *they* are not attached and you cannot possibly know how hard it is to stay attached to a child who refuses to reciprocate and instead hates you.

Most of her method is about natural and logical consequences, removing yourself from the equation and letting a child raging against nothing except their own pain instead of using you as a scapegoat for their pain and anger, until they are ready and able to seperate you from that pain.

I never recommend Thomas to ANY parent struggling. Unless you are being directly supervised by Thomas or another HIGHLY skilled attachment therapist, you will not succeed. I recommend Foster and Cline or Post but I won't recommend Thomas. I'll even recommend Deborah Hage who works with Thomas but has a different presentation that avoids the dangers.

Most attachment therapists take the approach of side stepping the behaviors and focusing on healing attachment. Thomas confronts the behaviors themselves. If you do that when you are NOT attached to a child, you can become dangerous and cruel to that child instead of healing for them.

I have seen miracles done with children directly under the supervision and guidance of an attachment therapist with Thomas' techniques. I have NEVER heard good things about someone implementing her techniques without professionals successfully. It's NOT an approach that can be immulated within the home safely EVER. I think because Thomas is highly trained and herself a therapist, she might not recognize that it requires a professional to do what she does.

[emmiedahl]

I thought she was a quack.

First, what are her credentials?

Second, she terrified an entire room of foster parents. She told them that *most* foster children and adoptive children have RAD and are just one second away from going on a murderous rampage. They might seem okay, but they are really RAD. In fact, the more okay they seem, the more they are manipulating you and waiting for that second when they can kill your cat. I remember the quote, "All animals are endangered species with a RAD child." Her method is physically and emotionally grueling and perhaps it works in extreme cases, but it is not meant for all or even most children. Not that it will stop her and Beth from selling a book. :roll:

[emmiedahl]

I would like to add, these are what Nancy Thomas considers the causes of RAD:

Causes

Any of the following conditions occurring to a child during the first 36 months of life puts them at risk:

• Unwanted pregnancy

• Pre-birth exposure to trauma, drugs or alcohol

• Abuse (physical, emotional, sexual)

• Neglect (not answering the baby’s cries for help)

• Separation from primary caregiver (i.e. Illness or death of mother or severe illness or hospitalization of the baby, or adoption

• On-going pain such as colic, hernia or many ear infections

• Changing day cares or using providers who don’t do bonding

• Moms with chronic depression

• Several moves or placements (foster care, failed adoptions)

• Caring for baby on a timed schedule or other self-centered parenting

Do you see how she can scare a whole lot of parents into buying her materials and using her method, even though you acknowledge that is dangerous?

Here are the RAD symptoms she lists. They probably look familiar because every horrible adoptive parent we snark on is using Nancy Thomas a justification and has this exact list.

• Superficially engaging & charming (Who defines superficial? A child cannot be just plain engaging and charming?)

• Lack of eye contact on parents terms (On parents' terms? That sounds like the forced eye contact we see with fundies...)

• Indiscriminately affectionate with strangers

• Not affectionate on Parents’ terms (not cuddly) (again, your child has RAD if they are not cuddly when you tell them to be!)

• Destructive to self, others and material things (accident prone) (the average child is accident prone)

• Cruelty to animals

• Lying about the obvious (crazy lying) (developmentally appropriate behavior for small children, and I heard her refer to a 4 year old as RAD because of it)

• Stealing

• No impulse controls (frequently acts hyperactive) (could be a medical problem, could be normal. Ask your doctor, not Nancy Thomas)

• Learning Lags

• Lack of cause and effect thinking

• Lack of conscience

• Abnormal eating patterns

• Poor peer relationships

• Preoccupation with fire

• Preoccupation with blood & gore

• Persistent nonsense questions & chatter

• Inappropriately demanding & clingy

• Abnormal speech patterns

• Triangulation of adults

• False allegations of abuse

• Presumptive entitlement issues

• Parents appear hostile and angry

I was going to tear apart the entire list, but I don't feel the need to finish. She is a controlling fundie who offers emotional torture methods for bringing fundie adoptive children in line with already abused fundie birth children. I heard her describe her techniques and it was sad. I would have turned RAD just from having someone treat me that way.

[Glass Cowcatcher]

The hell is "triangulating adults?"

This reminds me a lot of the "Signs" of your child being an Indigo Child.

[emmiedahl]

The hell is "triangulating adults?"

This reminds me a lot of the "Signs" of your child being an Indigo Child.

It is when Mom says No, so you ask Dad. He says yes, mom finds out and is pissed at him.

Normal preschool behavior. It's the reason when my younger daughter asks me for something, I ask if she has already been told No by the other parent.

[Glass Cowcatcher]

It is when Mom says No, so you ask Dad. He says yes, mom finds out and is pissed at him.

Normal preschool behavior. It's the reason when my younger daughter asks me for something, I ask if she has already been told No by the other parent.

Ah, that makes sense, it didn't occur to be because I really haven't had to deal with that as a single parent.

Everything on that list is developmentally appropriate, except I'd say the firestarting. I feel sorry for the kids. I wonder if the parents are just scared into believing their kids have a disorder, or are Muchausen's Lite.

[gardenvarietycitizen]

"Nancy Thomas" certainly led to a disturbing google binge this morning. Just... what did I just read?

As always I have to wonder if these parents who are so damn sure their adopted kids have all kinds of mental "issues" would be so quick to pathologize the same behaviors in any biokids they might have. So many of the abuse cases involve abusing the adopted kids only while the biokids are treated more or less normally, and I wonder if they're really behaving ALL that differently.

I mean "triangulating adults" is a good one - plenty of kids do it (hell, plenty of adults do it too in the workplace, it's fairly fundamental to a lot of "workplace politics" strategies) and yet they're not all pathologically damaged.

One of the creepier things I read was saying that ACTUAL therapists looking at the results of some of these horror cases think some of it is parents adopting kids with all kinds of expectations of getting unconditional love and validation from the kids (including a requirement that the kid show a certain level of "gratitude" toward the "saving' parent) and when that doesn't happen, out comes abuse.

Thinking about it though, I'm sure there's some similarity in the idea that adopted kids were all somehow "ruined" by their prior experiences (just "obviously," without any actual diagnosis in many of these cases) and the idea that all kids are born with a "sin nature." I mean, the prescription for both seems to be the same - break their will by any means necessary.

[Glass Cowcatcher]

GVC, I thought Pat Robertson's comments recently were off the wall, but it seems more and more like he's speaking to a very common mindset among some adoptive parents.

[Conuly]

As always I have to wonder if these parents who are so damn sure their adopted kids have all kinds of mental "issues" would be so quick to pathologize the same behaviors in any biokids they might have. So many of the abuse cases involve abusing the adopted kids only while the biokids are treated more or less normally, and I wonder if they're really behaving ALL that differently.

Adopted children, especially those adopted later in life, can have behavior "problems". I'm putting it in quotes because often these problems are reasonable reactions to living a very unstable life, one they've just left.

If you've been moved around a lot, it makes SENSE to be charming on the outside, but not really get very close to any one person. Why, when they'll just leave? Or you will? And if upset, it makes sense to go ahead and really show it. You'lll be gone soon.

If you haven't had your needs met, either due to neglect or unavailability of food and whatnot, it makes sense to hoard food, or to just take money where you can get it so you can take care of yourself.

If you've been abused, it makes sense to hide and lie at the first sign of trouble.

Of course, for most of these kids, the real solution is simply time. Even with a real, competent therapist it's going to take time. But when your adoptive parents have a model for you which includes, not distrust but unending gratitude, and when their normal approach to misbehavior is to label it "defiance" and beat the devil out of their kids - twice - then that's two things that even individually lead to disaster.