Need prayer for myself & 12yo son….again!

I am in danger of violating Galatians 6:9…..I am growing very weary in the good things I am trying to do for my family! It especially revolves around 12yo ds, but it affects the entire family.

I’ve mentioned before that my son has mild autism, and I have modified our curriculum quite a bit to suit his needs. However, there are days when it is challenging to get him to complete more than a subject or two, and I’m also having trouble getting enough of our family lessons done. For example, if we are reading a book about Robert E. Lee for history to everyone, he might play quietly in the room or he might make noises–not terribly loud, but distracting–and then it’s hard for even me to retain what I’m reading. And there are too many days where he flat-out doesn’t want to do any school at all for more than 5 minutes.

We’ve set up rewards for getting school done (‘x’ number of subjects and you can play a Wii game), but he gives up on that (“Forget it–I don’t want to do that anyway!”) halfway through the tasks. I’ve also taken away privileges, but that is usually met with a meltdown (nicer word than ‘tantrum,’ isn’t it?) and then he’ll just choose something else to do. If I’m patient enough, whatever I’ve taken away eventually leaves its mark upon him, but I still wonder if he’s making the connection.

I would just do his schoolwork completely separately from the girls, but I don’t know how he would handle having the girls doing fun things or having free time while he’s completing schoolwork.

I keep homeschooling him because I don’t believe that the public school is a good place for him, but I stress out over whether he is accomplishing all that he can with so many difficult, shortened school days. I also can’t help but wonder if the girls could achieve more without having a special needs sibling in the mix.

*Sigh*

I’d rather be efficiently finishing up our schoolwork and chores each day and spending more time outside enjoying this nice spring weather.