This is a question that every parent with special needs asks themselves. It's hard to decide if your child would do better in the mainstream school system or one with special needs, especially when they're at a young age...

 This is a question that every parent with special needs asks themselves. It's hard to decide if your child would do better in the mainstream school system or one with special needs, especially when they're at a young age and they can really decide for themselves.

I was in year four when my parents pushed me into going to a special needs school, away from my few friends and a school I knew well enough to feel comfortable. At first, like every new student, I felt awkward walking into a small school of only 40 students in the whole school. With a class of only seven children, it was hard to hide in the shadows of others but the attention I was able to receive was far greater than my previous mainstream school. The school was far more relaxing with not as many rules and regulations, allowing us to comfortably relax and focus on work and not worry about a teacher coming into the room and suddenly stopping our work and standing up to great them.

I was able to see a new world in that school with children more special and less special than me. It made me realizes that everyone is special in their own way.

I remember that day in class where a boy suddenly started throwing his things off the table like a little child. The teacher and helper instantly started to calm the boy down and try and figure out why he was reacting that way.
As time passed you would notice only certain people would react like that and when talking to them in a nice conversation, you always wonder why they react that way sometimes and yet they're perfectly fine now. Looking back on it now, I knew it was because of stress, lack of attention or just because they didn't want to do something. Some would keep quiet and panic to themselves until they broke down and others would just explode.

But I know if I didn't attend that school, I would never have learned as much at a mainstream school, I'd never realize that there were other kids like me and that I wasn't one of few, I was one of many.

At the end of Secondary school, I didn't want to leave but I was told I should go back to the mainstream and I wanted to see if all I had learned, at my special needs school, actually helped to catch me up to the rest of the kids, in mainstream schools.

So my advice is to look at what the schools offer your child and use the one that allows your kids to thrive and not running behind the other kids. No matter how much you wish a flower to grow, it won't if its not it an environment that wants to help it.

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