Homeschooling was never on our list of options. In fact, I did not even think that an autistic child could fit into this form of learning. But life is not about long-term plans, but about adapting to short-term challenges. Like it or not, the school is moving home for the second year.

After more than ten years of building, brick by brick, what I considered to be the most beautiful story of inclusion in Romania, and after a promising high school debut, I found myself forced to resort to a radical decision because my son – I have to finish his compulsory education : home study.

I wrote countless episodes about David’s childhood and school years. They were beautiful. The most beautiful I was his tutor for 3 years, a teacher for another 4, and when he went to high school, I became his personal assistant with the appropriate documents and sat with him in the bank with my former students.

But the pandemic came, and the bank turned into a table with a chair in the living room, where we sat tensely, staring at the screen and thinking about the day when we would return to people. Every day was torture. Especially at the beginning. David did not understand why he was denied the “joy of life – going to school”. There were periods when we came back, then there was a code red in Bucharest, or 3-4 cases of Covid in the classroom and we had to sit with our noses in the computer again. Fear gradually replaced joy. David is a stickler for following the rules and he even wore a mask outdoors when the authorities told him to, he didn’t exchange items with his colleagues, they didn’t share food like they used to, they didn’t hug each other anymore.

The school easily lost its former charm. It was no longer the place where we went with love, but with fear, with insecurity. Insomnia appeared, panic attacks appeared, acne worsened, the once happy child began to be afraid to leave the house.

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