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You aren't so different from anyone else. I'm twice your age and haven't fulfilled any of my dreams, and couldn't figure out how to start and run a successful tutoring business. Most people are unable to fulfill their dreams they had in their teens and twenties. That's called life, not ASD. There IS no simple plan you can follow to becoming successful. If there was, everyone would do it. We all have to figure it out, or at least find some way to survive while we fail at figuring it out. The only difference here is that you don't seem to get that and your posts always demonstrate a heavy naivete and idealism that most of us lose at some point.
The tutoring market is saturated. Unless you have something special and new, you will not be able to do more than make side cash. And no one can tell you what is special and new, because if we knew then we'd do it ourselves.
Okay, thanks for the reality check. I guess I haven't really spent much time in the "real world." I've mostly been spending time in the virtual world, at the price of building real world skills perhaps. I just know what I was "told" that society's expectations of people like me were, and I know that my dad did successfully run a small business; that was his primary source of income, and he had trouble dealing with other people as his bosses, too. He would have been a millionaire by now had his family not destroyed his business, but that's another story, and he's still doing very well.
As for losing the optimism, my students aren't told to lose theirs, so why should I lose mine? I realize the chances of me doing certain things get slimmer as I age, but people do play the lottery, and my chances of doing well for myself are much better than my odds of winning the lottery, so why not continue to dream and pursue those dreams? I could give you examples of many successful people in my family, so why can't I be one of them, too?
As for having something special to bring to the table, I think it's just a lingering idea that I have a "fresh" perspective on things. That was my angle in my twenties, so I guess it's still my perspective in my 30's, although I'm trying to update my skill set so that I'll still be able to justify my claims. Of course, "fresh" could be read as naive if it lingers past its time. Ideally, I need to replace the "fresh perspective" with the accumulation of useful knowledge and skills that come with experience, and I think I've gained a few of those, but I'm really still trying to figure out what I want to do with my life, and having an unjustifiable amount of student loan debt doesn't help.
Really, though, teaching hasn't really given me much of a perspective of what the "adult" world really looks like. I act a bit more like my students than my coworkers sometimes, and I know that probably isn't good. I can't stay a child forever, but I often still think of myself as just slightly older than a teenager, even though I'm about twice the age of most of my ninth graders, and, thanks to a lack of sleep and overeating, I'm showing it.
Often in the real world, I really like people with ASD. They also seem to gravitate towards me for some reason. Some have told me I could be on the spectrum myself; though I'm undiagnosed and high functioning. Personally, I think it's just that I think different than most people and ASP often identify with me because of it. With that as a backdrop, I have some questions:
1. Why do you want to start your own business so badly? Just seems strange when you consider that business ownership normally revolves around the development and maintenance of social relationships. This is especially true with cleaning and tutoring businesses. No business will succeed without clients and clients can't be obtained or maintained without socializing. If this isn't something you enjoy, why do you want it so bad?
2. What does your Dad say about business ownership? What have you observed from watching him? You do realize that you have more practical real world knowledge of small business available from observing your dad than 90% of the people on this forum, right?
3. You mention many times that you have trouble interacting with students and people in general. Can you expand on this trouble? What exactly happens or doesn't happen that bothers you?
Often in the real world, I really like people with ASD. They also seem to gravitate towards me for some reason. Some have told me I could be on the spectrum myself; though I'm undiagnosed and high functioning. Personally, I think it's just that I think different than most people and ASP often identify with me because of it. With that as a backdrop, I have some questions:
1. Why do you want to start your own business so badly? Just seems strange when you consider that business ownership normally revolves around the development and maintenance of social relationships. This is especially true with cleaning and tutoring businesses. No business will succeed without clients and clients can't be obtained or maintained without socializing. If this isn't something you enjoy, why do you want it so bad?
It's not so much socializing that bothers me, and what really bothers me is difficult to explain. I guess part of it is I have more freedom and less of an opportunity to get personally observed working for myself than when working for other people, especially as a teacher. The boss gets on to me for little things that in the real world if I were my own manager would probably lose me clients, but at a school it could lose me my job and reputation. I have a feeling of anonymity working for myself that I don't when working under other people. One boss or manager tends to have other bosses and managers in their social circles; this is especially true with public school principals, so if I make a bad impression on one, I'm out of luck with the whole group.
2. What does your dad say about business ownership? What have you observed from watching him? You do realize that you have more practical real world knowledge of small business available from observing your dad than 90% of the people on this forum, right?
Dad is very modest. He's a good friendly business man welcomed by all, and he probably has ASD, too, but hasn't shown much of an interest in getting diagnosed. At this point in his life, he's an eccentric old man enjoying his golden years. I don't want to stress him out. I guess I could ask him questions, but he's encouraged me to just reach for my goals and find what i'm good at.
3. You mention many times that you have trouble interacting with students and people in general. Can you expand on this trouble? What exactly happens or doesn't happen that bothers you?
One issue is I forget what i'm going to say. In the past, people have greeted me, and I just stood there and stared at the floor or looked away like I wasn't interested. I've gotten surprisingly better at making conversation and engaging in small talk, but group dynamics still agitate me. If you put me one-on-one with a kid and his or her parent, i'm much calmer than if I feel like I have twenty or thirty kids and their parents ganging up on me. I have a peculiar difficulty communicating with groups the way most people are able to. My attention just isn't there.
Sorry spelling and typos- posting from my phone.
I also feel like maybe I don't have enough experience to actually know what's "acceptable" and what's not. As a child, I saw all instances of failure as bad, but I've learned as an adult that that's not necessarily true. Some forms of failure are necessary. Now, if I only knew what people expected vs. what they thought would be "weird" and why they thought that way, I could probably communicate well enough to not really worry about my differences, but I don't know, so it's almost like stepping out into a "social mine field" where I could ruin my reputation and make myself look like a fool without warning.
"It's not so much socializing that bothers me, and what really bothers me is difficult to explain. I guess part of it is I have more freedom and less of an opportunity to get personally observed working for myself than when working for other people, especially as a teacher. The boss gets on to me for little things that in the real world if I were my own manager would probably lose me clients, but at a school it could lose me my job and reputation. I have a feeling of anonymity working for myself that I don't when working under other people."
This entire paragraph translates to "I can hide". "I can hide...from the reality that I really don't know what I'm doing when it comes to the nuts and bolts of teaching" That really is the truth KMB and I am telling you this because you need to know you are not going to be able to be a tutor. Parents pay privately for tutoring, and believe me they want the BEST. They are going to be watching everything you do, much more so than a boss will. I actually don't think you'd get hired in the first place, however, due to your poor social skills, inability to dress properly, lack of references, etc. The parent is going to call you, ask you about your experience, your teaching style, what you might do to get a math word problem to be understandable to a child who doesn't understand abstraction, how you would go about teaching reading to her son who has a poor attention span... What are you going to say?
The kid is going to spend 10 awkward minutes with you where you don't know the right thing to say and appear disorganized as you try to figure out how to begin, and he will say "I don't like her Mom" and you will be gone, because it is not like school, for tutoring to be effective the child has to feel able and willing to communicate and spend time with you. So far I have seen no evidence that you engender many fond feelings in children when you meet them nor after they get to know you. There are tons of tutors available to hire, and many or most will have a natural way with kids and their parents, be able to put them at ease and make the child feel comfortable...if you are honest with yourself you have to see how unrealistic this is for you.
I don't think you really understand how skilled tutors have to be at teaching to each person. You don't even know how to do assessments from what I remember let alone design 10 different lesson plans for 10 different children and keep track of all their stuff.
Also things like curriculum guides....there is no structured guide to being a teacher with step 1 do this. step 2 do that... it doesn't exist, no matter how many ways you ask for this in different threads, it does not exist.
Kids are being tutored because they have gotten stuck somewhere with the lesson plans the teacher is using...YOU have to figure out where and how they have gotten stuck and how to unstick them, it is not just teaching history at home the same way you'd teach it at school. Tutors assess the childs strengths and weaknesses and design a curriculum based on this one child and how they learn best...you do not know how to do this. Again, I just see you continuing to swim upstream (and I see the irony of me saying this as I write another book to you, lol) and wish you could come to an acceptance of who you are, so you could admit to the help you need out in the world instead of just here.
[i]"I[color=DarkOrchid]t's not so much socializing that bothers me, and what really bothers me is difficult to explain. I guess part of it is I have more freedom and less of an opportunity to get personally observed working for myself than when working for other people, especially as a teacher. The boss gets on to me for little things that in the real world if I were my own manager would probably lose me clients, but at a school it could lose me my job and reputation. I have a feeling of anonymity working for myself that I don't when working under other people."
[color=Black]This entire paragraph translates to "I can hide". "I can hide...from the reality that I really don't know what I'm doing when it comes to the nuts and bolts of teaching" That really is the truth KMB and I am telling you this because you need to know you are not going to be able to be a tutor. Parents pay privately for tutoring, and believe me they want the BEST. They are going to be watching everything you do, much more so than a boss will. I actually don't think you'd get hired in the first place, however, due to your poor social skills, inability to dress properly, lack of references, etc. The parent is going to call you, ask you about your experience, your teaching style, what you might do to get a math word problem to be understandable to a child who doesn't understand abstraction, how you would go about teaching reading to her son who has a poor attention span... What are you going to say?
Two things:
You've posted a lot of things about me not being able to handle the work because I don't know what I'm doing. People have to learn at some point, don't they? I don't really understand what you expect me to do to learn if not work and get experience. I think a lot of people hold your attitude. Why do they expect everyone entering the workforce to already be experts at their jobs? Didn't everyone have to work to gain experience? If I have to learn by getting dismissed by clients, so be it, right? I have to learn how to do my job somewhere at some point.
I've tutored in the past. The only real issues I've had, besides occasionally having to reschedule appointments because I forgot was not getting paid, not because they were dissatisfied with the service. They kept coming back, and I don't think they would have wasted the gas if that were the case. I just decided to be nice and not charge them, because I do question my own competency, perhaps according to the people who have followed my issues on this forum, justifiably so.
What type of business does your Dad own? Why not work with him with an aim towards taking over the business once he retires? You'll have the benefit of generational experience plus an established customer base. These advantages are HUGE; and it's realistic to hope that they could mitigate some of the disadvantages life has dealt you.
Short of that your odds are extremely long. Most people that make it from scratch in business startups are extremely gifted in their choice of business (elite aptitude) PLUS they are well funded PLUS they have a passion for selling PLUS they are lucky to be in the right place at the right time. I say all this as someone that once started a successful business and failed at a few others.
I think it's good that you want to learn; but why choose something like cleaning or teaching when you don't seem to love these things in the first place?
I do think you are an excellent writer; interesting, entertaining, and well spoken for.
What type of business does your Dad own? Why not work with him with an aim towards taking over the business once he retires? You'll have the benefit of generational experience plus an established customer base. These advantages are HUGE; and it's realistic to hope that they could mitigate some of the disadvantages life has dealt you.
Short of that your odds are extremely long. Most people that make it from scratch in business startups are extremely gifted in their choice of business (elite aptitude) PLUS they are well funded PLUS they have a passion for selling PLUS they are lucky to be in the right place at the right time. I say all this as someone that once started a successful business and failed at a few others.
I think it's good that you want to learn; but why choose something like cleaning or teaching when you don't seem to love these things in the first place?
I do think you are an excellent writer; interesting, entertaining, and well spoken for.
If I didn't already mention it somewhere, he is already retired, and the family business no longer exists. Cleaning and teaching do genuinely interest me. Maybe I'm not the best at these things, but I'm very willing to learn.
If I didn't already mention it somewhere, he is already retired, and the family business no longer exists. Cleaning and teaching do genuinely interest me. Maybe I'm not the best at these things, but I'm very willing to learn.
How long has he been retired? What type of business was it? What happened to his clients, where are they now? Did you grow up watching him operate the business, and what did you learn? Why haven't you explored a more in depth conversation with your Dad? There are few people out there that started successful businesses; he is a wealth of knowledge and information for you. I cannot understand why you haven't explored this resource further, which is right at your fingertips.
It also seems like you are shying away from all questions related to your Dad- why?
As to teaching…haven't you said that your students and coworkers don't like or respect you? Is this something that you really like? Be honest….
Continuing on that path, you said you've tutored in the past. How did you get those clients? What happened to those clients? Ar you still tutoring right now? If not, why not?
I'm not trying to keep a negative discussion going. I acknowledge that a lot of you have put in some effort in answering my questions, and I acknowledge that perhaps it's easier for me to get frustrated than some people.
You have started 345 threads, and many of them concern the same issues, over and over. You've pretty much ignored all the advice you've been given about teaching, starting your own business, dealing with ASD, etc, etc. Why not join a support group and learn something about how you come across to others IRL?
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