How could you vote out this cute face? #ASD
Here is the most recent update on his story.
Recently, I was sharing this story with The AP and showed her a couple of uTube videos about it. My purpose was to try to explain to her why I was so physically sick over The Elder being in kindergarten and getting these notes home.
I’m not sure what all I have blogged about The Elder Kindergarten experience. I would have to scroll through a couple of “lazy” tweet posts and some Success Sundays that may or may not be a week apart and may or may not be on a Sunday. I apologize for the lack of posts, but it has been a new era of unknowns, uncertainties, and anxieties.
Don’t get me wrong…The Elder is doing much better than I expected. Not that I had low expectations of him. I’m very much an optimist and believe in the best. However, he has EXCEEDED my optimism. And I can say right now it is a result of the kind of support we are getting from the school. That’s right. I said SUPPORT and SCHOOL in the same sentence and there wasn’t a NO or NOT in it either. The K Teacher is just so amazing. She actually makes eye contact with me at the pickup line! And…and…and……she smiles and waves at me. I know! And when I volunteer in the classroom (only twice so far, but I wanted to do it more often), she….talks to me. Crazy! And it isn’t yelling and it isn’t with furrowed brows or with condescending judgmental looks. At first, the “normalcy” of her behavior made me a little uncomfortable. At times it still does until I just get over my self-conscious self.
Well, the Alex Barton topic came up after a really difficult Thursday. October 29th to be exact. He had hit a few people in the cafeteria, he had thrown his shoes at 2 people (hitting them), and he had removed all the other students’ clips from the board that indicated which “center” they were stationed. I talked to him about it afterward. “What happened at school today?” in the same jovial tone I do everyday, and he gave me names of who he hurt and tried to explain to him what they might be feeling, such as fear. We sat down and wrote I’m sorry notes to the children. But now…I knew their names now. I don’t know if that was good or bad. But it didn’t feel good. Especially since I was volunteering in his classroom for the first time the very next day for the Fall Party. I actually felt like the children were judging me. How silly is that? But it was the parents that I was actually afraid to converse with. They’d ask who my child was and when I would point out The Elder it was like they gave me the “courtesy nod” and moved on. I know now that all of that was in my head. But when you read about stories like Alex Barton’s, how can you NOT have those fears? Fears that his classmates don’t want him there. And based on my past experiences, the fears that the adults don’t want him there? I got teary when I signed in at the office in total panick of what to expect when I got there. It wasn’t as bad as I thought. The lunchroom lady who lines them all up approached me while I was eating lunch with him (LOVED that!) and told me about some of the things he had been doing that was getting him in trouble there. But she ended with a very cheery and perky, “I love him, he’s so sweet.” Talk about a tension release!
Since then I have volunteered one other time and my fears were calmed even more to hear the other moms who volunteer more regularly tell me how sweet he is. Whew! THAT is why I want to volunteer more often. So much for good service to the school…it’s for my own emotional health! The Super Doc would be proud…
And then lastly, The new Asst Principal. He was a Special Educator for 13 years and this was his first year in administration. He told us during the last IEP meeting (when we were having the meeting in one room, and he was in the other room because he was sent to the office for having a meltdown in the classroom. He didn’t know we were there) that he knew more about autism than he did about adminstration. That made me feel really good. kinda.
Then The Elder got his first pink slip last week. He has an official school record. My heart sunk.
He’s had a really good week this week. But the thing is is that it is so sporadic. It changes week to week, day to day, hour by hour. Am I overreacting? Is this normal? Is this ASD? He has a bomb inside of him that has NO fuse. It’s either dormant or it’s exploding. There’s no ticking involved. But you take him aside later when he has calmed down and he knows exactly what he did wrong and what he should have done. Fortunately The Resource Teacher understands that he isn’t doing the misbehavior on purpose, he just can’t control his impulses. But because he has no empathy or a bland affect it makes him look heartless or aloof or apathetic to often very serious situations, even though he understands them as we do. It’s so difficult to decode him at times.
What I’m excited about though is that we have a meeting with the OT on Thursday to give us the results of his evaluation. I pray he gets services because I think that would help a lot. He’s been getting in trouble in the lunchline for running into people, (When I was there, I saw that he was pretending to be shunting cars on a railroad. But hey! He was pretending!), leaning/laying on top of people during carpet time, and tearing and crumpling his papers. I had started the joint compressions again. He likes them a lot. He even tries to do them on himself. Gets tricky when it comes to compressing his elbow and shoulder.
We are also getting a behavior specialist observe him in the classroom. The Resource Teacher is very excited about that. That’s really going to make a difference if she can pin point which scenarios tend to trigger the meltdowns. It’s funny because as his mother, I can anticipate meltdowns in the heat of the moment, but if you were to ask me, “so what triggers your son’s meltdowns?” I would look like a fool because I couldn’t tell you. Not without giving you specific examples, but that doesn’t help someone who needs to be able to generalize it for a classroom.
So hopefully I’ll get to post again before the holidays to update on the OT meeting. If not, Happy Holidays!
Success Sunday PostID 1363
“We find the turkey in the woods. We cut our turkey and then we put it in our oven and cook it at 46 degrees for 65 minutes. We make the turkey taste just like chicken. We eat the turkey when it comes out of the oven.“
––The Elder
Here were some snippets of the other responses from his classmates:
“Grandma has to pick the feathers off of the turkey.”
“You let it cool off and then you eat it and go to bed.”
“I get a turkey at the bakery.”
“We cook it for 160 minutes in a VERY hot oven that we can’t touch.”
“We wait until everyone gets to the house and then we bake the turkey for one minutes in the microwave.”
“Mom goes outside to get a turkey, but I don’t know where. Then she washes it and puts in the oven for 10 minutes until it burns.”
“We shoot a turkey with a gun. We put it in the oven for 16 minutes. We get forks and knives and eat it!”
“Then we put mustard on it and we eat it.”
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Another Parent/Teacher Conference, Please
Yesterday The Elder received his first Yellow Card. It was also the second time he was sent to the CDC classroom to “cool off.” The first time it happened, I discussed it with The Teacher and we came to an agreement that we (me and The K Teacher and The CDC Teacher) need to make sure that The Elder doesn’t see the CDC classroom as a “reward.” The tricky part is that we don’t want him to see it as a “bad” thing or “timeout.” It is in his IEP for a reason, and not a bad reason.
The first time he was sent there he “worked” on the computer and read the Curious George book. i am afraid that he is assciating a meltdown with exiting to read books and play on the computer. We know what that means: he must tantrum to the point of throwing things to get what he wants. I sent an email to The K Teacher today hoping to meet with her.
Subj: RE: [The Elder]’s day
Thank u for the update. It really helps me to know what happens. I know I can’t ask u to do that everytime but if as much as possible. It helps me plan what to focus on when I pick him up. I talked to [The Teacher] ab somethings and strategies for us to work on, me you and [The CDC Teacher]. Mainly we don’t want him thinking that cdc is a reward. Else he will act the way he did until he is sent there which just reinforces it. Perhaps we should talk in person. Could we schedule another conference? Since now we are seeing issues? Thx.
Jennifer
Mobil-e-Mail
—–Original Message—–
Subj: [The Elder]’s day
Date: Mon Sep 15, 2008 9:59 am
Jennifer,
[The Elder] did fine this morning early (even when he had to correct his
journal). Shortly after that, we did workbooks as a large group. He
was fine until the last page. He decided that he wasn’t going to make
a lower case a. He had proven that he could earlier in the
workbook . He scribbled all over the page, threw his marker, and then
resorted to throwing shoes and socks at me. I helped him with the
first few and then wanted him to try the rest on his own. This is
when he got very violent (throwing, refusing, etc.) He went to his
CDC room to cool off and work on reasoning skills for anger.
Hopefully, this is over for today. He is working on his morning work
right now at his seat.
Sincerely,
[signed]
