I started re-reading this blog yesterday.. perhaps to torture myself. I don't know. I mean, I do know, but I couldn't help but be a bit depressed thinking about just how sh*tty things have been over the years. It occurred to me during my painful review that it's been just 5 years ago that things hit boiling point, and I pulled Jack out of school for the remainder of 3rd grade. That's some serious sh*t, when you feel like you absolutely have no other option. Things were so bad, that my son's physical and emotional well-being were both completely compromised, and I myself was on the verge of madness.
It was 5 years ago that we were preparing Jack for a major transition- to a new school, new friends, new teachers, and even a new doctor. Two years after that, we were transitioning yet again, to a new school, new friends, new teachers, and new doctor. Here we are, just about to end the 8th grade. No new doctors (that I know of), but now we're preparing for high school, new teachers, new friends, etc. (Some friends will stay the same, some will be seen for the first time since 3rd grade, and hopefully he can make some new friends). Transitions suck. For all of us. I'm just glad that we're on a good medication regiment, that we have a counselor in place, and that his sister will be there at school (for the first time in 5 years).
Jack has a new set of friends now. Very few "real" friends, and sometimes I do wonder if any of them are. I think it helps that one of his friends (whose only been attending the same school for about a year now) has ASD, thus the boy's mom "gets it". She has been more than happy to let the kids celebrate birthdays together, hang out together outside of school, etc. Very few kids (even now) have had any interest in attending Jack's birthday parties. In fact, last year's party was about as pathetic as the one he had in 3rd grade, where nobody wanted his invite, or RSPV'd, or even attended. (He handed out invites this year, and all but one of his friends from school said no. I found out after school that day, and cried for about an hour. This was on the way to Jack's counseling appointment, and I was pretty inconsolable. I know the staff at the place was rather concerned, which I appreciated. Thank God one friend from his old elementary school went, and then the one new friend who is on the spectrum).
Jack has been doing a bit more in the way of after-school activities, starting last year. A local company comes in to the school once a month, and they have Minecraft Night. A group of kids comes in, with a donation of a canned good for admittance, and they work together on separate computers to create a town or whatever. Jack loves Minecraft (or did. He hasn't played in a while), so he usually finds this fun. I'm hoping he'll consider either the Anime or Gaming clubs at school next year. He may not want to lose the computer time at home, so I can see him choosing neither. I guess we'll see.
His last teacher before being home-schooled was (IMO) a b*tch. That's harsh, but frankly, when you have someone who lets the other kids shush him, telling him to be quiet, etc.. when you know how much it upsets him, you're the wrong teacher for kids with any special needs. She might be a heck of a great teacher for neuro-typical kids, but not for kids like Jack. There are ways to get ASD kids to do what you need them to- redirect, for starters. Allowing other 3rd graders to boss them around is not okay on any level.
As for the bus, we started off 4th grade with a bus, and that ended after about 2 weeks. I drove Jack the rest of the year, and was (thankfully) reimbursed "per diem", by the district. In 5th grade, I think we might have tried a bit longer, but after an incident where went nuts, he started taking a "taxi". We did that for 6th and 7th grade as well, and *finally*, we're now almost completely through an entire year on the bus.
Jack still has a county service coordinator, who helps us manage his counseling services, and other things he might need, which they can pay for or guide us through. The same coordinator has been helping us though probably 8 years of help, thank goodness. (I appreciate the consistency there!) We're very likely to go through re-determination proceedings through the county in the next year or so (I think before he turns 16), to see if he will still qualify for county services. Obviously he'll still be on the Autism Spectrum, but as I wrote about in this post several years back, they look to these different factors in order to qualify: self care, self direction, capacity for independent living, mobility, learning, and language. Back in 2013, they barely found enough evidence to support continuing services. What put them over into the "Oh yeah, we see what you mean there" category was that I gave them a ton of supporting evidence, via records of emails, phone calls, texts, etc. from the school. It didn't take much to scrounge that up. I take copious notes of everything, because that's the best way I know how to get Jack the help he needs. (Looking back at my old posts, he was supposed to have this redone at age 12. I don't recall that happening, unless I just blocked it out. That's entirely possible.
I'm LOL'ing as I re-read this blog, from 5 years back. We took a tour of the new school Jack was supposed to go to for 4th-5th grade. His 4th grade teacher was a former Intervention Specialist. HA! Yeah, okay. She was nice, don't get me wrong. But I wasn't really overly impressed. His 5th grade teachers were a bit better, if only because he liked one of them, and the other tried really hard to wow us because she was new there. From 6th-8th grade, he's had mostly good teachers. There isn't one that stands out as sucking, so I guess that's a plus. I wasn't overly pleased with his I.S. the last two years, but she was nice and seemed to care about him. I think Jack had more respect for her than he did the one in 4th and 5th grade. That poor girl must have wanted to kill herself on a daily basis, rather than go in to work. I say that in jest.. mostly. He was absolutely HORRID to her. Physically as well as just mean. She's one of those people who really deserves a bottle of wine- or 50- at the end of the school year. But she was nice enough to never let on that she maybe dreamed of strangling him. LOL I wouldn't have blamed her if she had. LOL
The amazing thing is that the people who work closely with Jack on a daily basis are the ones who seem to appreciate him the most- especially when he's doing well. He's funny, he's kind, he's helpful, he's outgoing (to an extent), and he volunteers great information in class. He has his quirks, but when you get to know him, he's pretty cool. His Intervention Specialist told me a month or so ago that he was one of her favorite students. I get that a lot, which I can either take as fact, or choose not to believe. I'm going to choose to believe it, given I know how teachers can be when they don't really care for your child. They don't have to be nice, and they are often see-through.
Can all of this translate to a wonderful 4 years of high school? To a functioning adult? We shall see, Rabbit. We shall see.
It was 5 years ago that we were preparing Jack for a major transition- to a new school, new friends, new teachers, and even a new doctor. Two years after that, we were transitioning yet again, to a new school, new friends, new teachers, and new doctor. Here we are, just about to end the 8th grade. No new doctors (that I know of), but now we're preparing for high school, new teachers, new friends, etc. (Some friends will stay the same, some will be seen for the first time since 3rd grade, and hopefully he can make some new friends). Transitions suck. For all of us. I'm just glad that we're on a good medication regiment, that we have a counselor in place, and that his sister will be there at school (for the first time in 5 years).
Jack has a new set of friends now. Very few "real" friends, and sometimes I do wonder if any of them are. I think it helps that one of his friends (whose only been attending the same school for about a year now) has ASD, thus the boy's mom "gets it". She has been more than happy to let the kids celebrate birthdays together, hang out together outside of school, etc. Very few kids (even now) have had any interest in attending Jack's birthday parties. In fact, last year's party was about as pathetic as the one he had in 3rd grade, where nobody wanted his invite, or RSPV'd, or even attended. (He handed out invites this year, and all but one of his friends from school said no. I found out after school that day, and cried for about an hour. This was on the way to Jack's counseling appointment, and I was pretty inconsolable. I know the staff at the place was rather concerned, which I appreciated. Thank God one friend from his old elementary school went, and then the one new friend who is on the spectrum).
Jack has been doing a bit more in the way of after-school activities, starting last year. A local company comes in to the school once a month, and they have Minecraft Night. A group of kids comes in, with a donation of a canned good for admittance, and they work together on separate computers to create a town or whatever. Jack loves Minecraft (or did. He hasn't played in a while), so he usually finds this fun. I'm hoping he'll consider either the Anime or Gaming clubs at school next year. He may not want to lose the computer time at home, so I can see him choosing neither. I guess we'll see.
His last teacher before being home-schooled was (IMO) a b*tch. That's harsh, but frankly, when you have someone who lets the other kids shush him, telling him to be quiet, etc.. when you know how much it upsets him, you're the wrong teacher for kids with any special needs. She might be a heck of a great teacher for neuro-typical kids, but not for kids like Jack. There are ways to get ASD kids to do what you need them to- redirect, for starters. Allowing other 3rd graders to boss them around is not okay on any level.
As for the bus, we started off 4th grade with a bus, and that ended after about 2 weeks. I drove Jack the rest of the year, and was (thankfully) reimbursed "per diem", by the district. In 5th grade, I think we might have tried a bit longer, but after an incident where went nuts, he started taking a "taxi". We did that for 6th and 7th grade as well, and *finally*, we're now almost completely through an entire year on the bus.
Jack still has a county service coordinator, who helps us manage his counseling services, and other things he might need, which they can pay for or guide us through. The same coordinator has been helping us though probably 8 years of help, thank goodness. (I appreciate the consistency there!) We're very likely to go through re-determination proceedings through the county in the next year or so (I think before he turns 16), to see if he will still qualify for county services. Obviously he'll still be on the Autism Spectrum, but as I wrote about in this post several years back, they look to these different factors in order to qualify: self care, self direction, capacity for independent living, mobility, learning, and language. Back in 2013, they barely found enough evidence to support continuing services. What put them over into the "Oh yeah, we see what you mean there" category was that I gave them a ton of supporting evidence, via records of emails, phone calls, texts, etc. from the school. It didn't take much to scrounge that up. I take copious notes of everything, because that's the best way I know how to get Jack the help he needs. (Looking back at my old posts, he was supposed to have this redone at age 12. I don't recall that happening, unless I just blocked it out. That's entirely possible.
I'm LOL'ing as I re-read this blog, from 5 years back. We took a tour of the new school Jack was supposed to go to for 4th-5th grade. His 4th grade teacher was a former Intervention Specialist. HA! Yeah, okay. She was nice, don't get me wrong. But I wasn't really overly impressed. His 5th grade teachers were a bit better, if only because he liked one of them, and the other tried really hard to wow us because she was new there. From 6th-8th grade, he's had mostly good teachers. There isn't one that stands out as sucking, so I guess that's a plus. I wasn't overly pleased with his I.S. the last two years, but she was nice and seemed to care about him. I think Jack had more respect for her than he did the one in 4th and 5th grade. That poor girl must have wanted to kill herself on a daily basis, rather than go in to work. I say that in jest.. mostly. He was absolutely HORRID to her. Physically as well as just mean. She's one of those people who really deserves a bottle of wine- or 50- at the end of the school year. But she was nice enough to never let on that she maybe dreamed of strangling him. LOL I wouldn't have blamed her if she had. LOL
The amazing thing is that the people who work closely with Jack on a daily basis are the ones who seem to appreciate him the most- especially when he's doing well. He's funny, he's kind, he's helpful, he's outgoing (to an extent), and he volunteers great information in class. He has his quirks, but when you get to know him, he's pretty cool. His Intervention Specialist told me a month or so ago that he was one of her favorite students. I get that a lot, which I can either take as fact, or choose not to believe. I'm going to choose to believe it, given I know how teachers can be when they don't really care for your child. They don't have to be nice, and they are often see-through.
Can all of this translate to a wonderful 4 years of high school? To a functioning adult? We shall see, Rabbit. We shall see.
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