Parenting Megathread

[Jimmy Higgins]

I was told her handwriting was some of best in one of the classes. Kids penmenship sucks due to thr digital gap.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Having our meeting with the school staff today. Her specialist was replaced, as was her history teacher (didn't change class, teacher is no longer teaching it). I was nervous about her history teacher as she was old school and I just didn't see how the two personalities were going to work. There has been some failures in communication within the school on my daughter. Her Interim grades were impacted by missed assignments. She is killing it in Math and French (she has been doing Duolingo on French for over a year because her Nana is doing it), doing well in English and Robotics. History has been a struggle, mainly writing assignments she simply isn't doing, which the interventionist is supposed to catch.

We finally got our school log-in info, so I can finally track this stuff outside of my daughter.

Well, six months later. OMFG! In another thread, it is noted the issues I dealt with in November/December/January. So while this was happening, the school was dropping the ball at epic proportions. My daughter was missing about half of her assignments. Early February we have our biannual school thing with the people to talk. I wasn't pleased, but diplomatic. I don't know, I think my daughter is above their pay grade. But we come up with a bit of alternatives for managing her assignments.

It doesn't work. I'm spending a great deal of my time at home tutoring my daughter in English and History. I'm screwed if this is something I need to do in High School for English. They did something by Ray Bradbury... I can do that... Shakespeare, The Great Gatsby? *EEEEEKKKK!* And when I say tutor, I mean very hard, very difficult, usually blowing up at some point because things aren't working, as I'm trying to bend the material in a zillion ways. I'm getting better at not snapping and being more productive.

So with things going south, tried a sit down with her occupational therapist who has been struggling with her for over a year. And I wasn't really expecting too much due to the very slow progress. And much to my surprise, the short sit down turned into a long fruitful discussion. The therapist is completely on their game, my daughter is the issue. Okay. So she provides advice for how to change things up with the school. And we are in the process of doing that.

Sounds like my daughter, along with ADHD, has written expression disorder... and badly. She is also stubborn... and can't ask for help. But the written expression disorder... gosh that punches the entire ticket. She also struggles with vocabulary and understanding certain things. When doing vocab in class, she can manage, when she does it. But the base vocabulary is a struggle.

Still kicking butt in math and when she tries, in science too.

 

[crazyfingers]

Battles with the school is so familiar. Not to derail but we tried the "be nice" approach with the school for years. That never worked. Then we tried the be nasty approach. It didn't get us much more but some. Eventually we went nuclear and took her out of the public school and sent them a bill via the lawyer. It took a few years but they finally paid up mainly because they royally screwed up by not doing a new IEP based on a neuropsych that they ignored.

 

[gmbteach]

Battles with the school is so familiar. Not to derail but we tried the "be nice" approach with the school for years. That never worked. Then we tried the be nasty approach. It didn't get us much more but some. Eventually we went nuclear and took her out of the public school and sent them a bill via the lawyer. It took a few years but they finally paid up mainly because they royally screwed up by not doing a new IEP based on a neuropsych that they ignored.

I have a student in my class whose mum is the problem, I believe. The child is pleasant enough, however, day one, the mum came in and spent 20 minutes listing all the things ‘wrong’ with her son medically. IMO you don’t do this in front of a 9 year old! He has ‘anxiety’ - ok, I can deal with that. So can you please stop carrying his bag up to class holding his hand and unpacking his bag! Let him have a go at walking up by himself! He can do it - I think mum doesn’t want to cut those apron strings.

Any chance he gets he says he’s ‘sick’ but 3 minutes later he is fine. (Yes I’ve told him the brief version of the boy who cried wold).

The other day he was sitting on the floor and then he turned to me and says ‘Miss, I’ve fractured my leg’. I asked how, he said standing up. I went ok… rang the office. They came up with a wheelchair, and I kept teaching. DP told him we can’t lift him so he would have to phone mum to pick him up in front of the class and L said ‘ok’. He then asked if he could still go out and play!

We are beginning to suspect Munchausen caused by mum having Munchausen’s by proxy.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Battles with the school is so familiar. Not to derail but we tried the "be nice" approach with the school for years. That never worked. Then we tried the be nasty approach. It didn't get us much more but some. Eventually we went nuclear and took her out of the public school and sent them a bill via the lawyer. It took a few years but they finally paid up mainly because they royally screwed up by not doing a new IEP based on a neuropsych that they ignored.

Last year the IEP peraon was almost too involved. But my daughter has hit a wall with writing. A very very big one. So it is an emergent need. Hopefully we can figure something out. Tried an assignment tonight and it just didn't happen.

 

[crazyfingers]

Battles with the school is so familiar. Not to derail but we tried the "be nice" approach with the school for years. That never worked. Then we tried the be nasty approach. It didn't get us much more but some. Eventually we went nuclear and took her out of the public school and sent them a bill via the lawyer. It took a few years but they finally paid up mainly because they royally screwed up by not doing a new IEP based on a neuropsych that they ignored.

I have a student in my class whose mum is the problem, I believe. The child is pleasant enough, however, day one, the mum came in and spent 20 minutes listing all the things ‘wrong’ with her son medically. IMO you don’t do this in front of a 9 year old! He has ‘anxiety’ - ok, I can deal with that. So can you please stop carrying his bag up to class holding his hand and unpacking his bag! Let him have a go at walking up by himself! He can do it - I think mum doesn’t want to cut those apron strings.

Any chance he gets he says he’s ‘sick’ but 3 minutes later he is fine. (Yes I’ve told him the brief version of the boy who cried wold).

The other day he was sitting on the floor and then he turned to me and says ‘Miss, I’ve fractured my leg’. I asked how, he said standing up. I went ok… rang the office. They came up with a wheelchair, and I kept teaching. DP told him we can’t lift him so he would have to phone mum to pick him up in front of the class and L said ‘ok’. He then asked if he could still go out and play!

We are beginning to suspect Munchausen caused by mum having Munchausen’s by proxy.

I believe that schools are all too willing to blame the parent when there is really an issue with the child.

Our adoptive daughter came to us with full blown reactive attachment disorder from her previous neglectful bio mom and foster parent placements. She was beating up her brothers. She was kicking us. She was destroying the house. She was trying to push me down the stairs. She was lying all over. But perfect in school.

Her therapist at the time told the school what without their cooperation our daughter would become a sociopath. They rolled their eyes.

The school blamed us and disregarded all of the social workers, therapists, psychologists, neuropsych reports because it was easier to just blame us.

I will never forgive our public schools. They were scumbags.

 

[Bronzeage]

Battles with the school is so familiar. Not to derail but we tried the "be nice" approach with the school for years. That never worked. Then we tried the be nasty approach. It didn't get us much more but some. Eventually we went nuclear and took her out of the public school and sent them a bill via the lawyer. It took a few years but they finally paid up mainly because they royally screwed up by not doing a new IEP based on a neuropsych that they ignored.

I have a student in my class whose mum is the problem, I believe. The child is pleasant enough, however, day one, the mum came in and spent 20 minutes listing all the things ‘wrong’ with her son medically. IMO you don’t do this in front of a 9 year old! He has ‘anxiety’ - ok, I can deal with that. So can you please stop carrying his bag up to class holding his hand and unpacking his bag! Let him have a go at walking up by himself! He can do it - I think mum doesn’t want to cut those apron strings.

Any chance he gets he says he’s ‘sick’ but 3 minutes later he is fine. (Yes I’ve told him the brief version of the boy who cried wold).

The other day he was sitting on the floor and then he turned to me and says ‘Miss, I’ve fractured my leg’. I asked how, he said standing up. I went ok… rang the office. They came up with a wheelchair, and I kept teaching. DP told him we can’t lift him so he would have to phone mum to pick him up in front of the class and L said ‘ok’. He then asked if he could still go out and play!

We are beginning to suspect Munchausen caused by mum having Munchausen’s by proxy.

I believe that schools are all too willing to blame the parent when there is really an issue with the child.

Our adoptive daughter came to us with full blown reactive attachment disorder from her previous neglectful bio mom and foster parent placements. She was beating up her brothers. She was kicking us. She was destroying the house. She was trying to push me down the stairs. She was lying all over. But perfect in school.

Her therapist at the time told the school what without their cooperation our daughter would become a sociopath. They rolled their eyes.

The school blamed us and disregarded all of the social workers, therapists, psychologists, neuropsych reports because it was easier to just blame us.

I will never forgive our public schools. They were scumbags.

I don't know how it works in Massachusetts, but in my neighborhood, once a child has a diagnosis which could affect their learning abilities, it is the school's legal obligation to use all available and practical resources to insure they get the education afforded all other students.

I have a friend who has spent the past 40 year being a foster parent. He became the go to guy for boys with behavior issues, which is to say, boys. He's had more than one encounter with school administrators over behavior and when he puts the diagnostic records on the table, they always had to back down and do their jobs.

 

[crazyfingers]

Battles with the school is so familiar. Not to derail but we tried the "be nice" approach with the school for years. That never worked. Then we tried the be nasty approach. It didn't get us much more but some. Eventually we went nuclear and took her out of the public school and sent them a bill via the lawyer. It took a few years but they finally paid up mainly because they royally screwed up by not doing a new IEP based on a neuropsych that they ignored.

I have a student in my class whose mum is the problem, I believe. The child is pleasant enough, however, day one, the mum came in and spent 20 minutes listing all the things ‘wrong’ with her son medically. IMO you don’t do this in front of a 9 year old! He has ‘anxiety’ - ok, I can deal with that. So can you please stop carrying his bag up to class holding his hand and unpacking his bag! Let him have a go at walking up by himself! He can do it - I think mum doesn’t want to cut those apron strings.

Any chance he gets he says he’s ‘sick’ but 3 minutes later he is fine. (Yes I’ve told him the brief version of the boy who cried wold).

The other day he was sitting on the floor and then he turned to me and says ‘Miss, I’ve fractured my leg’. I asked how, he said standing up. I went ok… rang the office. They came up with a wheelchair, and I kept teaching. DP told him we can’t lift him so he would have to phone mum to pick him up in front of the class and L said ‘ok’. He then asked if he could still go out and play!

We are beginning to suspect Munchausen caused by mum having Munchausen’s by proxy.

I believe that schools are all too willing to blame the parent when there is really an issue with the child.

Our adoptive daughter came to us with full blown reactive attachment disorder from her previous neglectful bio mom and foster parent placements. She was beating up her brothers. She was kicking us. She was destroying the house. She was trying to push me down the stairs. She was lying all over. But perfect in school.

Her therapist at the time told the school what without their cooperation our daughter would become a sociopath. They rolled their eyes.

The school blamed us and disregarded all of the social workers, therapists, psychologists, neuropsych reports because it was easier to just blame us.

I will never forgive our public schools. They were scumbags.

I don't know how it works in Massachusetts, but in my neighborhood, once a child has a diagnosis which could affect their learning abilities, it is the school's legal obligation to use all available and practical resources to insure they get the education afforded all other students.

I have a friend who has spent the past 40 year being a foster parent. He became the go to guy for boys with behavior issues, which is to say, boys. He's had more than one encounter with school administrators over behavior and when he puts the diagnostic records on the table, they always had to back down and do their jobs.

Ya that's federal law I believe. They are required to. But in practice they don't.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Battles with the school is so familiar. Not to derail but we tried the "be nice" approach with the school for years. That never worked. Then we tried the be nasty approach. It didn't get us much more but some. Eventually we went nuclear and took her out of the public school and sent them a bill via the lawyer. It took a few years but they finally paid up mainly because they royally screwed up by not doing a new IEP based on a neuropsych that they ignored.

I have a student in my class whose mum is the problem, I believe. The child is pleasant enough, however, day one, the mum came in and spent 20 minutes listing all the things ‘wrong’ with her son medically. IMO you don’t do this in front of a 9 year old! He has ‘anxiety’ - ok, I can deal with that. So can you please stop carrying his bag up to class holding his hand and unpacking his bag! Let him have a go at walking up by himself! He can do it - I think mum doesn’t want to cut those apron strings.

Any chance he gets he says he’s ‘sick’ but 3 minutes later he is fine. (Yes I’ve told him the brief version of the boy who cried wold).

The other day he was sitting on the floor and then he turned to me and says ‘Miss, I’ve fractured my leg’. I asked how, he said standing up. I went ok… rang the office. They came up with a wheelchair, and I kept teaching. DP told him we can’t lift him so he would have to phone mum to pick him up in front of the class and L said ‘ok’. He then asked if he could still go out and play!

We are beginning to suspect Munchausen caused by mum having Munchausen’s by proxy.

I believe that schools are all too willing to blame the parent when there is really an issue with the child.

Our adoptive daughter came to us with full blown reactive attachment disorder from her previous neglectful bio mom and foster parent placements. She was beating up her brothers. She was kicking us. She was destroying the house. She was trying to push me down the stairs. She was lying all over. But perfect in school.

Her therapist at the time told the school what without their cooperation our daughter would become a sociopath. They rolled their eyes.

The school blamed us and disregarded all of the social workers, therapists, psychologists, neuropsych reports because it was easier to just blame us.

I will never forgive our public schools. They were scumbags.

I don't know how it works in Massachusetts, but in my neighborhood, once a child has a diagnosis which could affect their learning abilities, it is the school's legal obligation to use all available and practical resources to insure they get the education afforded all other students.

I have a friend who has spent the past 40 year being a foster parent. He became the go to guy for boys with behavior issues, which is to say, boys. He's had more than one encounter with school administrators over behavior and when he puts the diagnostic records on the table, they always had to back down and do their jobs.

I have a much easier job than crazyfingers had as a parent. But the trouble with autism is so much of it is emerging science. What is it, how can it be managed.

For my daughter, the condition sounds like a BS liberal arts excuse. But everything makes sense about it based on my observations in the last couple of years. My problem is the involvement plummeted this year. She was honor roll more often than not up to 6th grade. Now she should be failing and they are "passing" her. Clearly I'm not putting up with that. The occupational therapist put a lot of stuff into perspective and that has provided me an important location to research and better understand. But we are diving deep into neuropsychology.

The IEP team responded pretty quickly and we'll be reassessing her needs. How it goes from there, TBD.

 

[gmbteach]

Battles with the school is so familiar. Not to derail but we tried the "be nice" approach with the school for years. That never worked. Then we tried the be nasty approach. It didn't get us much more but some. Eventually we went nuclear and took her out of the public school and sent them a bill via the lawyer. It took a few years but they finally paid up mainly because they royally screwed up by not doing a new IEP based on a neuropsych that they ignored.

I have a student in my class whose mum is the problem, I believe. The child is pleasant enough, however, day one, the mum came in and spent 20 minutes listing all the things ‘wrong’ with her son medically. IMO you don’t do this in front of a 9 year old! He has ‘anxiety’ - ok, I can deal with that. So can you please stop carrying his bag up to class holding his hand and unpacking his bag! Let him have a go at walking up by himself! He can do it - I think mum doesn’t want to cut those apron strings.

Any chance he gets he says he’s ‘sick’ but 3 minutes later he is fine. (Yes I’ve told him the brief version of the boy who cried wold).

The other day he was sitting on the floor and then he turned to me and says ‘Miss, I’ve fractured my leg’. I asked how, he said standing up. I went ok… rang the office. They came up with a wheelchair, and I kept teaching. DP told him we can’t lift him so he would have to phone mum to pick him up in front of the class and L said ‘ok’. He then asked if he could still go out and play!

We are beginning to suspect Munchausen caused by mum having Munchausen’s by proxy.

I believe that schools are all too willing to blame the parent when there is really an issue with the child.

Our adoptive daughter came to us with full blown reactive attachment disorder from her previous neglectful bio mom and foster parent placements. She was beating up her brothers. She was kicking us. She was destroying the house. She was trying to push me down the stairs. She was lying all over. But perfect in school.

Her therapist at the time told the school what without their cooperation our daughter would become a sociopath. They rolled their eyes.

The school blamed us and disregarded all of the social workers, therapists, psychologists, neuropsych reports because it was easier to just blame us.

I will never forgive our public schools. They were scumbags.

I recognise that L has some issues with his health, however, I think mum is blowing them out of proportion. She wants us to put in a whole swag of conditions for her son, that he, quite frankly, doesn’t need. He is fine, until I need to focus on another child, then he’s ’unwell’ or needs help doing something that he has already done. That sort of thing.

In this particular case, I think if mum backed off a bit and let us do our job, we would get a lot further with him. If that makes sense.

 

[crazyfingers]

Battles with the school is so familiar. Not to derail but we tried the "be nice" approach with the school for years. That never worked. Then we tried the be nasty approach. It didn't get us much more but some. Eventually we went nuclear and took her out of the public school and sent them a bill via the lawyer. It took a few years but they finally paid up mainly because they royally screwed up by not doing a new IEP based on a neuropsych that they ignored.

I have a student in my class whose mum is the problem, I believe. The child is pleasant enough, however, day one, the mum came in and spent 20 minutes listing all the things ‘wrong’ with her son medically. IMO you don’t do this in front of a 9 year old! He has ‘anxiety’ - ok, I can deal with that. So can you please stop carrying his bag up to class holding his hand and unpacking his bag! Let him have a go at walking up by himself! He can do it - I think mum doesn’t want to cut those apron strings.

Any chance he gets he says he’s ‘sick’ but 3 minutes later he is fine. (Yes I’ve told him the brief version of the boy who cried wold).

The other day he was sitting on the floor and then he turned to me and says ‘Miss, I’ve fractured my leg’. I asked how, he said standing up. I went ok… rang the office. They came up with a wheelchair, and I kept teaching. DP told him we can’t lift him so he would have to phone mum to pick him up in front of the class and L said ‘ok’. He then asked if he could still go out and play!

We are beginning to suspect Munchausen caused by mum having Munchausen’s by proxy.

I believe that schools are all too willing to blame the parent when there is really an issue with the child.

Our adoptive daughter came to us with full blown reactive attachment disorder from her previous neglectful bio mom and foster parent placements. She was beating up her brothers. She was kicking us. She was destroying the house. She was trying to push me down the stairs. She was lying all over. But perfect in school.

Her therapist at the time told the school what without their cooperation our daughter would become a sociopath. They rolled their eyes.

The school blamed us and disregarded all of the social workers, therapists, psychologists, neuropsych reports because it was easier to just blame us.

I will never forgive our public schools. They were scumbags.

I recognise that L has some issues with his health, however, I think mum is blowing them out of proportion. She wants us to put in a whole swag of conditions for her son, that he, quite frankly, doesn’t need. He is fine, until I need to focus on another child, then he’s ’unwell’ or needs help doing something that he has already done. That sort of thing.

In this particular case, I think if mum backed off a bit and let us do our job, we would get a lot further with him. If that makes sense.

In our case it was the social workers and therapists and psychiatrists telling the school and they refused.

At one point towards the end the director of Student Services, who is aledged to have a Ph.D in psychology*, was mixing up the name of my daughter's condition with the name of the treatment. I told him that he was an idiot. It was the day I stopped frearing him and the day I started making fun of him. We finally started to get what the experts were telling him.

I will never forgive that school system.

* Later I learned that that his focus was administering and interpreting testing.

 

[Toni]

Battles with the school is so familiar. Not to derail but we tried the "be nice" approach with the school for years. That never worked. Then we tried the be nasty approach. It didn't get us much more but some. Eventually we went nuclear and took her out of the public school and sent them a bill via the lawyer. It took a few years but they finally paid up mainly because they royally screwed up by not doing a new IEP based on a neuropsych that they ignored.

I have a student in my class whose mum is the problem, I believe. The child is pleasant enough, however, day one, the mum came in and spent 20 minutes listing all the things ‘wrong’ with her son medically. IMO you don’t do this in front of a 9 year old! He has ‘anxiety’ - ok, I can deal with that. So can you please stop carrying his bag up to class holding his hand and unpacking his bag! Let him have a go at walking up by himself! He can do it - I think mum doesn’t want to cut those apron strings.

Any chance he gets he says he’s ‘sick’ but 3 minutes later he is fine. (Yes I’ve told him the brief version of the boy who cried wold).

The other day he was sitting on the floor and then he turned to me and says ‘Miss, I’ve fractured my leg’. I asked how, he said standing up. I went ok… rang the office. They came up with a wheelchair, and I kept teaching. DP told him we can’t lift him so he would have to phone mum to pick him up in front of the class and L said ‘ok’. He then asked if he could still go out and play!

We are beginning to suspect Munchausen caused by mum having Munchausen’s by proxy.

I believe that schools are all too willing to blame the parent when there is really an issue with the child.

Our adoptive daughter came to us with full blown reactive attachment disorder from her previous neglectful bio mom and foster parent placements. She was beating up her brothers. She was kicking us. She was destroying the house. She was trying to push me down the stairs. She was lying all over. But perfect in school.

Her therapist at the time told the school what without their cooperation our daughter would become a sociopath. They rolled their eyes.

The school blamed us and disregarded all of the social workers, therapists, psychologists, neuropsych reports because it was easier to just blame us.

I will never forgive our public schools. They were scumbags.

I don't know how it works in Massachusetts, but in my neighborhood, once a child has a diagnosis which could affect their learning abilities, it is the school's legal obligation to use all available and practical resources to insure they get the education afforded all other students.

I have a friend who has spent the past 40 year being a foster parent. He became the go to guy for boys with behavior issues, which is to say, boys. He's had more than one encounter with school administrators over behavior and when he puts the diagnostic records on the table, they always had to back down and do their jobs.

I have a much easier job than crazyfingers had as a parent. But the trouble with autism is so much of it is emerging science. What is it, how can it be managed.

For my daughter, the condition sounds like a BS liberal arts excuse. But everything makes sense about it based on my observations in the last couple of years. My problem is the involvement plummeted this year. She was honor roll more often than not up to 6th grade. Now she should be failing and they are "passing" her. Clearly I'm not putting up with that. The occupational therapist put a lot of stuff into perspective and that has provided me an important location to research and better understand. But we are diving deep into neuropsychology.

The IEP team responded pretty quickly and we'll be reassessing her needs. How it goes from there, TBD.

Does it make things better if she’s able to type on a keyboard?

My kid ( now a productive adult) is probably very high on the spectrum and his handwriting was..,,worse than terrible. In his early years, his teachers were no big deal: he’ll keyboard when he’s a little older. Which worked for him.

His brain sometimes worked much faster than his mouth could form the words and he’d skip some in his haste. It improved but until he was an adult, he really struggled to figure out people, empathy, etc. he was never mean—he always cared about other people’s feelings. He just had trouble perceiving them.

 

[gmbteach]

Battles with the school is so familiar. Not to derail but we tried the "be nice" approach with the school for years. That never worked. Then we tried the be nasty approach. It didn't get us much more but some. Eventually we went nuclear and took her out of the public school and sent them a bill via the lawyer. It took a few years but they finally paid up mainly because they royally screwed up by not doing a new IEP based on a neuropsych that they ignored.

I have a student in my class whose mum is the problem, I believe. The child is pleasant enough, however, day one, the mum came in and spent 20 minutes listing all the things ‘wrong’ with her son medically. IMO you don’t do this in front of a 9 year old! He has ‘anxiety’ - ok, I can deal with that. So can you please stop carrying his bag up to class holding his hand and unpacking his bag! Let him have a go at walking up by himself! He can do it - I think mum doesn’t want to cut those apron strings.

Any chance he gets he says he’s ‘sick’ but 3 minutes later he is fine. (Yes I’ve told him the brief version of the boy who cried wold).

The other day he was sitting on the floor and then he turned to me and says ‘Miss, I’ve fractured my leg’. I asked how, he said standing up. I went ok… rang the office. They came up with a wheelchair, and I kept teaching. DP told him we can’t lift him so he would have to phone mum to pick him up in front of the class and L said ‘ok’. He then asked if he could still go out and play!

We are beginning to suspect Munchausen caused by mum having Munchausen’s by proxy.

I believe that schools are all too willing to blame the parent when there is really an issue with the child.

Our adoptive daughter came to us with full blown reactive attachment disorder from her previous neglectful bio mom and foster parent placements. She was beating up her brothers. She was kicking us. She was destroying the house. She was trying to push me down the stairs. She was lying all over. But perfect in school.

Her therapist at the time told the school what without their cooperation our daughter would become a sociopath. They rolled their eyes.

The school blamed us and disregarded all of the social workers, therapists, psychologists, neuropsych reports because it was easier to just blame us.

I will never forgive our public schools. They were scumbags.

I recognise that L has some issues with his health, however, I think mum is blowing them out of proportion. She wants us to put in a whole swag of conditions for her son, that he, quite frankly, doesn’t need. He is fine, until I need to focus on another child, then he’s ’unwell’ or needs help doing something that he has already done. That sort of thing.

In this particular case, I think if mum backed off a bit and let us do our job, we would get a lot further with him. If that makes sense.

In our case it was the social workers and therapists and psychiatrists telling the school and they refused.

At one point towards the end the director of Student Services, who is aledged to have a Ph.D in psychology*, was mixing up the name of my daughter's condition with the name of the treatment. I told him that he was an idiot. It was the day I stopped frearing him and the day I started making fun of him. We finally started to get what the experts were telling him.

I will never forgive that school system.

* Later I learned that that his focus was administering and interpreting testing.

I don’t blame you

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Battles with the school is so familiar. Not to derail but we tried the "be nice" approach with the school for years. That never worked. Then we tried the be nasty approach. It didn't get us much more but some. Eventually we went nuclear and took her out of the public school and sent them a bill via the lawyer. It took a few years but they finally paid up mainly because they royally screwed up by not doing a new IEP based on a neuropsych that they ignored.

I have a student in my class whose mum is the problem, I believe. The child is pleasant enough, however, day one, the mum came in and spent 20 minutes listing all the things ‘wrong’ with her son medically. IMO you don’t do this in front of a 9 year old! He has ‘anxiety’ - ok, I can deal with that. So can you please stop carrying his bag up to class holding his hand and unpacking his bag! Let him have a go at walking up by himself! He can do it - I think mum doesn’t want to cut those apron strings.

Any chance he gets he says he’s ‘sick’ but 3 minutes later he is fine. (Yes I’ve told him the brief version of the boy who cried wold).

The other day he was sitting on the floor and then he turned to me and says ‘Miss, I’ve fractured my leg’. I asked how, he said standing up. I went ok… rang the office. They came up with a wheelchair, and I kept teaching. DP told him we can’t lift him so he would have to phone mum to pick him up in front of the class and L said ‘ok’. He then asked if he could still go out and play!

We are beginning to suspect Munchausen caused by mum having Munchausen’s by proxy.

I believe that schools are all too willing to blame the parent when there is really an issue with the child.

Our adoptive daughter came to us with full blown reactive attachment disorder from her previous neglectful bio mom and foster parent placements. She was beating up her brothers. She was kicking us. She was destroying the house. She was trying to push me down the stairs. She was lying all over. But perfect in school.

Her therapist at the time told the school what without their cooperation our daughter would become a sociopath. They rolled their eyes.

The school blamed us and disregarded all of the social workers, therapists, psychologists, neuropsych reports because it was easier to just blame us.

I will never forgive our public schools. They were scumbags.

I don't know how it works in Massachusetts, but in my neighborhood, once a child has a diagnosis which could affect their learning abilities, it is the school's legal obligation to use all available and practical resources to insure they get the education afforded all other students.

I have a friend who has spent the past 40 year being a foster parent. He became the go to guy for boys with behavior issues, which is to say, boys. He's had more than one encounter with school administrators over behavior and when he puts the diagnostic records on the table, they always had to back down and do their jobs.

I have a much easier job than crazyfingers had as a parent. But the trouble with autism is so much of it is emerging science. What is it, how can it be managed.

For my daughter, the condition sounds like a BS liberal arts excuse. But everything makes sense about it based on my observations in the last couple of years. My problem is the involvement plummeted this year. She was honor roll more often than not up to 6th grade. Now she should be failing and they are "passing" her. Clearly I'm not putting up with that. The occupational therapist put a lot of stuff into perspective and that has provided me an important location to research and better understand. But we are diving deep into neuropsychology.

The IEP team responded pretty quickly and we'll be reassessing her needs. How it goes from there, TBD.

Does it make things better if she’s able to type on a keyboard?

Typing can help, but they changed to paper assignments in the class (helpful as you can highlight!) and she has been handwriting a good deal.

The good news is this homeschooling of sorts is helping me hone in on the problems she is dealing with. The bad news is I'm homeschooling my child. But again, I'm seeing what is happening, origins of the problems, what is being stubborn and what is being neurologically indisposed to being incapable of performing the task as presented.

She can't write on her own.
She has a vocab issue, but I'm uncertain whether it is a reasonable or unreasonable vocab issue. I feel the concepts are a bit much, kind of like the science assignment of a 6th grader looking up specialized cells in any particular human organ system. She struggled hard on that one again, vocab, but I was shocked anyone in sixth grade could manage that assignment without a simple cut and paste and not know what they were pasting.
Her coping skills are abysmal.
Her father isn't as loving as he should be for these problems. I try my best to learn from the pro's (child care and rehab folks) who show remarkable poise and understanding.
Her mother sucks at being a parent first and friend second.

The vocab issues leads to me blah blah blah'ing, wasting time unaware that the fundamental issue at the moment was she didn't understand what the words meant. And I was surprised, they do vocab, but these words weren't part of it. So, I'm stuck wondering where I need to start. I'm wondering how much the students are doing is BS copying and pasting from the Internet, which is on the teacher. This is forcing me to not only be a World History teacher, but a Special Teacher as well.

My kid ( now a productive adult) is probably very high on the spectrum and his handwriting was..,,worse than terrible. In his early years, his teachers were no big deal: he’ll keyboard when he’s a little older. Which worked for him.

Typing is quicker, though my daughter, when she writes smaller, it becomes more legible... like mine. She simply struggles with pasting original thoughts into text. That apparently is a thing. I struggled as well when I was her age, but not to her extent. I'm looking up research, generalized stuff for autism and the like, connecting conditions and behaviors with industry labels. Getting a long sheet together to better expose what is happening. I wish the school would have bothered with this, but she wasn't causing negative classroom behavioral issues, so it slipped bad.

For me, it becomes really frustrating to need to get the writing taught at the same time as the subject. Effectively I'm dragging her to the answer to put down.. as some of the concepts can be a bit advanced. I'll let her have the generalized answer to write f and only if she can understand the answer. She understands it, I'm fine. Because we can't spend six hours working on the topic and then losing the lesson while trying to write the answer. I need English to be the writing class. There are so many hurdles. And when she hits a wall, I generally don't respond well. I need to get better at that, which I am, but again, too many damn mental hurdles.

 

[Elixir]

I try my best to learn from the pro's (child care and rehab folks) who show remarkable poise and understanding.

The poise and understanding of the professionals in the “care community” around dementia, aging etc., becomes humbling, and increasingly, obnoxious.
Can’t say how I wish it was different, but I find myself lacking in poise and understanding. Maybe that’s a “natural” feeling of inadequacy? Maybe it’s different with youth.
I suspect that you’re doing an exemplary job of it, JH.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

I try my best to learn from the pro's (child care and rehab folks) who show remarkable poise and understanding.

The poise and understanding of the professionals in the “care community” around dementia, aging etc., becomes humbling, and increasingly, obnoxious.
Can’t say how I wish it was different, but I find myself lacking in poise and understanding. Maybe that’s a “natural” feeling of inadequacy? Maybe it’s different with youth.
I suspect that you’re doing an exemplary job of it, JH.

The hardest part, of all the hard parts is knowing what to be disappointed with. In the beginning, it is, "well this is how I was brought, just do that", and then the target keeps changing and then the parameters keep changing. And what I'm expecting isn't realistic and needs to be updated, over and over and over. And then I get the self-perpetuating angry at myself as well aspect. That I've wasted a bunch of time on something that needed a better foundation established, but because my daughter isn't coping positively and asking for help and answering questions when I need her to, it just becomes so much, death by paper cuts. And then my frustration can be negatively reinforcing her to shut down. Oi!

 

[Elixir]

And then my frustration can be negatively reinforcing her to shut down. Oi!

Hoo boy … nobody warned me either. Who knew that masking strong feelings would become such an invaluable skill?
I think you are almost guaranteed a bigger window to learn such “skills” than what I am permitted at my advanced age.
I suspect you will do fine, or excellent. Wish I had that confidence in myself.
Meanwhile I’d only observe that your awareness of that dynamic is all you really need in order to learn to control it. Eventually.

 

[Toni]

There’s grief involved when you watch anyone you love or care about struggle for reasons that are no fault of their own, frustration because your love and care and very often extensive education and effort cannot ‘fix’ or heal or just make go away all or even some of the difficulties. Grief can turn into anger and blame -self, blame towards your loved one, the ‘experts,’ god, life. It’s not fair. And it’s harder when there is no ‘cause’ to blame or rectify.

At least that is my experience.