Update Re: I give up.

[Guest guest]

wrote:

>>Neuro-typical children who bully others know innately when to

provoke (only when the teacher's back is turned or she's out of

earshot). Somehow it's just so much fun for them to pick on the

vulnerable socially awkward child. The Aspie kid takes a lot of

verbal and physical abuse before he lashes back.<<

My son is soooo like that. He doesn't even usually notice when kids are being

mean to him at first. Once I caught the kids at church (!) playing " run away

from the weird kid " and Elias just thought they were playing chase. I was

watching them through the window of the fellowship hall, all the kids playing

outside, and saw him running around and smiling, so at first I thought he was

playing with the other kids, but then I noticed that he seemed to be " it " for an

inordinate amount of time, and when I came out, I saw what was really going on.

It was really sad; I do think that the kids at school were behaving similarly.

Compound that with the fact that when you ask him what happens, it doesn't occur

to Elias to lie, he'll just say what he did, and it's just been a disaster. And

I do feel that the administration is totally fixated on his behavior and that

it's stressing him out. My mother and I both raked them over the coals for

excluding him about the Christmas program, and while they all " understood " and

" validated my concerns " (this routine is so patronizing that I've started

telling them " I'm validating that you're validating my concerns " and " I

understand that you understand... again " . LOL) no one has apologized or said

that things needed to have been done differently.

>>Sorry to jump in so late here -- and you may have already decided

what to do with Elias re: school -- but this is clearly a teacher

problem (the teacher sets the tone). You know well that

homeschooling sometimes increases the social isolation, not to

mention that as a single parent you never get a break.<<

On Sunday, Elias said that he had decided he wanted to homeschool, but only if I

promised him we could go on at least one " field trip " a week (his standards for

" field trips " are pretty low, honestly - a local park with a petting farm, or an

outdoor concert, or something like that) and if he could play flag-football with

the YMCA team nearby three times a week. I said that not only could we do that,

but we'd also have the homeschool park playgroup one or two times per week as

well. He seemed really happy about that, but I'm going to give him a break over

the holiday season to de-stress.

The thing is, this all came on the heels of my telling him that he wouldn't be

able to return to Mrs. B's class, the teacher he has right now, because they

were almost certainly going to move him into the self-contained classroom. He

says he doesn't want another teacher, just Mrs. B. It's like he didn't notice

how much these people are completely over-focusing on him and exacerbating his

situation. I had an emergency IEP meeting last week with the school

psychologist, his teachers, and the vice principal, and it was just absurd.

Just as an example of how on the ball they are, they were suggesting SPEECH

THERAPY for him because that's what his IEP from three years ago (back when he

was *nonverbal*) said. I explained repeatedly that it would be a waste of his

time considering that his speech now is perfect and at the level of a 3rd or 4th

grader, but they insisted and insisted. It was the same thing as usual - I

talked and talked, and they all " understood " and " validated my concerns " but in

the end, completely ignored me. So Elias announcing, without any prompting, on

Sunday that he had decided he wanted to " do learning at home " was kind of a

relief.

Don't worry, I do get occasional breaks. The family babysits while I go out,

either to dinner with friends, or to business meetings. Not on a weekly basis

or anything like that, but regularly enough, and if I call them and tell them

I'm at the end of my rope, they usually arrange for a few hours of me-time.

>>Honestly, this teacher sounds lousy. <<

She's very sweet and smiley, but she's 26 and has a class of 29 students, and

Elias is the only one with any special needs. She's made a lot of

accommodations in her class, but it's just not enough, and never will be. And

the alternative is the self-contained gig, which is just as bad.

>>, I am so with you. I have walked in your shoes. You don't

believe it now, but someday you will thumb your nose at all those

stupid people at school. Elias will be a great credit to you and

only you. Just keep focussing on his strengths. You are a great

mom to him.<<

Thank you so much , what a nice and very encouraging thing to say =)