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ninanevermore.
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I think Tuesday’s call from my son’s school was such a nasty shock to my psyche because it came later rather than sooner, so I was unprepared for it when it finally hit me. His whole first week of school I was tensed and ready for that call, but it never came. I had a hope that it wouldn’t, since he had done so well with his babysitter in the last year and a half. I got used to getting good reports on him every day; about how sweet and well behaved and good he was. It was a nice hiatus from the reports I used to get from his daycare that he was a little hellion that could not be controlled. I was aware, though, that after having been out of a group environment for so long there might be a period of adjustment.
For the first week I was tense with worry, but the dreaded call never came. I was prepared for it, though. After the next week began and Monday passed without incident, I let myself relax and let go of the breath I felt like I had been holding. That’s when they sucker punched me.
Hope: what was I thinking when I dared to hold onto it? Hope and I have long had a shaky relationship. Hope is like that boyfriend that makes promises and then lets me down every time. Hope courts me, then dumps me without warning. When I was 8 years old my mother took me to the doctor to try to explain my rapid weight loss, intense thirst and insatiable appetite. The doctor said it might be what was called “Juvenile Diabetes” which would mean I would have to take shots and not eat anything with sugar in it. I had hope that he was wrong because I was a nice little girl and I hadn’t done anything to deserve a disease as bad as that. Turned out the doctor was right, and hope had lied to me. When I was 12 and my mother calmly announced at dinner one night that her biopsy had come back abnormal that that she had cancer, I hoped they would treat it and she would get well. Two years later, hope found me and left me sitting in a funeral home chapel to the side of a coffin, whispering it was all a bad dream that my mom would wake me up from at any moment now (that, too, was a lie). Oh, but hope said he was sorry and promised that it would never happen again and I took him back. Now I know better. Seriously, hope; I may be dumb, but even I learn my lessons eventually.
So hope and I have parted ways, and I’m laughing over it. Sure, it’s the kind of laughing you do to keep from going insane, but its laughter none the less. I have not given in to dread, mind you. I have simply decided to live in the moment and ignore the advice of hope and dread both; I might as well roll with the punches. If the worst happens, the worst happens. If the best happens, I will celebrate that moment and move on when it ends.
It wasn’t just the call from the principal (which was bad enough) saying that I needed to meet with her and my son’s teacher to “discuss some issues” about my son. I got another call from his teacher that evening that told me how bad of a liar hope had been. There had been plenty of issues that first week, but his teacher had wanted to give them a chance to resolve themselves before she worried us. He would not sit still. If she corrected him, he dove under the table and assumed a “duck and cover” position. This made the other kids peer under the table to see what he was doing under there, making him all the more self conscious. “Leave me alone!” he would scream, “I’m HIDING!” It would take 10 or 15 minutes to get him to come out. He had thrown his shoes at his teacher on more than one occasion. He reacts to being verbally corrected the way most people react to being hit across the face. He has shouted at his teacher that she was stupid and the worst teacher in the world. What floored me was that I wasn’t called about this on the day it happened. I think I should have been. Then my mind raced to the times complete strangers had approached me in public after observing my son and told me how well behaved he was. I swear it’s happened on more than one occasion. If I were to tell his teacher that, I’m sure her jaw would drop open in astonishment and she might even call me a liar to my face. I am the mother of a pint-sized version of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
“Did you tell Mrs. F---- that she is worst teacher in the world?” I asked him after I got off the phone with her.
He admitted he had. “I was mad at her.”
“I’ve met Mrs. F---- and she is very nice. Miss Sylvia from your daycare is the worst teacher in the world, not Mrs. F----. So not only were you being ugly, you were telling a lie. Is it okay to yell at grownups and call people ugly names and tell lies? Are any of those things okay?”
He ducked his head down and agreed that none of them were.
“Then you need to tell Mrs. F---- you are sorry the next time you see her, and I don’t want to hear about you doing any of those things again. Do you hear me?”
“But sometimes she does things that make me mad…”
“I don’t care. You’re allowed to feel mad, but you are not allowed to call names, shout, talk back to your teacher, and not do what your teacher tells you. Understand?”
He said he did.
Mrs. Frankin said that the school has a “problem solving team” that we could meet with. First, I will meet with her and the principle to discuss just how big of a problem they see my son as being. This meeting has been arranged. In the mean while I am trying to wrap my head around the implication of getting a so-called “problem solving team” involved: that my small son is seen as a problem in need of a solution rather than a child like any other. I think about the alphabet soup of labels they might stamp on his file (which will mean that they might as well tattoo it across his forehead): ADD, NLD, APD, ADHD, CAPD, PSTD, OCT, etc. etc. Acronyms are the new black when it comes for child rearing. Acronyms are hip. If you have not stamped an acronym across your child’s forehead yet, you have obviously not spent enough time Googling descriptions of his or her every quirk.
Why can’t he just be a very sensitive child who craves boundaries yet tests them at every turn to see if they are real, accentuated by an over developed sense of drama, which I agree needs to be contained? When you correct a child, he does not need to what mine does and burst into tears asking, “Do you not LOVE me?! Do you not WANT me anymore?!” I tell him that I love him and still want him, but that he still needs to pick up his toys. Yes, by himself. If he could drag them all out, then he can put them all away. His father and I call him the Drama King. Someone has probably coined a term more-official sounding term for it: perhaps something like Dramatic Hyperbole Disorder (OHD for short).
I understand that the labels make it easier. They give the parents validation, if nothing else. As the parent of a child who in a 6-month period in daycare left more teeth marks in human flesh than possibly any other child in history, I understand the longing to know why and the clutching at any label they toss you and clinging to it. The labels are there to hold up and say, “See? I’m not a bad parent after all. It’s not my fault. Look, I have a label!” They are there to deflect the dirty looks or the looks of pity that other parents give you.
I wish there were no need for the labels. I wish I could just say, “Here is my son. He processes the world a little differently than a typical child does. He reacts to it in a more dramatic way. He does not like crowds and loud noises, and will probably react badly to them when he must endure them for too long. I agree that he is more intense than most children. We are working on ways to either curb that intensity or to direct toward a direction that is not disruptive. It may take some time to find the right answer, but I am looking for it. Bear with me.
“The only label I have for him is ‘my son.’ That’s the only one I need. You may not believe me, but while he may not always be an easy child to work with, he is a very easy child to love.”
* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * # * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *
.
.
I think Tuesday’s call from my son’s school was such a nasty shock to my psyche because it came later rather than sooner, so I was unprepared for it when it finally hit me. His whole first week of school I was tensed and ready for that call, but it never came. I had a hope that it wouldn’t, since he had done so well with his babysitter in the last year and a half. I got used to getting good reports on him every day; about how sweet and well behaved and good he was. It was a nice hiatus from the reports I used to get from his daycare that he was a little hellion that could not be controlled. I was aware, though, that after having been out of a group environment for so long there might be a period of adjustment.
For the first week I was tense with worry, but the dreaded call never came. I was prepared for it, though. After the next week began and Monday passed without incident, I let myself relax and let go of the breath I felt like I had been holding. That’s when they sucker punched me.
Hope: what was I thinking when I dared to hold onto it? Hope and I have long had a shaky relationship. Hope is like that boyfriend that makes promises and then lets me down every time. Hope courts me, then dumps me without warning. When I was 8 years old my mother took me to the doctor to try to explain my rapid weight loss, intense thirst and insatiable appetite. The doctor said it might be what was called “Juvenile Diabetes” which would mean I would have to take shots and not eat anything with sugar in it. I had hope that he was wrong because I was a nice little girl and I hadn’t done anything to deserve a disease as bad as that. Turned out the doctor was right, and hope had lied to me. When I was 12 and my mother calmly announced at dinner one night that her biopsy had come back abnormal that that she had cancer, I hoped they would treat it and she would get well. Two years later, hope found me and left me sitting in a funeral home chapel to the side of a coffin, whispering it was all a bad dream that my mom would wake me up from at any moment now (that, too, was a lie). Oh, but hope said he was sorry and promised that it would never happen again and I took him back. Now I know better. Seriously, hope; I may be dumb, but even I learn my lessons eventually.
So hope and I have parted ways, and I’m laughing over it. Sure, it’s the kind of laughing you do to keep from going insane, but its laughter none the less. I have not given in to dread, mind you. I have simply decided to live in the moment and ignore the advice of hope and dread both; I might as well roll with the punches. If the worst happens, the worst happens. If the best happens, I will celebrate that moment and move on when it ends.
It wasn’t just the call from the principal (which was bad enough) saying that I needed to meet with her and my son’s teacher to “discuss some issues” about my son. I got another call from his teacher that evening that told me how bad of a liar hope had been. There had been plenty of issues that first week, but his teacher had wanted to give them a chance to resolve themselves before she worried us. He would not sit still. If she corrected him, he dove under the table and assumed a “duck and cover” position. This made the other kids peer under the table to see what he was doing under there, making him all the more self conscious. “Leave me alone!” he would scream, “I’m HIDING!” It would take 10 or 15 minutes to get him to come out. He had thrown his shoes at his teacher on more than one occasion. He reacts to being verbally corrected the way most people react to being hit across the face. He has shouted at his teacher that she was stupid and the worst teacher in the world. What floored me was that I wasn’t called about this on the day it happened. I think I should have been. Then my mind raced to the times complete strangers had approached me in public after observing my son and told me how well behaved he was. I swear it’s happened on more than one occasion. If I were to tell his teacher that, I’m sure her jaw would drop open in astonishment and she might even call me a liar to my face. I am the mother of a pint-sized version of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
“Did you tell Mrs. F---- that she is worst teacher in the world?” I asked him after I got off the phone with her.
He admitted he had. “I was mad at her.”
“I’ve met Mrs. F---- and she is very nice. Miss Sylvia from your daycare is the worst teacher in the world, not Mrs. F----. So not only were you being ugly, you were telling a lie. Is it okay to yell at grownups and call people ugly names and tell lies? Are any of those things okay?”
He ducked his head down and agreed that none of them were.
“Then you need to tell Mrs. F---- you are sorry the next time you see her, and I don’t want to hear about you doing any of those things again. Do you hear me?”
“But sometimes she does things that make me mad…”
“I don’t care. You’re allowed to feel mad, but you are not allowed to call names, shout, talk back to your teacher, and not do what your teacher tells you. Understand?”
He said he did.
Mrs. Frankin said that the school has a “problem solving team” that we could meet with. First, I will meet with her and the principle to discuss just how big of a problem they see my son as being. This meeting has been arranged. In the mean while I am trying to wrap my head around the implication of getting a so-called “problem solving team” involved: that my small son is seen as a problem in need of a solution rather than a child like any other. I think about the alphabet soup of labels they might stamp on his file (which will mean that they might as well tattoo it across his forehead): ADD, NLD, APD, ADHD, CAPD, PSTD, OCT, etc. etc. Acronyms are the new black when it comes for child rearing. Acronyms are hip. If you have not stamped an acronym across your child’s forehead yet, you have obviously not spent enough time Googling descriptions of his or her every quirk.
Why can’t he just be a very sensitive child who craves boundaries yet tests them at every turn to see if they are real, accentuated by an over developed sense of drama, which I agree needs to be contained? When you correct a child, he does not need to what mine does and burst into tears asking, “Do you not LOVE me?! Do you not WANT me anymore?!” I tell him that I love him and still want him, but that he still needs to pick up his toys. Yes, by himself. If he could drag them all out, then he can put them all away. His father and I call him the Drama King. Someone has probably coined a term more-official sounding term for it: perhaps something like Dramatic Hyperbole Disorder (OHD for short).
I understand that the labels make it easier. They give the parents validation, if nothing else. As the parent of a child who in a 6-month period in daycare left more teeth marks in human flesh than possibly any other child in history, I understand the longing to know why and the clutching at any label they toss you and clinging to it. The labels are there to hold up and say, “See? I’m not a bad parent after all. It’s not my fault. Look, I have a label!” They are there to deflect the dirty looks or the looks of pity that other parents give you.
I wish there were no need for the labels. I wish I could just say, “Here is my son. He processes the world a little differently than a typical child does. He reacts to it in a more dramatic way. He does not like crowds and loud noises, and will probably react badly to them when he must endure them for too long. I agree that he is more intense than most children. We are working on ways to either curb that intensity or to direct toward a direction that is not disruptive. It may take some time to find the right answer, but I am looking for it. Bear with me.
“The only label I have for him is ‘my son.’ That’s the only one I need. You may not believe me, but while he may not always be an easy child to work with, he is a very easy child to love.”
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no subject
Date: 2010-09-02 06:30 pm (UTC)My other son has bad autism.
my fifteen year old at the age of five, once convinced another child his father was dead for no apparent reason.
The other child after hearing Aidan's description of what dead was, left and cried to his mother. The mother have me a talking to about psychology and torture.
I asked my son why he had explained it so completely and put so much effort into this psychological torture (maybe he was five I do not remember for sure)
my son said, "he forgot about the toy i wanted"
I wept. I felt like I had brought a bad seed into the world.
both my sons have had the schools label them at one point. In triying to understand the role of labels and schools, I began to volunteer daily with children labelled with "edb" and autism spectrums.
Here is what I have to say to you:
Get a thick skin on. Schools will label quickly and harshly to get more funding.
It defies reason, but I actually encourage you to allow a label to happen. If only every kid could have a label!! What it really does is give you a word, a handle to customize your sons education in a legally binding way.
It gives you a tool for advocating for your son and getting the teachers to do what you want.
If they give you the label, start using it to ask for all kinds of things, extra trips the the gym, lunch accommodations, excuses to let your son sit on a special pillow during group times. If they offer you an IEP, gop for it. IEPs are not just for dumb kids, they are for the exceedingly brilliant ones as well. If only every kid could have an IEP.
Do not personalize this. We all know that sweet pea is fine.... he is trust me. I knew that seeing him tell us about acorns and his trike. He will take his own sweet time getting where he needs to be. He is not a cookie cutter kid and you should be proud of that.
get a thick skin.
no subject
Date: 2010-09-02 09:24 pm (UTC)I don't think one label fits him. He is his own thing, developing along his own unique track that (judging by his older half brother's history) will probably lead toward into a calm, well functioning young man some day.
I see the need for an IEP, but not for a label to justify it. I guess it's just a bias. I think shrinks make stuff up as they go along and I don't trust them much.
no subject
Date: 2010-09-03 01:58 am (UTC)-blot
no subject
Date: 2010-09-02 06:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-09-02 06:41 pm (UTC)I couldn't resist...
Date: 2010-09-02 06:35 pm (UTC)Does this mean you're NOT voting for Obama in 2012?
*duck* hehehehehe
Re: I couldn't resist...
Date: 2010-09-02 06:39 pm (UTC)To hell with hope; I have faith in him. Meh! *sticks out tongue, puts hands with outstretched digits on top of head and waggles fingers at you*
Love you, cousin, but let's talk about kids and the weather, shall we? We can find common ground there. I am Coffee Party, not tea, and all about finding common ground. :)
Re: I couldn't resist...
Date: 2010-09-02 07:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-09-02 08:46 pm (UTC)I am not pleased by the teacher who did not call. We ran into that one year -- we heard AFTER the Christmas break about stuff that happened in early fall. Ex-cuuuuuse me? Call me when my kid is acting out, not a week later, and certainly not several months later when the behavior is entrenched and when it is too late to correct the problem.
no subject
Date: 2010-09-02 09:13 pm (UTC)The teacher should totally have called you sooner, too. How are you supposed to address the situation at home when his behavior at school was totally out of control?
no subject
Date: 2010-09-02 09:30 pm (UTC)I'll ask that she keep me in the loop from here on out.
An IEP will probably be in order. I agree that some kids have different needs and I don't mind the idea of having these needs put down in writing. I just object to the idea of him walking around with the stigma of being "a problem" case. As long as we are working toward him not causing problems rather than the case for him "being" a problem, I can accept it.
no subject
Date: 2010-09-02 10:49 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-09-02 10:33 pm (UTC)*HUGS* I agree there are too many labels and justifications for things...for people who parent badly, but I know you are NOT one of those parents and I wish I could wave a wand and make things better for you and for him.
no subject
Date: 2010-09-03 11:44 pm (UTC)The meeting today went well, and ended with up signing consent forms for the school counselor to have sessions with him, and for the school psychiatrist to observe him and offer up any suggestions she may have.
They told me he wasn't the worst kid they've ever had to work with. They wouldn't tell me who the worst kid is, though. Too bad; I wanted to buy that kid's mother a drink.
no subject
Date: 2010-09-17 10:55 am (UTC)See? He's not the worst kid! ^^ I'm glad that the school is working with you all on this and not just assuming it's YOUR problem and YOU deal with it, ya know?
no subject
Date: 2010-09-03 07:35 pm (UTC)I'm on your cousin Aly's friendlist and vice versa (unless she deleted me and I haven't noticed, which is entirely possible). I "met" Aly on LJ in the houston community, I believe.
A while back she posted a link on her lj to yours and I started reading your posts. I really enjoy them and really love the way you document your life and have grown attached to the stories of your world. Every now and then when I read a post of yours, I want to make a comment and then remember that I'm just some creepy voyeur and that you aren't actually on my friendslist. Today was one of those days - your struggles with motherhood are inspirational to me as a young woman and I have so much empathy for you and how difficult it can be at times. I wanted to say something here and then remembered again that I'm just a watcher. If you aren't too creeped out, would it be okay if I add you? I would love to have you as an LJ friend. I promise I'm just a harmless college student in Nashville who used to live in Houston and randomly added your cousin a few years back and I'm not a total creeper!
no subject
Date: 2010-09-03 11:47 pm (UTC)Welcome to my world. You were always welcome to comment; I even allow anonymous comments (though I delete them if they or offensive or annoy me). If I leave a post open, it's open to wall who want to read it. (now you get to see the locked ones, too, though).
no subject
Date: 2010-09-04 08:17 am (UTC)I guess I just feel apprehensive about commenting when I am not a "friend". It's hard to tell how people feel about their LJ - obviously public posts are public, but that doesn't necessarily mean that people assume they'll be read by random strangers and I never want to be intrusive.
no subject
Date: 2010-09-04 01:05 pm (UTC)I, on the other hand, am a proud word exhibitionist. The only reason any of my posts are ever locked or filtered or because I don't want to get into trouble for writing something I really need to get off my chest, or to spare the feelings of someone I think might be reading. If I write something cool enough to be linked to and shared, I consider it a compliment if people do just that. It makes me feel loved. ;)