[ajjhmf]

Ok, as you know, J is really struggling this year in kindergarten. I had hoped that after 2 weeks off with lots of mommy time and relaxation, his anxiety would start to ebb away and he would do better once he went back.

And he has. His behavior reports aren't glowing, but they aren't horrible either. He's getting his work done, something he wasn't before break.

However, Monday, his last day of break, was spent on the verge of tears. The littlest things set him off. Not the standard fits, but real, sad tears. The kind that break a mom's heart.

Tuesday at school, was great. He talked all day about how he had a great day. Today, it was the same when I picked him up, but once out of the school parking lot, his started getting real moody and was in tears again before we were in the house. Plus, once again, his teacher wrote on the note how he needs constant redirection and has trouble with transitions.

Tonight, I noticed he's starting to lose that spark. That glimmer of life in his eyes that just makes me smile. He's asked 6 times when I'm going to teach him at home and tonight asked to sleep with us. (Something he only does when he's feeling really bad.)

So, what's my vent? I've been telling the school for 2 years now about J's issues with anxiety and so on. He's been tested for ADHD (negative) and while yes, I know that they see the inattentiveness and troubles sitting still, it's not in all areas of his life. (ADHD also doesn't just show up November through March either.) I've had his doctors and therapists send letters. I've sent notes and even had face-to-faces. But no one seems to understand that this isn't going to get better overnight. There is no magic pill. It just takes time. Putting additional pressure on him only makes it worse. ARGH!!!!!

We have an appointment with our new ped-doc on the 27th, and she's going to send him for additional speech and hearing testing. (We found out he was never tested for auditory processing stuff like we thought he was.) Part of me wants to wait and see how the testing turns out before doing anything, but a bigger part is terrified my 6yo is headed for a breakdown. I'm tired of saying the same things over and over again to the school, only to have my son continue to suffer.

I know what I need to do, but I'm scared to do it. I did find an on-line charter school that I think would work well for us. We've been evaluating the curriculum for a couple of days and all I have to do is call to start enrollment.

Why, oh why, didn't I take the blue pill?

Sorry for the ramble, but sometimes you just need to, you know?

Jenny

[mom2spiritedboy]

I have never posted here before- you'll have to forgive me for my long term lurking but your post just pulled on my heart strings and I felt compelled to break my silence.

I've read some of your other posts about your ds and his school struggles and I could sooooo identify. My dh & I adopted our ds when he was 3.5 years old and our first mistake was sending him to school less than 3 months later. I knew we were in trouble from day 1, when I received a call from the prinicpal telling me ds had hit another child upside the head with a wooden block (not a small one but one of those huge heavy building ones). From there it was the same thing day in and day out - it got so bad I didn't even want to show my face at the school.

We had met with the school, shared info - we didn't withhold anything. I thought they would understand and work with us. Instead for the next couple years they kept harping on ds "faults". The worst was last year in the fall when ds was in Grade 1 and began refusing to go to school. Despite all the problems he had been he having he had ALWAYS loved school, bounding out of bed each day ready to try again to live up to everyone's expectations. I think it finally began to dawn on him that he could never meet those expectations. He was being set up to fail every day. As I said to the principal during one heated moment "If you told me I had to go to work everday and have all my faults pointed out to me and then I would have to attempt to complete complex mathematical equations before I was allowed to leave for the day - and not doing so meant I wouldn't get a paycheck - I'd be stressed and not wanting to go to work either - how's it any different for C.?"

I was watching the light go out from behind my babies eyes. I was watching his self esteem plunge - the very little that he had started out with was now almost nonexistent. We were seriously considering homeschooling and then . . . we got a new principal and she was at least willing to work with us. I stopped getting notes and phone calls all the time and I arranged a full neuropsych assessment. Because what was frustrating me most was that people kept focusing on his "bad behviour" and I kept telling them "he can't help the way he is acting - it's a symptom of other things". We just finished the testing before Christmas and we are awaiting the actual written report but we do know that ds has MULTIPLE LD's and that his adaptive funtioning is .2% (my jaw dropped on that one - I knew it would be bad but hadn't anticipated that). Not to mention the Tourettes, ADHD, OCD etc etc that we already knew he had. Now I have professionals behind me finally willing to go to bat for my ds and tell the school about executive dysfunction and how that does NOT mean the more the punish him the more he will succeed. I'm still frustrated that it wasn't enough for me to say it but that it had to come from "professionals" but at this point I will take it however I can get it.

Things are much better for ds now, and I'm hoping they will continue to get better as we start looking at specific programming and remediation to address the learning issues that the school wanted to pass off as behaviour (e.g. school staff believeing that "if he would just try harder he would be reading already")

In the end, I guess what I am saying is that I have no advice to give, but I want you to know that I've been there too and my heart aches for you and your ds. I have every confidence that you and your family will figure out what is right for you and your little one will continue to thrive and flourish - the way you have described him in so many posts that have been encouraging to so many of us reading them - even if we tend to lurk and not share too much

[tybeemarie]

No words of wisdom here, just sending you some cyberhugs ((((())))). I think you're a wonderful mother who is so in tune with her children, so empathetic and caring and such a committed advocate. I know that you will make the right decision for your son and your family, whatever that is. I'm sorry he's struggling with school. It's obvious that it breaks your sweet maternal heart. He's so lucky to have such a great mom! That's probably not a lot of consolation to you right now, but it is true. Good luck!

[4inma]

hi jfenner,

I'im new here so excuse me if you previously have said all this already.

My son also has alot of anxiety and school was where it really hit him hard. The school swore it was ADHD, but we knew it wasn't.

Basically, he was moved to a smaller classroom with lesser kids. In kindergartin, he only had about 3 other children, and two aids, now he has about 6 other kids (all boys, go figure) and he is really doing well. Or should I say much better then before, he still has some behavior problems, but those problems are the same at home, so no surprises.

Not sure if your son is on meds. I hate to bring that topic up because I was so anti-meds for children. but my kids were really having a hard time and the medications really have helped them.

My son was put on a very small dosage of clonidine for his anxiety.

He is now only on it at night, he doesnt need it anymore for school I'm happy to report.

So, just throwing some ideas out there and the experience that I had with my son.

Sorry if this was already discussed on another thread that you might of posted.

[crick]

Aww Jenny! What a hard hard time for J, and you too. Those moments of heartbreak I think are the worst for me to see.

I wonder if you can make an agreement with his teacher that for every criticism she writes on his card, she also needs to write a positive accomplishment? For her to say "today he didn't listen well but he was so helpful during math passing out the books" or whatever it is.

My dd’s previous teacher was very much a “focus on the negative”. I was to the point where I would read the behavior card from dd’s previous teacher and did not even mention it to dd. I would simply find a different time when things were calm and happy and talk to her in general terms of school and what things she did well at that day or what she liked, and then slip in some things she wanted to try harder with. I didn’t even connect it to the behavior card at all because it was just pointless to harp so much on the negative.

I also stopped responding to her teacher’s notes to me on the card. Like “Please work with S on her chatting in class”. It was just again…pointless.

Now she has a new teacher and she writes things like… Her new teacher writes "dd got up from her seat without permission twice today". "dd spelled all her words correctly and neatly!" "Great job S! Keep up all your hard work and let's try a little harder to stay in your seat!" BIG BIG difference!!

My son’s 3rd grade teacher also has a great approach. He called me in for a conference and wanted to discuss J’s inability to sit still at his desk when he has things on his mind. If J is worried about something, it just consumes him and he can’t get away from it. J’s teacher wanted to know if he was like this at home and other things. More importantly though, he wanted to know more of J’s likes and talents so that he could incorporate those into positive reinforcements for J. Asked me if it was okay if he played lacrosse at recess with J sometimes if J could focus on his work for 30 minutes without a reminder. Or if it was okay for J to bring home the work he didn’t finish and do it at home, not as an excuse for J not to finish at school but as a way to lessen his frustration over not finishing and give him a break from feeling like a failure every time he didn’t finish. To give him a chance to say “I did the best I could and tomorrow I’ll do better.”

I hope you can work with the teacher or principal to find ways to help J see more positives about himself. To help the teacher recognize that sometimes the kids need a break from the issues themselves and a little more encouragement and praise for the things they do right. So much focus on the issues is so exhausting and frustrating!! Maybe some of the things my kids' teachers are doing can be suggested to your J's teacher?

[spaypets]

((Jenny)), does J. have an IEP? Is he working in the special ed department?

The school is required by law to teach him in the least restrictive environment. If you can get the IEP to note his anxiety and come up with a plan to handle the disruptions without increasing his anxiety, then the school is required to fulfill it.

I can sympathize with the teacher, after all I'm sure he's a distraction. But somewhere there must be a solution.

[Barksum]

It is of great interest to me that the child therapists all suggest "positive parenting", and the various lectures and trainings I've attended all focus on reinforcing the positive while addressing the negative. And yet...very few teachers actually do these kinds of things. Children in the classroom often become defined by the behaviors that are most aggrivating to the teacher. (And sometimes these are written down and passed along to the next teacher(s) in subsequent years so a child comes with an pre-established negative label or reputation.)

While I'm always happy to hear of children having LD's identified so they can get the particular supports they need, isn't it sad that they have to have a label and other professionals willing to go to bat for them before teachers and school administrators believe what parents have said from the get go?

I've also noticed that whatever the basis for the child's differences in brain function (emotional trauma/grief, high functioning autism, FASD, ADHD, LD's, etc.) as long as the difficulty is not visible there is a belief that "making the child work harder" or "being strictly disciplined regarding their poor behavior" will make it all better. I read a book that stated this problem very well by using the illustration of beating a blind child for not reading what was written on the blackboard. Of course we wouldn't do this! The child is physically unable to comply with the requirements. However, when we have a child who displays any of a variety of "poor behaviors" in class they are immediately punished because the assumption is that the child is doing the behavior to aggrivate the teacher. When you let the teacher know that the child has something invisible to the naked eye such as autism they are able to step back and realize that the child isn't doing these behaviors TO those around them, but is responding to what their brain is processing from their environment. Oh, I could go on and on, but I'm sure you get the idea. Besides, I'm preaching to the choir! LOL

[angelkisses0102]

I don't have much to offer as my kids are still little...but they do go to a school setting daycare (at least for now...hopefully I will be a SAHM...soon...but I digress) and it took us 3 different types of schools to find one that was truly willing to work with our DD.

She is highly intelligent/gifted and a very quick learner but emotionally a 4 year old....her age. So being too smart is a 'special need' because you can not teach her the same as other kids. She was very disruptive because she was bored...not stimulated enough...and she needs strict routine...anyway...we had to find a school and then a class/teacher who would help her.

Then there was Alex...who has all of his issues...and we needed a school to help him come out of his shell but still understand 'why' he was/is the way he is.

So, I guess what I am saying is...try to find a setting that works for him...my first thought was homeschooling...although I don't think that would work right now for you... As much as we hate to do it...we may have to send our DD to private school...another thought for you.

Good luck and hugs to you!

[crick]

Karen - that's exactly the case with my dd...she's very bright and often finishes her work ahead of time. We have struggled a lot trying to find the best way for her and her teachers, but it's a hard task. I have started looking into a charter school for her but have some worries about that too, since she loves her friends, going to the same school as her brothers etc. and of course since she was moved around a lot before placement so there's still a lot to think about.


Barki - I know what you mean and that's why I'm so appreciative of my boys' teachers who we have been so fortunate with!

Nothing's ever easy, eh?

[ajjhmf]

Thanks guys. I love that my friends here understand me.

To answer a couple of questions, J does not have an IEP and he's not on any meds.

I don't have a problem with meds if they are necessary, but I don't like the ones they use on anxiety in kids. I prefer to address his anxiety through therapy and environment.

J does qualify for an IEP in terms of his anxiety under Other Health Converns, but it's a fight to get it and to be honest the solutions suck. Our school district is backwards in terms of special ed. Everything is about inclusion. But, if you can't handle a regular classroom then there are some resource rooms around the district. But here is the kicker, they are K-6th. So, my 6yo would be in a class with 13yos. No thanks. Plus, they have the classes divided by needs. The one they would put J in is a behavioral classroom. The police are called there for assaults on students and teachers atleast once a month. Again, no thanks. Yeah, they have to provide for my son's education, but their solutions, quite frankly, suck.

Gotta run. The baby is on the table AGAIN.

Jenny

[ajjhmf]

I wanted to add something. After reading over my last post, it sound as if I think medicating kids for anxiety is wrong. That's not at all what I mean. I just don't like it for my kid. Sorry for any confusion.

Blessings,
Jenny

[4inma]

I think the last result for any child should be medication, but when seeing how my kids were, and now being on medication, I can honestly tell you they are much better being on it.

One of my children actually said 'thank you' because now he has some control over his feelings and impulses where before he didnt. He said his brain is working better.

It took me a while to realize that mental health issues, is just as bad as medical.

I would not deny my child insulin if he was diabetic, so I had to look at his mental health issues in the same way.

I guess where i was coming from, if he cannot function in school due to his anxiety, then his anxiety is interfering in his life and he needs to be treated for it.

again, im not saying medication is what he should take, but when all else fails, and he is clinically dx with anxiety, then maybe medication might be in order so he can start to function and start to feel good about himself.

I guess for me, seeing the difference with my kids, My ideas and thoughts on medication for children has changed dramatically.

[ajjhmf]

J was on medication last spring and summer for his anxiety. We saw only marginal improvements and were very alarmed by the side effects we saw. He was taken off the medication adn we worked with him in therapy at handling the issues he was dealing with at the time.

In J's case, he functions well in all areas of his life with the exception of school. He has periods when his anxiety is an issue at home, usually around anniversaries and holidays, but over all functions pretty well.

School is our big issue and medicating him just for that is something neither his doctors nor us are interested in.

I do appreciate the suggestion of medication, it's just not something that is for us. If I can teach him at home and have him in therapy to deal with his anxiety, I'd rather do that than have him on meds.

Blessings,
Jenny

[dadfor2]

well ill be darn......you actually finally posted....I think im gonna drop....lol

welcome 4inma..........lol......i cant believe you actually finally posted. I have been telling him and his partner about this site for years...

anyway, be kind to him, he is a good friend of mine...

oh, and Jen, if you knew his kids, well, medication all the way.....lol. (only kidding 4inma... well, maybe only kidding....

anyway, glad to see you here, and keep posting...oh, and call me!!!!!!!!!!!!! and it was great to see you and the kids on New Years. Our kids had a ball, didnt they?

now im going to stalk all your posts and see what you said....lol.

kinda cool that i actually know someone from here....lol

[mom2spiritedboy]

Originally Posted by jfenner

Our school district is backwards in terms of special ed. Everything is about inclusion. But, if you can't handle a regular classroom then there are some resource rooms around the district. But here is the kicker, they are K-6th. So, my 6yo would be in a class with 13yos. No thanks. Plus, they have the classes divided by needs. The one they would put J in is a behavioral classroom. The police are called there for assaults on students and teachers atleast once a month. Again, no thanks. Yeah, they have to provide for my son's education, but their solutions, quite frankly, suck.

I sooooo hear you! Here where I live, in Southwestern Ontario Canada there are two school boards. One they call "public" and one "seperate" (Catholic) - but they are both now publicly funded through the government. We also have a few private schools but they are not as common as in the States. Anyway - the public board has some segragrated classess throughout our city and they do tend to look at a kids "paperwork" and place them in a class and I know they would throw my ds in a "behaviour" class (ages 7 to 12) which is not where he belongs (the more I walk this journey with my ds the more I wonder if ANY kids belong in these Behaviour mod classes???)

So we decided to go to the seperate (luckily my dh is Catholic or ds wouldn't be allowed to attend). He is integrated with his class and overall it has been a good thing. But, they still have this attitude that their main goal for my ds is to get him to the point where he will be like the other kids. They want goals on his IEP like "will demonstrate respect for authority" and I have worked long and hard to get them to understand that he does respect authority, he just shows it differently and doesn't "think" the way the other kids do. I think I am beginning to get them to appreciate ds for who he is - there is less talk about getting him to outwardly demonstrate these vague social items (like respect) and beginning to be more focus on academic and how he learns. Too bad that we had to undergo extensive and expensive testing to get to this point - to prove he is not "doing it on purpose" and that they are channeling their energies into the worng things.

I can't count how many times a teacher or the principal has said to me "Did he happen to miss taking his meds today?". He is on Ritalin and we are quite happy with how it helps him in school (that was a long agonizing decsion for us) but I keep trying to tell people - the Ritalin "helps", it doesn't solve things - There are NO MAGIC PILLS. And a lot of the things that get complained about are soooooo not a huge issue for me (like them threatening to suspend ds because he threw snow - not a snowball, and not AT anyone but my little compulsive-impulsive boy who still eats things he finds on the ground happened to throw some snow up in the air)

I love my ds and we recognize his spirited nature isn't everyone's cup of tea. We placed him on medication for HIS sake, not everyone else's. If it stopped being effective for him I would take him off it in a heartbeat and they would just have to deal with it. I'm soooo tired of trying to explain to people that ds is ANXIOUS when he starts acting out. The acting out is the symptom that we see. Some kids get quiet and withdrawn, mine acts like somebody wound him up and let him go. There are a few teachers that get that at his school and they are like a safe haven for him. I'm sure he gets very little actual learning done on those days that his life (and thus his body) seem so out of control and if the bad starts to outweigh the good I'll fight to change it (again) - but I won't hesitate to pull him and homeschool if I have to.