Sandra Tayler

Tired at the End of the Day

By / September 24, 2013

At noon I sat on my front porch in the warm fall sunlight. My feet were bare and the pavement was warm. I looked across the un-mowed lawn and felt at peace. We’re still not getting everything done, but the patterns are beginning to settle in and it felt like maybe we could get to a point where the things all get done.

Then there was Gleek’s deep sadness over the fact that we can’t install a mod onto Minecraft, which was the first indicator in a long while that all is not right in Gleek’s emotional landscape. Then I realized that for Gleek’s own good we need to limit the amount of time she escapes into Minecraft. Some escape is good, but she needs to face her thoughts not always run from them. Then there was the conversation with Patch’s teacher where she expressed some concerns for him because he gets anxious. Then there was homework time. Next there is bedtime.

Somehow I have reached the end of my day, knowing I did important things all day long, knowing I did them pretty well, but still feeling beaten down and a bit defeated. I will try again tomorrow.

The Necessity of Battles

By / September 23, 2013 / 2 Comments

I don’t like confrontation. I never have. In my growing years I went to great lengths to avoid conflicts and try to make everyone just be happy. I was in my mid-twenties before I realized that sometimes the fastest way to “everyone happy” is to wade right through the middle of a conflict. Because some conflicts can’t be avoided. Trying to avoid them sends you in circles until you end up right back at the same conflict; like Winnie the Pooh circling in the foggy woods and ending up right back at the sandpit. It just looks a little different because you came at a different angle. I learned to be strong and to be what my children often call “mean.” It is part of the parent job.

Truthfully, the beginning of this school year has been fine. We had a lot to sort, particularly with Link. He had to face the fact that he will have homework and we really are going to require him to do it rather than having him excused from it via his disability. Getting Link to accept these things required me to sit with him for four hours until he wrote a journal entry. Then it required me sitting for two hours while we plowed through some history questions and got them done on time. Then I had to sit him down and make him do two writing assignments in a last minute crunch so that they were on time. Link was mostly cooperative, except for that inner part that wanted to avoid the work. We have now done one of each type of assignment that is likely to be required of him this year. No more big surprises. We have a plan in place to track the assignments. We intend to do at least one hour of homework each day, working on long term assignments if short-term ones are done. The goal is that he won’t have to put in hours on the weekends.

Today Link sat down cheerfully. He worked steadily. Then when the hour was done he said “I like this. I still have time to relax.” Yes. And now he sees it. Before we had the big homework battles and the last minute crunches, he would have seen the one hour of work as a daily drudgery. I knew that about an hour per day was what was needed, but he could not or would not see it. In the wake of the epic homework sessions it seems like a reprieve. Sometimes we have to have a battle so that we can see how good things are when the struggle is over. Sometimes we create the battle by trying to avoid something which really is not very hard to do.

I’ve seen the same thing with other kids in other situations. I set up requirements, restrictions, and boundaries. Then I have to hold firm while the kids wail and flail for a bit. Sometimes they get very mad at me for a time. Afterward they accept. Even further after that, they begin to see benefits and understand why I had to set things up that way. They begin to realize that maybe they enjoy having the house clean, maybe they like doing homework an hour per night instead of in a stressful mad scramble just before due date, and maybe Mom does have a clue sometimes.

Of course the hardest part is that I doubt myself in the midst of the battle. That part of me, which just wants to make it all better and wants to make everyone happy, will fight me just as hard has my child does. Sometimes I can clearly see that what I’m doing is necessary. Other times I waffle, waver, and am not at all sure. It can feel like such a mess in the middle of it. I gave in a lot during early years. I trust myself more now, but it is still hard. In order to learn to trust myself, I had to be willing to face the battles. I had to walk through the hard part and come out the other side so that I could see that making someone upset is sometimes the very best thing for everyone. I had to see that my attempts to avoid conflicts were very like Link’s attempts to make homework go away by ignoring it. Nothing went away, it just piled up. Much better to face things and manage them a little at a time.

I suspect that, like Link, this is not the last time I’ll have to learn this lesson. Though hopefully I’ll learn more quickly each time around.

Public School Resources for Parents of Special Needs Kids: Elementary Edition

By / September 21, 2013 / 4 Comments

Preface: The information in this post is based upon my interactions with the Alpine School District in Orem Utah. Other states and countries will have different resources and regulations about those resources. You’ll have to check locally to find out what can be done, but hopefully knowing what is available elsewhere will at least arm you with good questions to ask. This listing is incomplete. Each child has unique challenges, each school presents unique possibilities and barriers. All that is intended here is some basic knowledge of where to start.

First some tips for dealing with school personnel

Assume that they are competent.
They may not be, but starting discussions with the belief that any difficulties can be resolved by calm discussion puts you in a much better bargaining position. People are not helpful when they feel belittled or defensive.

Gather information before making demands.
Be sure you fully understand the school, the teacher, the administration, and the potential roadblocks. Once you do, pick the crucial needs and start with those. Be willing to compromise on the non-crucial needs. If you try to force a plan that does not work for the school staff, then that plan is doomed to fail.

Keep your emotions in check.
You may be furious or upset, but putting school officials on the defensive is not likely to result in a better outcome for your child. I swallow my frustrations all the time if it allows me to achieve an important goal. What matters is helping your child, not venting your emotions.

Listen.
Many of these teachers and staff have been at their jobs for longer than you’ve been raising your child. You are the expert on your child. They are the experts on what works in the classroom and school setting. Most of the resources I’m going to list, I learned from helpful school personnel.

Respect their time and effort.
Any adaptation that they make for your child represents extra time and effort on the part of school staff. Even if they are required by law to make those adaptations, be grateful for it. It is still a gift, and thanks are appropriate. Also, human beings respond to positive reinforcement. The child with gracious and thankful parents is likely to get just a little bit more kindness than one whose parents are not.

People at your school who can be your allies:

The teacher.
This person is your front line and your most important ally. Often if you can build a good rapport with the teacher, you don’t need much other intervention because you solve many of the problems in the classroom. But rapport is not guaranteed. Sometimes the teacher has to be worked around instead.

The principal.
This person sets the social tone for the entire school. You may or may not have dealings with the principal directly, but still pay attention. The principal has some veto power over what can be offered to your child. We once chose to switch kids into a different school because of the social environment a principal was creating, even though he meant well.

School psychologist.
Every school in Alpine District has one. She’s likely only at the school one day per week, but she exists. She is the one who schedules additional testing and performs much of it. Additionally, she can do in-class observations of your child to see what might be working or not working in the classroom. She can see how your child behaves when you are not there and can report if there is something amiss with the teacher/child relationship.

Resource teachers.
These range from reading and math specialists to speech therapists. Your child will only work with these teachers if they have been tested and demonstrated an additional need. Once you have access to these teachers, they can be additional allies.

Yard duties.
These are the people who watch the playground at recess. Sometimes they are teachers, other times they are separate personnel. Either way, they may have observations about your child in a different environment than the classroom. Depending on your child’s issues, talking with the yard duties may be very helpful.

School nurse.
All local elementary schools have one, though she is usually only present one day per week. If your child’s needs include medical issues, you’ll need to communicate with the school nurse.

Office secretaries.
These people are the front line for many issues that come up at school. They help your child if he gets injured. They dispense medicine according to doctor’s instructions. They see almost everything that happens at school.

Testing and Diagnosis

When my kids were young I was afraid of doing anything that would get my child “labeled.” I was reluctant to pursue testing or diagnosis, believing that we were better off just trying to address the issues we saw, rather than declare what the issues were. I have come to believe that the value of diagnosis greatly outweighs the possible negative consequences of being labeled. Diagnosis is your friend. Really.

I have encountered school personnel who misunderstood, or did not comprehend. I’ve met some who meant well and thought they were helping but who were doing the opposite. I have never met a single one who was dismissive of a diagnosis. I’m sure such people are out there, but I’ve not encountered them yet.

I’ve been through a full diagnostic process for a child four different times. I’ve been through testing more times than I can count. Every single time it has given me more information about what my child needed. The diagnoses shifted information in my head and opened up new paths to help. I did not expect that. I thought that diagnosis closed off possibilities, when it did the opposite. Diagnosis was always an emotional process and grieving was part of that, but afterward we were far more able to move forward.

If your fear of being labeled is strong (or your school has demonstrated a tendency to pigeon-hole labeled children), then there are private means to pursue testing and diagnosis. You can then decide what to share with the school. A good resource for private help is to contact your local college or university. Be sure you get recommendations, because private diagnosis can be expensive and not all providers are good.

Locally I recommend contacting the BYU Comprehensive Clinic (cc.byu.edu 801 422-7759) They did a full work up and testing on Link when he was six. I don’t remember how much it cost, but I know it was not very much for what we gained. More recently we had Gleek diagnosed through a private clinic called TAPS that works out of the Clear Horizon’s Academy. Full diagnosis there cost around $750. University of Utah, Wasatch Mental Health, and Primary Children’s Counseling Center are also places to check.

Diagnosis and testing through the school does not cost the child or the family, though it does cost the school district. You can request testing and I believe they are required to provide it upon parental request. You may get push-back from school personnel if they don’t think your child needs it. They are unlikely to be willing to devote school resources to testing unless significant issues have manifested at school which impact your child’s ability to learn, or which disrupt the classroom for other students. Often they don’t realize that testing is an option or they just don’t think about it.

We have had the following testing done through school resources:
Social and behavioral skills testing
Motor skills testing
Speech and language testing
Auditory processing testing
Psychological evaluation
Psychological in-class observation
IQ tests
Testing to compare academic achievement to grade level expectations
I’m sure there are others I’ve forgotten or missed

Making a Plan

Often the results of testing and diagnosis are useful information and can help you form a plan with your child’s teacher. That may be all that is necessary, though you’ll have to continue to form plans with new teachers each year. If the difficulties are ongoing, or if your child needs additional school resources, then making an official plan through the school is probably a good idea. Locally we have two types of educational plans:

504 Plan.
This flags the child as needing extra help in the classroom and defines exactly what sort of help must be provided. For example: one of my daughter’s friends is legally blind. She has a 504 plan stating that she must be seated at the front of the class, that people must read her tests to her out loud, and that she may use special equipment to help her see. Any sort of diagnosis which impacts education, and which will not go away, merits a 504 plan. I think this can include requiring an in-class aide, but I’m not sure exactly how that works. Link qualifies for a 504 due to his Auditory Processing Disorder and his ADHD (he actually has an IEP instead, I’ll get to that next) Gleek would also qualify for a 504 plan, but she does not currently have one because at the moment she’s getting straight A’s and thriving at school. The moment she needs something the school does not automatically provide, I’ll brandish her diagnoses and get a 504 plan for her.

IEP (Individualized Educational Plan)
This includes everything in a 504 plan, but also outlines what additional resource or educational help that the child might need. In elementary school Link had one of these to provide him with speech services and then writing resource help. Part of setting up this sort of plan is setting goals for what needs to be achieved with the child that year. Over the years Link had goals relating to conversation, speech, writing, and social interactions. He met with speech therapists for learning to communicate clearly and with writing specialists for the same. One year he even had an in-school play group where the school psychologist taught social skills over board games.

For both kinds of plans you meet at least once per year with the teacher, the principal, and any resource teachers. During that meeting you evaluate how things are going and set new goals for the coming year. You can call an IEP meeting at any time if the current plan is not working. One of the values of an IEP or 504 plan is that it stays with your child even when the teacher changes. It is supposed to help provide continuity of support across school years. The purpose and importance of both IEP and 504 plans shifts dramatically on entering junior high and high school, but that is a topic for a different post.

To conclude:
You are your child’s best resource, but you can’t do it alone. Hopefully some of this information will help you acquire a team to help you and yours.

Giving Kids Tools to Succeed Before Allowing Them to Fail

By / September 20, 2013 / 6 Comments

“Don’t be afraid to let your kid face the consequences of bad decisions. You have to let him fail so he can learn he wants to succeed.”

The advice was given to me in a semi-private forum where I’d complained out loud about the epic four-hour-long homework session with Link last Sunday. I wanted to answer back that they’d misunderstood the dilemma, that my son was not being defiant, but every answer I could compose sounded like I was self-defensively missing their point or would require so much background information that I would bore everyone.

Yes parents need to let kids fail, but before they allow it they first have to make sure that the kid actually has the tools to succeed. In this case, Link does not. In theory he ought to. By 10th grade kids should have already learned how to track homework and have a basic comprehension that work must be completed before it is due. Link does not. His entire educational experience has been about adjusting, recalibrating assignments, and letting him make up work he misunderstood or did not finish. Those adjustments were necessary at the time, but now is the time to learn different skills. He needs to learn to turn in all of his assignments on time, that if an assignment needs accommodation that must be agreed upon in advance. He needs to learn to read every paper handed to him and to not wait for adults to explain what he should do. He needs to learn to figure out what he doesn’t understand in class and then ask questions about it.

Truth be told, his current teachers would let him continue as he has been. It says right there on his IEP that he’s allowed extra time on assignments. They would accept late work and not dock it down points. They would be kind and explain. They would lighten the work load when Link seemed overwhelmed. There was a time where that willingness was a saving grace for us. Now it is not what Link needs for his long term growth. What he needs is for me to sit next to him, for four hours, not moving until the journal entry is written, because it is due the next day. Link sat next to me, wanting to do the assignment, wanting to please me, yet wrestling with himself because part of his brain was resisting the work with all of its might. So right now I’m heavily involved in tracking Link’s work and making him do it. Once he is in the habit of doing all assignments on time, once he realizes that is a thing it is possible to do, then I will step back and let him succeed or fail at it under his own power. Link needs to learn that he is strong enough to do hard things, because all of his life people have been adapting for him and that has made him believe himself weak.

I find it interesting that I got similarly hands-on with Kiki at this point in her Sophomore year as well. By January of that year I stepped back and let her handle things again. Already I can see improvement in how Link is doing. The battles Link is having with himself are smaller and more easily won. Most importantly, I can feel that this path is right, so we’ll keep walking.

Mid Term Conferences

By / September 19, 2013

I left parent teacher conferences with no action items. Eight teachers smiled at me, told me that Gleek is a wonderful student, and couldn’t think of a thing she could be doing better. Considering how all-consuming Gleek care was last spring, I feel thrown off balance a bit. I want to go back to all the teachers and say “are you sure?” except then they would look at me strangely. Except their observations match mine. Gleek is happy. She’s getting her work done. I’d like to see her interact with friends more often, but there are hints that some of that is developing. Things will get hard again. Gleek has lots to learn, but maybe I can stop bracing and let go a little.

In contrast, Link’s parent teacher conferences left me with a long list of support items. We’ve got a learning curve to hike. He’s going to have to get used to homework almost every night. He’s got three or four times the amount of writing work than he has ever had before. This is when we have to slog through the difficult to give him the practice he needs so that these things can become easier. In the next three years we need to transition to him managing all of these things without my intervention. Yet I feel hopeful that we’re getting this under control. We’re figuring out the types of assignments and after this we’re going to be able to work ahead so that we don’t end up with some nights piled high with homework.

Funny how one child is sailing clear and I’m certain hard is coming, while the other is in the midst of hard and I feel confident it will soon get easier. My brain is weird.

Loose Thoughts from Today and Yesterday

By / September 18, 2013 / 3 Comments

We had lunch with some friends whose Kickstarter has just funded. They spoke to us about the things they are considering as options for fulfillment. I listened and strongly advised them to contract out the fulfillment. Their time is better spent making another creative thing than in sorting through invoices and packing boxes. To emphasize my point, I noted how much writing I have not been doing in the past few years and most particularly this year. I can’t blame all of that on work. This has been a heavy parenting year, but I can definitely point at shipping and convention managing as tasks that sap my creative energy which I would be delighted to give up. Fortunately we’ve entered a business lull where I can take some time to consider options.

Parent Teacher conference filled up my afternoon. It was my chance to talk to all of Link’s teachers and to identify exactly which assignments Link has missed comprehending. He’s good at recognizing things that are due next class time, but once-per-term assignments always surprise him at the end. We’re still identifying trouble spots with particular assignments. The good news is that we’ve reached a good accommodation with the one teacher who seemed unwilling to listen to Link. Mostly this was accomplished by Link facing the homework and realizing that he can do the assignments. Also the teacher was happy to compromise on the length of the journal writing assignments, he has one page to write instead of three. I’ve identified that I need to teach Link to read every paper handed to him in class. At least three times the necessary information for the longer deadline assignments has been in Link’s hands since the second day of class, but he didn’t know because he didn’t read the paper. I actually expect this to be a significant challenge for him because the thought of writing assignments, even ones far in the future, can feel overwhelming. So I need to teach him how to recognize a future assignment, place it on a future day in the calendar, and then not worry about it until then. Half of public school is learning how to task manage and those skills will be useful forever. My primary goal for Link this year is that he do all of his assignments and turn them in on time.

I vacuumed yesterday for the first time in I’m not sure how long. This morning I folded laundry. All the little things, which I’ve had no time nor energy to do, are beginning to get done. Order is slowly returning to my house. I have a small hope that it will also return to my mind, though I’m reluctant to let that hope exist. It feels like I haven’t had peace or routine for almost a year. Even then it was a very busy routine for the year before that. Long ago, back when I decided that Gleek and Patch needed to switch schools more than we needed a light homework load, I knew that I was in for a couple of crazy years. Patch is still in that heavy homework program, so I’ve got a couple years more. Except, Patch is mostly fine with the work. As long as he is not feeling anxious about disappointing people, he just does the work happily. I see that and I feel the faint trickle of hope that maybe this year will not be so bad. Maybe Gleek will just be happy and not anxious this year. Maybe Link and I will establish homework rhythms and he’ll figure out how to find things he likes in his high school. Maybe Patch will have a happy year full of growth. Kiki is out on her own and weathering her ups and downs like the independent adult that she is, but she still likes us, misses us, and calls us frequently. Maybe Howard will just settle into working happily and will plow through everything he has planned for the next few months. Maybe none of my fears will be realized. Maybe. I want to squelch that entire paragraph. Surely it is better to just expect things to be difficult, and be pleasantly surprised. Except that the expectation of difficulty weighs on me. I’ve been carrying it for quite a long time and I wonder if, maybe, it would be okay for me to put it down. Maybe it is okay to let go.

My front room feels empty without boxes of merchandise in it. I look around at the walls I painted last January and remember that I had other plans for making this room pretty. I also look around and realize how much I hope that I can keep the merchandise out of this room. I would love it if my home spaces could belong to my family without all of us having to dodge business all of the time. Having offices is fine, but so often the business spills into all of the living spaces. Achieving more separation may take a while, but at least I recognize it as a thing I want.

I went to bed at 10:30 last night. This means the 6:30 wake up arrived after 8 full hours of sleep. Today was a most effective day on many fronts. I think I’ll attempt to repeat that feat. Which means now is the time to put away computer things.

Clearing Away the Clutter

By / September 14, 2013

I need a few more days like today, where I ignore my organized to-do list and instead just take care of the things which are right in front of me. For the first time in three months my front room has no merchandise or convention equipment in it, I can walk across my storage room without dodging or tripping, and my kids got most of their homework done. Of course there are still piles of things to take care of, but I begin to believe that catching up might be possible. Of course on Monday I’ll look at my list again and the dream will be over. Or maybe I really am starting to catch up.

Twenty Year Reunion

By / September 13, 2013

I did not go to my 20th high school reunion. We didn’t go to Howard’s either. In both cases travel was expensive and the timing was not good. Then there was the fact that I didn’t feel a deep emotional need to go. I was not needing to reconnect with my younger self because I was far too busy with my current life.

This evening I went to a twenty year reunion for a comedy troupe, the Garrens, that performed on my college campus during the first years of my married life. I don’t remember how it came about, but Howard ran sound for the troupe and Howard’s brother, Randy, was part of the group. Every Friday night we would pack up the sound gear and I would watch the shows while Howard worked his mixer. I got to be a reasonably good assistant with toting the gear, but for the most part I just stayed out of the way, present but not participating. I wasn’t a member of The Garrens, I was adjacent.

Upon arriving at the reunion, my first surprise was that anyone recognized me at all, but they did. My second task was to recognize the faces of people I sort-of used to know now that they have twenty years more experience written across their features. By the end of the evening the faces just looked like the people I knew and photographs started looking really young. A comedy troupe reunion is a true pleasure because everyone who spoke was funny. I laughed a lot. Yet more important than the laughter was the real love and connection between all of these friends. They were family for each other during those formative college years. Many of them have continued to visit and spend time together through all the time that followed. I got to witness all of that.

Naturally I spent some time thinking about myself and my life twenty years ago. This is the point of reunions really, a chance to connect past with present and to recognize the passage of that time and the accumulation of experience. So much has gone fuzzy. I know that we ran sound for show after show after show, but I remember little of the shows themselves. They blur together. I remember sometimes going out to eat or laughing with the troupe members, but at that point in my life I was not good at building friendships or making lasting connections. I lost track somehow.

When the evening ended, Howard and I walked out through the Wilkinson center, which was alive with college students in the midst of Friday night antics, just like it used to be when I went to college. We looked at each other and knew that we are now the old people, the ones who show up on campus for events and then go away again. I’m actually okay with that. Ten years ago, or even five, I felt a longing to be part of that college energy, when so much was beginning. Tonight we walked on past, glad to be where and who we are. College life sounds exhausting. I like the life we’ve built.

It occurs to me that many times in my life I am the one standing next to the main event. Howard was involved with musical groups and I got to tag along. Howard ran sound for The Garrens, I assisted. When Howard took up cartooning, I’ve gone along for that ride too. I am an instinctive facilitator. It is only in the past seven years or so that I’ve started building my own things instead of coasting in the wake of other people’s things. Twenty years ago no one in The Garrens knew how much that being in a comedy troupe would affect their lives. I wonder which of the many things I’m doing now will be the one that changes everything for Sandra of twenty years from now.

Accomodations for Link in High School

By / September 12, 2013 / 3 Comments

When Link was in first grade his teacher had a system. When kids needed to complete work at home, she had them put the work into their cubby. Each day the kids were to put the contents of their cubby into their backpack. Link was not very good at that last part. In fact he discovered that if he just left all his papers in his cubby, then Mom knew nothing about the papers. It was a great system, he’d not finish work at school, stick it into his cubby and then it ceased to exist as far as he was concerned. Life was great. Then one day his older sister decided to pick him up from class rather than meeting him at the car. She saw the cubby full of papers and the day of reckoning had begun. Mom made him complete all of the papers over the next week, AND she conspired with the teacher so that she could know every day if school work was completed at school. Link was cornered in a way that meant the easiest way out was to complete the assigned work. Suddenly he started working. We’d found the right solution and the road blocks to learning vanished.

I’m thinking about this today because I just met with Link’s history teacher and discovered that Link has a pile of incomplete work for that class. Writing assignments are never his favorite and this particular teacher talks a mile a minute, which is difficult for Link to follow. His instinctive reaction is to stop and try to wait it out. Fortunately at sixteen he is far more self-aware than he was at six. I’m able to make him a partner in the solutions, some of which sound a lot like “Yup, that’s tough. Deal with it.” The other solutions involve figuring out where in the teaching/learning process things are breaking down. Also I have to help the teacher understand that “Why didn’t you write anything on the quiz paper?” is actually quite a complex question which requires my son to introspect and then form thoughts into words. He wants to answer, but needs more than thirty seconds to figure out what that answer needs to be, because before she asked the question he hadn’t put any thought into the issue. Taking the quiz felt impossible and sorting is necessary to figure out why. Then maybe the next quiz will be possible.

Link’s teacher wanted to see his IEP paperwork and to know what accommodations are on it. I’m not really sure in detail. I’m confident that they are tailored to what was necessary in junior high, but will have to be revised for high school. I know they include his auditory processing disorder and his ADHD. I’m only now beginning to see what might need to be on the paperwork for high school. The teacher quite obviously felt at a loss without it. She wanted a check list “do this, this, and this, then you will have helped this student.” Only we’ve always used the IEP as a sort of fluid guideline and mostly worked with specific teachers to find solutions for individual classes. In one class he doesn’t need any help at all, in another we have to spend lots of time making things work. Most of the difference is in the relationship that Link has with the teacher. If Link feels relaxed and comfortable in a classroom, he doesn’t need help. When he gets stressed, he shuts down, stops working. Unfortunately I can’t put “don’t make him stressed” on the IEP paperwork. I can include “speak slowly,” “face him when you talk,” and “write down all his assignment instructions” Yet I know that even when these things are on the paperwork some teachers will adapt and do them without trouble. Other teachers will intend to do them, believe they are doing them, but they aren’t.

All of which is why I’m meeting with school administration tomorrow morning to discuss rearranging Link’s schedule. A few changes could make a world of difference. We may have to remove him from the class of a generally excellent teacher because that teacher does not have the right rapport with him. This, of course, lead me to worry that I’m over-helping. Growth comes from struggle. Link needs to learn how to keep going in spite of mental road blocks. He needs to learn more flexibility when he doesn’t like the form of an assignment. He needs to learn to recognize when he is avoiding work and consciously decide to do that work anyway. He needs to learn to turn assignments in on time instead of constantly doing them late and being allowed to get away with it because his IEP allows him extra time. I can see Link beginning to learn all of these things. He is amazing and smart, but I know that if the learning is too hard, then his tendency to shut down will kick in.

This is why I’m not going to tomorrow,s meeting with a list of things I want. Instead I’m going with a list of thoughts and options. I’m going with a hope that additional perspectives will bring out even more possibilities. Somewhere there has to be a good balance between accommodation for Link’s real disabilities and requiring him to do hard things so that he can grow. And it is entirely possible that I’m wrong about what he needs to learn and how he needs to learn it. That wouldn’t be a first. I’m still learning, trying to figure out this parenting thing. I would dearly love to find the right combinations so that the road blocks vanish and Link can just go.

Learning and Growing

By / September 11, 2013

Today was far less interrupted than yesterday, for which I am grateful. Link came home happy for the first time since school started. His math teacher put some accommodations into place for him and we have a meeting with an administrator on Friday to figure out what else needs to be done. We’ve finally settled into enough of a routine that we can see which troubles were adaptation issues that go away by themselves and which were going to be ongoing challenges.

I also spoke with Patch’s teacher. She taught Gleek two years ago and this fall I told her that Patch was quite different. Today she says she sees more similarities than differences, which makes sense to me. It is like the way that people say all my children look alike, but they look very distinct to me. My eye tunes out the similarities. So the teacher and I are both seeing Patch’s low-level anxiety. We intend to watch it and I need to take some steps at home to help Patch feel in control. I don’t think we’ll see anything like the intensity we saw from Gleek, because: differences. I just have things to keep an eye on.

Gleek read a sad book today, one that affected her mood. It was a literary type book that explores real-world problems and doesn’t necessarily have a happy ending. She says she is glad that she read it. I can see how the sadness in the book reached in and pulled up some of the sadnesses that she has inside, the ones she’s been ignoring because life is pretty easy for her right now. I know we still have things to work on with her. She needs solid skills for managing anxiety and stress. This gives me the first hint of how we’re going to find and address those needs while life is happy. Time for me to find the right books. Ramona the Pest helped her in kindergarten, we’ll find another book for now.

After two weeks of college happiness Kiki hit her first snag. She miscalculated her financial resources and needed to call home for help sorting it out. Truth is that she’d already solved the problem before calling, she just needed someone to double check and make sure her solutions were good. It is the same sort of double-check that Howard and I give to each other all the time. So she’s having fun and she likes having adult freedom, but sometimes adulthood is scary and she misses home. Learning how to be an adult is a large portion of what I expect she’ll learn in college this year.

I managed to end my day with more order than I began it, which is a first for the month of September. Howard spent the day in the land of painful charlie horses, which was not our favorite. Here’s hoping tomorrow can be less charliehorsey and more get stuff done.