Yet another meeting at the school yesterday. Something I was dreading. Not only am I so over this I had to go by myself because there was no one to watch the munchkins so Jacob stayed home with them.
It was myself, Jack's teacher (we'll call her Mrs. M), the autism consultant, and a counselor of some sort. Right from the start I knew it was going to be rough after the counselor asking us what Jack's strengths were and Mrs. M had nothing to offer. Ummm he's been in your class for 5 months now, give us at least one strength! Really?!
We then worked our way into "problem behaviors." It took every ounce of strength I possess to not scream and/or cry at this point. It is SO hard to sit and listen to someone rag on your kid, saying that he's the "problem" in the classroom, that he doesn't know things that I know damn well he does. Each sentence was a blow to the stomach and they just kept coming. "Jackson can't/won't/doesn't do anything." Over and over and over again.
Many of Jack's "problem behaviors" in school come from them not doing their job. Many of these problems we don't have at home because we're doing what we should be doing and the expectations and the environment is appropriate. Specifically his sensory issues. We do sensory activities every 20 minutes to keep him calm cool and collected at home. No matter how many times I've told them this they're still only doing it TWICE a day. Yup, twice in SIX hours! No wonder why he can't focus and do what they want of him! I swear to you, Mrs. M actually brought up the fact that Jack has a hard time transitioning into music time... now music time is immediately after recess. So if you were running around in the sun and 80 degree weather for 30 minutes you'd probably have a hard time sitting down and singing too. I know I would! Transitions have always been a struggle for Jack. But to expect him to transition from a running/active activity to a structured sitting activity with no help whatsoever is unreasonable. Autism aside, he's THREE.
The list goes on and on and on. So many of these problems would be minimized if they would just implement and use the suggestions that myself, the autism consultant, and the occupational therapist have provided, but they don't. Why you ask? Because for one the teacher is obviously completely overwhelmed with 9 special ed kids to herself and one untrained education assistant who's been there for a month and a brand new one who started yesterday (and is only temporary, they're *hoping* to have a regular person hired by after break). It's all a complete and utter joke. I get it, I get that she's tired and overwhelmed but that's no excuse to just dismiss my child as a "problem" and refuse to try to make school work for him.
Is this really what we have to look forward to for the next 13 years? I don't know that I can do this. The whole situation is entirely unhealthy and unproductive for myself and my child.
So at this point we're waiting for 2.5 weeks until after Christmas break to do the next meeting. The most frustrating part is knowing that fall break was what started this spiral. And we're going to do it all over again, only longer, for Christmas. Chances are we will come back after break and everything will once again be different and we'll be walking deep into yet another regression and starting over at square one. UGH.
And to top it off, Jack takes his favorite blanket, Gumby, to school with him now because he refuses to nap without it. I didn't want to start doing this because I knew it would be an issue. Last Wednesday Gumby didn't make it home, got left at school, and we had to go get it quick before the school closed. Well yesterday I was at the meeting when Jack got home and Jacob apparently didn't know to check for it. It was 5 o'clock by the time I realized it was missing and Jack was HEARTBROKEN. We had a terrible, terrible, terrible night last night. All because the school just simply can't pull their act together. I understand mistakes, I truly do, but twice in less than a week? Come on now! How hard is it to put a blanket in his backpack, you take it out of there every morning, put it back where you found it dang-it! I taped a gigantic fluorescent green note to the front of Jack's communication log last night reminding them about Gumby coming home each night... There's no way they can forget now (I hope)!
On the other side of my pity party coin is the fact that this morning was the first time I've seen my husband in days basically. He began working on a project last Thursday for some of the high ups on the base creating a "booklet" on some random military crap. He got home from work at 8 Friday night, worked all afternoon Saturday, went into work Sunday night at 7 and didn't get home til 7 am Monday morning, slept for a couple hours and was back there from 11-11 yesterday (aside from the hour he was home watching the kids but that didn't really count because we basically said hello as we ran past each other to the car/house). So this booklet is like 200 pages, hand-drawn on the computer by my husband. That's not a booklet, that's a novel. Wanna know the best part? This morning one of his marines ran over a copy of it to one of the guys Jacob's making this for and guess what he said?! "This isn't at all what we wanted!" They're looking for like a 30 page document. With no pictures (we're talking hours of hunting for the images he put in that thing). So basically the project that stole my husband was a bust. And now he'll probably be at work late again tonight redoing the whole damn thing. FrUsTrAtInG (more so for Jacob obviously but I seriously hate not getting to see him for days at a time and having to do everything around the house and with the kids 100% by myself for days on end. It's so exhausting!).
Well I guess that's the end of yesterday and today's sob story. I just wish I could snap my fingers and fix everything...
