Open House

So tonight was open house at Monster's new school. We had never had one before. His last school never did anything like that.

We didn't have any child care, so Monster went with us (School said they preferred the kids stay home, but they preferred we were there with him than not there). he had a very busy afternoon: first trip to a new pediatrician, horseback riding and only about 10 minutes downtime before open house.

In preparation for open house, we put together a poster about Monster-pictures of the family, what he liked eating, favorite color, etc. He did about 50% of it himself, which was pretty good for him. I was concerned it would be too plain compared to the other kids, but when we saw them all together, it worked well; it fit right in with the others (one wouldn't be able to tell it was from a disabled kid--I should take a picture of it when we get it back).

Monster didn't last more than 2 minutes at the begininng of the open house, when everyone was in the gym. It was fairly loud, and hot, so I don't blame him for wanting to leave. Actually, he did really great all around, even though he didn't even want to be there. I think he was worried he would be asked to work ;)

After the initial talk, we all broke out to go to our kids' class. I found Mr and Monster and we decided to start in the library. Mr hadn't met the librarian (who happens to be my boss's wife) yet. After that, we went looking for Monster's class and stopped by his speech therapists (to ask for directions ;)). she is a wonderful lady, who is also new to the school. We chatted for a few minutes. She told us that Monster had really moved beyond PECS (picture exchange communication systems). I still remember at the beginning of this journey, the pitying look on the speech therapists face as she explained that PECS may be the only way Monster would be able to communicate with people. Don't get me wrong, PECS is an amazing and awesome way for non-verbal people to communicate with the world. I'm just amazed that someone would nearly "condemn" a child of 3 to a lifetime of using it without even trying to help him find his own voice. I doubt Monster will ever be a chatty kid, or adult, but he can speak if he needs to. It's so very sad that some people give up on these kids. I think it is a combination of low expectations (maybe they saw Rainman too many times) or just being overwhelmed. These kids aren't easy.

Back to Open House...

Monster's new SLP is awesome and seems willing to work with us to find ways to get Monster to work for her. She has a very good approach and is keen to read his cues and keep things fun enough that he'll keep working. Which is the key to working with our kids. I don't have experience with typical kids, so this may seem quite obvious to any parent. Kids on the spectrum can escape into their own heads. In fact, I would say they often prefer their own heads to our world since it is under their control and not overwhelming to them, that's why so many of us wonder if our kids have hearing problems at first. With Monster, especially when he was younger, once he "checked out", that was it--he was gone. He knew we were there, that the world was around him, but he didn't want anything to do with us. Over the last few years, he has being in this world with us, but he will still check out if he's too anything (too overwhelmed, too tired, too pissed off, too much food he shouldn't have). If you want him to work, it is a delicate balancing act of keeping him engaged and pushing him to do more. She seems to really get that.

Heck, the whole school seems to really get that.

After the Speech therapist, we went down to one of his two classrooms. Monster splits his day between 1:1 teacher time (in a "quiet" room, where he does his academics) and his homeroom class room, where he does group activities (calender time, PE, art, music). First we stopped off in his quiet room. Oh my! I saw his schedule and there must be something like 20 icons on there (Monster has what is known as a visual schedule, where his day is laid out in a series of pictures that he can pull off when he has completed his task. it tells him what is coming up and what he needs to do). He is kept moving all day, not a lot of times where he has "free play" or "free time" which is good since that's when he generally gets into trouble (bored, fixates on things). Now I know why he is so tired at the end of the day!

His special ed teacher has a lot of fantastic ideas. She seems to understand him fairly well-that he learns better when he can keep moving, she uses white boards a lot with him, doesn't make him sit down too much. She told us today that they are going to start increasing his time in the homeroom class starting Monday-they think he can start doing some of his table work in the class room with his peers. In her classroom, they have a trampoline, basketball hoop, a pit for jumping/crashing. It's really good for him.

Finally, we made it to his classroom. Unfortunately, Monster was beyond at the end of his rope. He had started asking to go home when we got to the library! We did get to chat with his teachers a little bit. During calender time, the teachers will try to ask him questions directly, and he will generally answer them correctly. According to one of his teachers, the other kids are actually amazed at how smart he is. I got the impression, they (the other kids in his class) thought he was one of the smartest in the class. We did meet a parent of one of the kids in his class. When she found out he was the Zachery, she told us that her son talks about him a lot. Apparently, her son likes to "talk with Zach". WOW.

As keeps happening to Mr and I, we spent most of the night fighting back tears (happy ones) as we spoke to everyone.

Losing my job wasn't fun, but this place is good for us.