More fun with IEPs

This year the girl child is in 5th grade.  Her last year in elementary school.  Excuse me while I shed a tear over that. 

Ok I'm over it.  4th grade was a year from hell.  The teacher change helped but the homework load was insane and she was just falling behind. 

After hiring an advocate, we went into this year prepared for the worst but hoping for the best.  Luckily, the girl child got a great teacher and overall organization of the 5th grade program was much better.  Even with minimal services she is doing well and having a good year.  She was the one who I felt was critical but she seems to be doing ok.

The boy child on the other hand has been struggling to get by.  Like his sister, he is very bright.  He tests in the top 2-3 percentile in everything.  But he just can't focus.  He can't keep still.  He crawls under the desk.  He wanders the school grounds.

The IEP this year included some support for writing and a behavior chart.  The goal of the behavior chart was to break the day into parts, to give us some tracking to see if some subjects were a bigger problem than others, and to reward him if he behaved in 8/10 sections.  Sometimes we get to see real gems.  Yes folks - my child is the one who had the whoopie cushion in class.  

It's only been in place for a few weeks.  We will see if it works in the long term.  With this child, things tend to work at first, then they stop working.  He keeps us all on our toes.

SO - the kids both have IEPs.  They seem to be working so far.  But we will see how they work in the long term.

And the band played on...

Last year I put in an IEP request for Mikey. I painstakingly drew up the letter using all the best advice from the web. I talked to my teacher friends.  I talked to my special ed expert friends.  I spent days writing the letter.  And after all of that effort, not to mention the fun of taking hours of my precious pto, the request was denied.  Apparently his ability was average but his achievement was all above average.  I'm still not sure how a kid with an average iq could be performing in the top percentile when he wanders around, curls up under his desk and ignores the teacher but that's all water under the bridge.  They told me they would set up a meeting to develop a 504 plan and sent us on our way.

By the spring of first grade it was obvious that he needed a lot more help than he was getting.  He was disruptive, caused issues, refused to go to lunch, wandered around the campus and was an all around pain in the butt.  His behavior escalated to the point where he wasn't learning and he was keeping other kids from learning.  After several months I emailed the school asking about the promised 504 plan meeting and we were able to get one set up.

The 504 plan coordinator was a 4th grade teacher who apparently had experience as an administrator.  I know this because she kept mentioning it over and over.  "When I was a VP at a middle school we would...." and part of me really wanted to ask why she wasn't in administration any more.  We decided that we would address Mikey's defiance with the 504 plan.  Any time he refused to do what the teacher said, he would be sent to the principals office.  The teacher mentioned that Mikey loves talking to the principal and the office staff, and he might enjoy that too much.  The coordinator said they would instruct the office staff not to talk to him.  So I'm here trying to figure out how sending the kid to the office whenever he didn't want to do his work, and not talking to him was going to address his issues in class.  It seemed like she wanted to give my 6 year old an old fashioned Amish shunning.

A week into the plan, Mikey had been in the principals office 3 times.  His behavior wasn't improving.  And he wasn't learning.  Sorry lady - it may work with 6th graders, but not 6 year olds.  At the same time, Dani's issues in school were escalating and she was in tears over her homework and school work every day.  The breaking point was the day Mikey dropped a deuce on the playground.  Yes folks -my son decided the bathroom was too smelly and somehow the pavement was a better choice.  When the principal questioned his actions, he got upset and screamed that he hated his life.  That turned into he wished he wasn't alive.  And that turned into me having to run to the school to pick up my child and sign the district suicide threat release form.  Good times here. 

So I hired a special ed advocate.  Mikey's new therapist had diagnosed him with Aspergers because he apparently has classic symptoms.  The diagnosis was helpful because it gave his behavior a name.  Even though his Aspergers is very different than Dani's Aspergers, there are a lot of pieces that are the same.  Armed with the diagnosis and the advocate I sent in the IEP request letter for Mikey again and requested a review of Dani's IEP.

It's amazing what a difference an advocate can make.  To be continued.....

Target Mikey :)

Last night we were at the Target in Poway, CA to buy my 7 year old son a new Skylander figure. He had brought his iPad mini into the store, but in his excitement over getting a new toy - he forgot his iPad in the store. A few hours later we realized what had happened and we figured that we would never see the iPad again but we drove back just in case. My son walked up to the customer service de...sk to ask if anyone had turned it in to lost and found and to our total complete surprise a guest had just brought it in a few minutes earlier. We are so grateful to the guests and employees at Target for reuniting my son with his iPad. It's great to know that there are still good people in this world who do the right thing.

— at Target Poway.

Not autism but what?

Update on Mikeys trip to the Autism Discovery Institute. They say Mikey has adhd (duh) and is moderately depressed (normal for a 7 year old right?) and while things like his rigidity and argumentative nature is an asd trait, they don't feel that he has asd. They are supposed to talk to his teacher from last year to see if they can get more insight and then I will go back to get the final report but they didn't give me any more to work on than what I already knew. Oh and they said Mikey won't even try to do something that he thinks may be hard. I've heard that about Dani since she was 4. So I've used up close to 12 hours of pto between the three appointments and I still have no answer. And that's the update.

Child slave labor :(

Came home. Got yelled at by Mikey "home shouldn't be slave time!" - asked him to clean his room - now he's screaming at me some more. Couldn't even get out of my work clothes before some kid in "job training" was knocking at the door asking for money. Dinner needs to be made. Kids need to be taken care of. Having a day where I wish Calgon would take me away.

It's fun to stay at the....

Yesterday was Mikeys last day at the Ymca. The counselors were sad that they wouldn't get to see him again. The counselors actually looked forward to having him in their group. Several of them took time to tell me how much they love his crazy little personality. What a difference between that and last summer.... It's so nice to see people who appreciate my sweet boy.

Mikey's way of thinking

Random guy starts a conversation with Mikey. Asks him if a brick and a half weigh 6 pounds how much does a brick weigh. Mikey is uninterested and throws out a few guesses before getting to 4. The guy starts to explain to Mikey how to calculate it and Mikey says "I don't like your way. I'd rather just put it on a scale." can't make this stuff up.

I've turned into angry special ed mom

Two weeks after the homeroom change, Dani is still with the original teacher for math and English. She asked me why she still had to have her for math and English. I explained that this teacher teaches the high level kids, so she’s going to have to keep going there. She then tells me she wishes she wasn’t high level. That broke my heart.

Last night we had another interesting exchange. Dani says “My back hurts”.
I ask “Why?”
She replies “It got cut”.

I lift her shirt and see a nickel sized scrape right in the middle. I ask her “What happened?”
She says “It’s a long story. I was crawling under the bathroom stall.”

My curiosity is piqued and I ask for more details. She explains that her stall did not have any toilet paper and she didn’t want to leave the bathroom with her pants down. My next question “Why didn’t you check for tp before you picked that stall.”

“Well” she says “I was in a hurry and I had an accident in the bathroom.”

Now my sweet child wasn’t potty trained until she was almost 4 but she hasn’t had accidents at school since first grade. She has trouble recognizing when she needs to go and tends to wait until it becomes an emergency. We have worked very hard on getting her to go before it becomes urgent, and she’s come a very long way. So as always, I ask her why she waited until the last minute and she says “Mrs. L (the old homeroom teacher that she still has for math and English) is charging tribal bucks to go to the bathroom and I traded all my tribal bucks for colonial cash when I changed homerooms, and I wasn’t sure if I could still use the bathroom since it costs 5 tribal bucks to go. So as soon as class was over, I quickly walked to my homeroom, because you aren’t allowed to run, got my water bottle and went to the bathroom. It was a little too late and I kind of peed myself and I didn’t even think to check for tp because I had to go so bad”

Livid mom immediately fires off an email to her special ed team to let them know that my child is to never be charged any kind of currency to use the bathroom, and needs to be specifically told that she is to never be charged any kind of currency to use the bathroom. I also let them know that she is allowed to have a bottle of water if she feels it is necessary. I told them I understand that this is Dani’s interpretation and perception of the policy, but the policy is that she can use the bathroom when she needs to and if I need to add potty breaks to her IEP I will.

I got a horrified reply back from her learning resource teacher first thing this morning letting me know that she is absolutely allowed to go to the bathroom when she needs to, without charge, and that this would be addressed. Hopefully this problem is solved, but I hate that this is a problem in the first place. I hate that things like this are even an issue. I’m ready to completely write off this entire year learning wise. Not only is she falling behind academically, she’s miserable and peeing herself.

**** UPDATE****

Email from the school - Dani is not being charged to use the bathroom. Some kids in the class are if they are excessive bathroom break abusers, but they assured me Dani would not be charged. More importantly they assured Dani that she would not be charged. The teacher also went through Dani's homework with her and clearly defined what she was expected to do each night. 30 minutes of reading. 30 minutes for math - just do odds or evens. Grammar if she can get to it in an hour. I'm VERY happy that this was addressed (but still not sure why it had to be a problem in the first place....) 

Gems from today's meeting with the counselor....

Today we went and met with the district counselor to discuss Mikey's behavior. During the 2 hour meeting, we got to hear more gems than I can count... When asked if he planned to go to college, he said no. When asked about his future career goals he said "I'm going to wrestle alligators." No more Turtle Man for you child. When asked what his mom does for work he answered "She makes money". When asked what his dad did he answered "I don't know". Took him to the park last night for the first time in months. Good thing I did, she asked if he does stuff with the family or goes out to play and he gave her a long dissertation on how he rode his bike to the park last night, saw his friend Brady, played with tree bark, rolled in sand.... We almost sounded like a normal family... BUT then, when asked to describe his siblings he said "There's my brother Ryan who's almost 18 and is lazy, and my brother James who is 21 and is my mom's favorite, and my sister Danielle" She gave him a wand and told him he could wish for anything, real or not real. He thought about it and said "I wish for cats that clean. Because then they can clean the house and I don't have to". I wish for cats that clean too.... Suddenly, he has an imaginary friend (that we've never heard about before) who is a dog who smells like clouds - which smell like chocolate pie. He also told her that his brother Ryan beats him. But only when he has to watch him because he got kicked out of the summer program - and he only beats him when he's doing something like screaming, or hurting his sister, or trying to run outside. And he doesn't actually beat him, he just holds him down so he can't leave. And James is his favorite brother. At one point she was talking to him and trying to explain to him that he can say "OK Mom" or "Yes Mom" instead of arguing. But he kept arguing. He talked a lot, flopped around on the floor a lot and was typical Mikey. Overall, he came off looking like a hyper little kid who probably isn't going to sit still in class. With an incredible imagination and low career aspirations. She did say we need to make sure we get accommodations for the ADHD like the standard squish ball, and maybe have some way for him to burn off energy mid day. She also said that it's a lot to expect from a first grader who's hyper, and she recommended some kind of sand therapy? We didn't learn anything we didn't know - except for the imaginary friend. We went because we were sent and we need to do what we can on our end to make sure we are covering things at home when we go in for the IEP meeting.

ODD is really odd...

I tell people I can handle adhd in my sleep.   I've got this aspergers thing down pat.   But ODD is kicking my butt.   In case anyone hasn't come across ODD,  it stands for oppositional defiance disorder and it's killing me.   My son is so sweet so smart so awesome and so so difficult.

As we go into 1st grade,  the behavior issues are coming to a head.   He can be cruel,  disruptive and destructive.   It's like the impulsively of the adhd gone mad.   He always feels bad after an episode but it doesn't make things easier.

After he was suspended for fighting on the third day of school,  the district psychologist suggested a "no fail behavior chart".   I was skeptical and really didn't feel like doing the work to make one,  but I couldn't find one on the Internet.   I threw one together in excel and it was actually quite easy.  

I attached a picture of my first try.   The printing cut off the bottom of the reward cells,  but the basic concepts is that we start off with something that he will do every day.   It can be as simple as a hug.   I used getting dressed because he's not leaving the house naked.   I put in other items that we are working on and I made sure the rewards were things that worked for me as well as him.   He loves his PBS kids shows and my parents let him watch when his homework is done.   We also put the electronics on lock down so getting to use them is now a big deal. 

I'm not sure how long it will last but he's very excited about his behavior chart.   He was so excited he used his electronics time to play leap pad and he put his pet pals on a behavior chart.   I'm willing to try anything right now...