A Radical Solution to IEPs, 504s, ALPs, and the Drudgery of Accountability

Homeschool offers us the opportunity to teach and learn without IEPs, 504s, ALPs, and standardized tests. My children get to be their unique selves without the stigma associated with it. They get to pursue their interests, be curious, make decisions, and be productive members of the community early and often.

So it doesn't matter exactly how my children are different because I don't have to figure out a way to make them be the same as everyone else.

And yet, it matters entirely.

By recognizing the different ways my children are drawn to the world, I am able to be the facilitator they need.

Read the rest at Free-Learning Colorado...

Why sensory processing disorder makes everything so hard and a phrase that will make things easier

I have a memory of my son when he was two years old that has stuck with me over the years. He was doing one of his favorite things - pushing a dump truck at top speed back and forth in our cul-de-sac. He had figured out a way to balance perfectly with his hands resting on the bed in a way that did not let the bed flip up while he ran behind it. (A feat that other children did not recognize until they tried to race their dump trucks, too.)

What he had not figured out was how to keep an eye out for the terrain in front of him. The front wheels caught on a crack in the pavement and my son went silently end over end. He stood up, grabbed his truck, and started pushing again. 

"Whoa!" said a neighbor child. "He's tough."

I didn't realize how tough he was until he came racing by me and I saw blood dripping down his legs and arms. When he had landed, the asphalt had taken a good deal of skin off his knees and elbows...and he didn't seem to notice.

So I corralled him to clean his wounds quickly but carefully before unleashing him back into the street to play.

[]

That is what it was like for me to parent a young child with Sensory Processing Disorder (SPD). I am constantly trying to figure out what his needs are because it doesn't seem like he knows them himself. He is undersensitive, or a "seeker," constantly seeking more information by touching things, mouthing them, moving his body, overstuffing his mouth, etc.

He is undersensitive so he has trouble not anticipating sneezing, bowel movements, or vomit. He doesn't feel pain until it is a broken bone. Nor does he feel hunger until he is h-angry.

[]

At home, it is easy to stick to our routines. For years, I anticipated food needs and prepared snacks that were ready to eat whether we were approaching snack time at home or at a playground.

However, when we travel, routines with food are not as easy to maintain. Combine that with the frazzle of travel logistics and I am often faced with h-angry children.

It was when Tigger was six years old and we were on a family vacation that we were able to turn a corner with regard to self-regulation and food.

My son came to me screaming that he was hungry. He was upset and stressed. Old enough to understand that I am separate from him, he was finally able to understand that I did not know that his body needed food. I said, "I did not know you were hungry."

"Well, you should have known," he replied.

"You're used to me anticipating your hunger and having things ready."

"Yeah."

"But I didn't this time. In the future, will you please come to me and say, 'Mama, I'm hungry. Let's make a healthy snack together.'"

"OK!" he smiled. Then together we fetched a plate from my sister's cabinet and prepared a healthy snack.

[]

From that day forward I felt like I had found a new nugget of gold to keep close at hand as a parent:

"Let's do it together."

It seems so simple to say but it isn't. 

The best time I've used this phrase is when something is challenging one of my children (which usually coincides when I'm also running out of patience): I have asked ten times for someone to put on his or her shoes, or pick up some toys, or clear the table, or get dressed, or do the copywork, or fill the water bottles, or ..., or..., or...

When one of my children is dragging their heels, the BEST thing I can do is to help. I take a deep breath, count to ten, tie on my cape, and say, "Let's do it together." 

As soon as I offer help, the task is monumentally easier and everyone wins. The job gets done, and I show my children that I am there to help them when they need help...especially when they don't even know to ask for help.

[]

Asking for help falls under Executive Function. A child will have to have Working Memory to recognize that they are struggling with something; he or she will have to have enough Mental Flexibility to imagine that someone else might be able to help, and then enough Self-Control to pause what they are doing, find someone how might help, and ask.

That seems like a tall order for a young child, made even taller by SPD. If their brains are not processing physical stimuli, then how can they properly assess the situation and their needs, let alone Working Memory, Mental Flexibility and Self-Control?

And as we all know, if someone's needs are not being met, then everything else falls apart. 

The tough thing for a child with SPD or Autism is that they might not know that their needs are not met! That means that when parenting a child with SPD and Autism, one has unique responsibilities. A child with SPD does not have normal signals from his or her body, nor does he or she learn through imitation. Teaching self-care (like cleaning a cut, nourishing tummies, taking a rest) requires special attention, deliberate instruction, and 

"Let's do it together."

 is a simple phrase that helps everyone slow down and work together to do something difficult. 

By working together on the hard stuff, I am able to point out what is hard and bring my son's attention to it, thus teaching him how to identify when he is injured, hungry, tired, or needs to otherwise take care of his physical needs. 

By working together, it makes those difficult situations less so...for everyone. 

And slowly but surely we (yes we) create and maintain a supportive, reliable relationship. 

Photo by Rhendi Rukmana on Unsplash

An Easy Way to Find 100 Things That Make You Happy

The Weight of a Word

Sometimes semantics get me. More often than not "gratitude" feels heavy to me. It feels serious. And as much as I know that it is the "little things" that count, it is easy for me to miss them. The wide eyes and smile of pride from my daughter when she does something hard.

So when I spotted this book at the library, I felt curious. It looked playful and fun and light and, well, happy. I mean the word is right there in the title.

A Happy Book

We sat around the kitchen table for our afternoon snack and read it together:

In the grand tradition of “Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens” comes an uplifting tribute to 100 everyday things worth celebrating. The list, in rhyming couplets, draws directly from a preschool­er’s world—from slippery floors to dinosaurs, from goldfish to a birthday wish. Amy Schwartz weaves a masterful balance between art and text, with each of the 100 items portrayed as its own well-observed and warmly detailed vignette. While the contents provide readers with a frame of reference for the quantity of “100”—a celebratory milestone in preschools and early elementary grades—the oversized pages envelop young children in the wonderful things surrounding them.

It Seems Like So Many...

...but its not. If you just look around at your life you could probably find one thing that makes you happy. It might be a cup of coffee, a piece of chocolate, a sweetly sleeping baby, a clear night for walking around the block, an empty dishwasher...the possibilities are endless.


Reading "100 Things that Make Me Happy" got us all thinking that we should start writing our happinesses down - one per day. (My daughter even asked about our Thanksgiving tradition of doing something like this.) Plus, it is commonly recommended to write gratitude journals. It is supposed to help you be happy. But I always felt the heft of "gratitude" weighing me down.

Simply reframing the word to "happy" made things infinitely easier for me.

The Perfect Happy Journal

To my delight, I found the perfect happy place to record our ideas: 101 Joys Make a Rainbow

Themes

Then I realized that we could write 100 things that make us happy and then read them all on Thanksgiving or Christmas.

But why stop there? Just imagine all the ways you could use "100 Things That Make Me Happy" as inspiration for gifts. Here's just a few ideas to get those creative (and happy) juices flowing:

• 100 Ways You Make Me Happy (to give to a child, a parent, a teacher, a friend)
• 100 Day Countdown to Something Big (holiday, birthday, vacation)
• Baby's First 100 Days

Short and Sweet

One of my favorite things about this project is that it invites my reluctant writer to something feasible. Just like the book is a list of simple things, short phrases, sometimes just a word, his journal can also be short and sweet and to the point.

The Secrets of a Happy Life. Homeschooling or Otherwise

It was spring and the days were getting longer. The sunshine seemed to bring with it healing energy - streaming in through our windows to wake us, inviting us outdoors and then warming us when we stepped into the light.

It had been two months since we disenrolled Tigger from public school and we were beginning to see him come back to his normal self. Over the course of six months he had completely changed from a happy and curious child to outwardly depressed, stressed, and lethargic. His zest for life and learning had been drained away by well-meaning but uninformed, distrustful, and overworked educators.

Back in the caring and self-directed learning environment of our home, he was slowly but steadily rediscovering his love of learning. And there was no more striking evidence of it than the day he picked up a book again.

The springtime sun was setting and we were moving toward bedtime. As I walked up the stairs to join my husband and our five year old daughter, I gazed over the banister. What I saw made my heart jump into my throat. Sitting below me was my son with a book in his lap.

That moment was big. In that moment I realized that he had not picked up a book of his own volition in five months. At once, I felt overjoyed that he was drawn back to books and furious that his love for reading had been poached.

In the weeks and months that followed that special moment, I made some important decisions that have allowed me to focus more on happiness in homeschooling instead of the anger toward the situation of how we got here.

1. Manage Expectations

How are your expectations formed?

Mine are not formed in a vacuum. Opinions from family, friends, doctors, and other professionals have shaped my expectations for what parenthood and childhood should look like. When and how to breastfeed, potty train, sleep train, discipline, educate, travel with, feed, buy pets for, socialize, et cetera, et cetera.

Social media doesn't help matters. Memes about young children doing chores, mothers taking care of themselves, and amazing fathers sometimes make me feel, well, feelings. Depending on which memes I see on any given day or in any given hour can play tricks with my self-esteem. I have thought "I'm doing too much for them!" as much as "I'm not doing enough!" and sometimes both of those thoughts in the same breath. Never mind seeing how amazing my mom friends are who have paying jobs that take them out of the house, children who don't stim and who aren't overexcitable, and self-confidence to boot. Comparing myself to anyone on social media only skews my sense of reality and what are realistic expectations that are right for my family.

My best ally in knowing what is right for my family is, and always has been, my Intuition. She (yes, I'm referring to Intuition as "she") has never been wrong. She has always paid attention, even when I haven't. She knows what is coming, what is happening, and truth in matters before I acknowledge things concretely.

In order to recognize and enjoy the happy moments in the day I have had to dig deep and re-set my expectations for a lot of things.

• I don't expect my son to sit much. He does jumping jacks when he practices spelling. He paces at our homeschool Minecraft group when the children come together to summarize their work at the end of the event. Together, we go on "Walk-and-Talk"s to flesh out his ideas for composition.
• I don't expect to sneak work in during the day. The day goes smoother when I rest during my down time instead of write. (It minimizes the likelihood that I will be interrupted.)
• I don't expect that we will have a breakthrough with my son's self-care. It will be something we work on together and will require a LOT of scaffolding on my part, like this. (As an added bonus, it will fall under "Home Economics.")
• I do expect to have leisurely days.
• I do expect to be flexible, democratic, and meet our needs on a daily basis.
• I do expect to have a routine that works for us all - my need to plan and check things off my list, my son's need to learn what interests him, and my daughter's need to work at her own drawn out pace.
• I expect academic learning to grow organically from our life experiences.
• I do expect some days to be hard for one of us, or all of us, and on those days we can curl up together and watch movies all day, eat ice cream for lunch and pancakes for dinner.

That entire list is formed entirely from my intuition, my knowledge of my family, and not a lick from what society tells me I should or should not be doing. And the reason I know my expectations are reasonable are because I have slowed down and taken the time to pay attention to myself, my children, my husband, and our life together.

2. Slow Down

When I first got married I always had WAY MORE on my to-do list than was reasonable. That, in and of itself, was not a big deal. What was a big deal was when I got upset that I didn't get it all done. My husband, bless his soul, caught on to my "problem" and helped me learn what a reasonable to-do list might look like. It was the first step on a long journey toward a slow life.

What he didn't know (well, maybe he knew), was that for YEARS I lied to him. He would ask me what was on my list of things to do and I would report a reasonable list - one that fit on a post-it note. My secret list, in fact, was much longer - like a scroll that would unravel for miles.

Fast forward several years. I have begun a dedicated Kundalini yoga practice (daily meditations plus once weekly classes with a teacher). I have two children. I want to slow down. I want to let go of my scroll of things to do and simply be. And I have. I do not allow the scroll to distract me, nor do I let myself become frustrated if I don't accomplish what I thought needed doing. I've slowed down and I like it....a lot.

That is not to say that I don't regress. My natural state is buzzing with ideas of things to do - make dinner, do lesson plans, blog, contact that children's book publisher, write science curriculum, start a completely unrelated hat business, and on and on.

But I have slowed down so much of my life that I notice the buzzing when it comes and I can know how important or urgent the buzzing is, set time aside for it, and manage my expectations for it. After all, denying my natural state of compulsive creativity would not be taking care of myself.

3. Self-Care

Homeschooling is not just a marathon, it is an ultramarathon. In order to sustain the role of homeschooling mom, I have had to bring a whole new level of commitment to self-care. This is my list of essentials for self-care:

1. Set realistic expectations for my children. Part of this was to set a routine and know which part of the routine is flexible and which is not.
2. Slow down. Slow down some more.
3. Morning meditation.
4. Evening walk.
5. Daily creative work.
6. Weekend recharge time (yoga, grocery shopping, longer walks, dates with hubby).

Those are the things I need to be (and to remain) patient, kind, flexible, and a good leader.

4. Child-Care

There are several differences between my son's public school experience and the homeschool experience but they can by boiled down to: caring and trust.

I trust that my son will learn. It might not be what schools define as the first grades standards - he might learn third grade math and pre-K social skills. But he will learn and learn in the most authentic way, the only way, learning happens. It will be self-directed and he learns/will learn what he wants to the degree he wants. It is the essence of self-directed education. My biggest job in this sense is to focus on his ability to learn and to express his learning in a way that makes sense for him.

Caring comes quite naturally to people who have the time and inclination to connect and build a relationship with someone else. For some people, nonviolent communication comes naturally (like my sister). For me, I had to learn about nonviolent communication and practice using it.

With Trust and Caring as the basis for how we homeschool, we then can search for and find a rhythm that balances our needs.

5. Recognize Happy Moments

The happy moments are not always overly animated. Here are some things I noticed this week and took the time to enjoy:

• As my daughter walked slowly home from the pool she said, "Rain must take a long time to get down here, flow in the rivers, and get to the ocean."
• After lunch my son cleared his plate without being asked. 
• My daughter colored quietly for an hour in her room.
• My son built LEGO alone in his room for an hour.
• After eating without complaining about the meal, my children ran off together to play.
• My kids left me alone for 15 minutes while I took a cat nap.
• My son said, "My new friend..."
• My daughter asked me, "How can I help?"
• My son thanked me for doing the laundry.
• My daughter wrote her name in cursive.
• My son read all the words on a page of his Minecraft book.
• We had LOTS of fun from splashing in puddles.

It has been a long time of learning about parenting and what works for my family that all these things can happen.

Because I have slowed down, I am able to be present in each of those happy moments and enjoy them....

6. Enjoy Happy Moments 

It has been a stressful year. In fact, in the fall I confessed to a friend that I really wanted to learn how to enjoy my children again. I could see my children in their best moments but I wasn't enjoying those moments. I was always caught up with what had to happen next...go to dance class, swing by the library, meet someone for a play date, gas up the car, cook dinner, baths and bedtime.

I am happy to say that since we disenrolled my son from public school his mental health and, consequently, his behavior has drastically improved. Our family life has improved along with it.

And since I re-committed to self-care, slowing down our lives, and setting reasonable expectations for our family, we are all better cared-for, happy, and dwelling in happiness.

--

For me, there is no single happiest, best, or favorite thing that stands towering above the rest. No holy grail of perfection. Only sitting with our lives as they are and accepting the opportunity and responsibility of teaching and learning with my child.

This was written as part of the GHF Blog Hop. Read more here...

Instead of Chasing

The Nets

Butterfly nets begin popping up everywhere in spring and well-meaning grown-ups buy them for the young children in their lives. (Including me.) It seems to bring idyllic images of our youngsters running gleefully after butterflies as the insects flit and flutter in the summer breeze.

It was summer and time for our annual roadtrip. The first stop was at Mahoney State Campground.  We were welcomed to a site with plenty of shade, an open grassy hill, and views of a small pond across the way. The trees, the pond, and the humidity made it the perfect place to net and study insects.

Oops, We Forgot the Nets!

As dusk arrived, so too did the fireflies. We immediately realized that we had forgotten the nets. How would we catch the fireflies? They were novel creatures - not native to our home state of Colorado - and so appealing to capture and examine.

Chasing

The chasing began. My children ran around following fleeting flickers. I smiled and laughed and exclaimed, “Ooh! I just saw one over there! Now its over there!” At first it was fun to chase without catching anything. (I had the most success but the “release” part of catch and release was frustrating for my young children.)

As their frustration grew, I watched them get increasingly angry.

So I offered a different way of enjoying the magic of fireflies.

Instead of Chasing...

“Instead of chasing the fireflies,” I said, “ why don’t we fly with them?”

As soon as I said it, smiles reemerged. My children flapped the wings, used their flashlights as firefly anatomy, and became fireflies. They flew around the campground; happy to share the space with these seemingly magical creatures.

...Dancing with Fireflies

Such nuance. We were still watching carefully for the flickering lights. We ran after those flickers. But after we slightly re-framed of our purpose, we all took a step toward kindness. Our expectations changed, as did our experience of what it meant to enjoy nature.

Instead of chasing fireflies, we should dance with them.

Among the Fireflies, A Life Lesson

That night after the kids nodded off in the tent, I lay pondering. The idea of dancing with fireflies instead of chasing them felt like a metaphor for some personal growth I was working on. “Instead of chasing…” felt bigger to me than just a mother’s cry to leave the animals alone and stop trying something that was too frustrating. It felt like a shining nugget of wisdom that I could apply to my life.

Instead of chasing my children to catch them at the playground, I would run with them.

Instead of following my children (and the mess they leave behind), I would clean with them.

Instead of chasing their dreams, maybe they will dance toward their dreams...enjoying the journey as much as the destination.

The Trouble with Self-directed Learning

What the Teacher Told Us To Do

I was all smiles when Twinkle came out of her first dance class. She had been begging for ballet lessons for almost a year and finally gotten her wish. She looked at me with her almost-four year old pouty face and said, "I didn't get to do anything I wanted! All we did was what the teacher told us to do."

I stifled a laugh. This, I thought, is the trouble with self-directed learning.

Philosophies of Learning at Odds

Twinkle had been attending preschool at a democratic school for two half-days per week for four months. Outside of school, I draw from the authoritative parenting camp (something I've learned a lot about from Janet Lansbury). So at home and at school, she was accustomed to being heard and having a say in what goes on.

So this type of setting, with this type of philosophy of education (where the adult imparts knowledge), was new for my daughter. It was out of the ordinary for us, if ordinary for mainstream.

Listening

My reply to her was, "It wasn't what you expected?"

"No."

"What did you do that you liked?"

And we went on.

A Living Book

I reminded her of "Tallulah's Tutu" - a book about earning your tutu through commitment and hard work. That was how we reconsidered dance lessons. Twinkle decided that she did, in fact, want to learn ballet, to commit to attending class and performing in the end-of-year recital. Then she would choose if she wanted to continue.

Her Experience of the World

While I watch her as she moves between homeschool, democratic preschool, and mainstream activities (ballet, public kindergarten, etc.), I tell myself that this is her experience of the world.

It is hers to make sense of and to decide how she wants to be part of it.

My job is to provide a safe place to come home to, a home life filled with books, music, and rich conversations about the world...and to lead us into the community with openness and curiosity.


This was written as part of the GHF Blog Hop. Surf over to read more...

Revisiting 2e Issues: The Danger of Ignorance is Broken Children

My 2e Autistic child has suffered injury because of the unique way he moves through the world. Most importantly, the way his giftedness (verbally precocious) fools his caregivers into having unreasonable expectations has resulted in a broken arm and a broken heart (dangerously close to depression). The following stories are my plead to therapists, teachers, and other caregivers to take a step back and consider “bad” behavior by 2e kids as a desperate call for help. Each story is also a cautionary tale to parents.

BROKEN BONE

I cried over the pages of The Out-of-Sync Child. Finally I understood how and why my almost-three year old son was out of sync. He is undersensitive. Signals between his mouth and brain were muted, which explained his affinity for food with textures that were not too hard, nor too soft, but just right. It explained why he was so anxious in noisy places - the sound never got processed correctly. It explained the constant repetitive motion - jumping, spinning, arm flapping - and the ways he earned adrenaline junkie status at age two. It explained why when he fell on concrete and came up bloody he never once shed a tear or sought comfort, instead continuing right on what he had been doing before his faceplant.

Reading that book was the first research in my journey to understanding twice exceptionality. My son’s subsequent diagnoses (Autism, Phonological Disorder) and cognitive assessment (Highly Gifted) pointed us toward occupational therapy and speech therapy. So that is how I took my four year old to Pillar.

We had been going twice a week to Pillar for a year when it happened. Normally my two year old and I would wait in the waiting room while Tigger would do his work. Some people would drop their children off and go run errands but I usually just sat and read books and played finger games with Twinkle. Until the day I didn’t. Twinkle and I ran to the grocery store.

When we got back to the office there were no signs that anything had happened. At the end of the session the therapist walked Tigger out and said, “Tigger fell off the swing today. He wasn’t listening. When he landed he cried and cried and cried but he’s fine.”

Cried? I thought. That's weird. He never cries.

But then I figured that if I had something to worry about that she would have told me. I assumed someone would have told me something. But they didn’t. So I took Tigger and Twinkle home.

Over the course of the day I noticed that Tigger wasn’t using one of his arms. So I asked him to lift a fork for me with that arm and he couldn’t without wincing.

A trip to his doctor revealed a broken arm.

I was livid. I was angry that he had broken his arm in their care. I was disappointed in myself that I hadn’t trusted my gut - that nagging feeling that something wasn’t right when they told me he had cried and cried and cried. Regardless of how I was feeling, I had to spend the rest of the day carting him between doctor offices to get the break diagnosed and treated.

The next day I asked to talk with the owner and the therapists. This is what I was told:

• “He wasn’t listening.”
• “We had followed all the protocols. We are not at fault.”
• “No one has ever gone on record about being hurt here. Yes. There was one other injury but they didn’t file claims.”

Let’s put aside the fact that they were protected legally because they were “following protocol” by putting pads under the swing. That is a conversation for a whole other topic. Let’s just focus on the part: “He wasn’t listening.”

He was four years old.

Four year olds are notorious for listening, following directions, and remaining calm when stimulated with fun rides, right? Wrong. Even typical four year olds have a hard time turning things around.

But twice exceptional autistic four year olds? If they are laughing and “not listening” then they probably aren’t even on this planet. They are higher than high with happiness. If other 2e four year olds are like my son, then you need to stop the ride, get eye-to-eye, and reconnect with them to bring them down from the clouds of glee.

So tell me. If a four year old did not appear to be listening to you, would you allow him or her to swing? Would you assume he was being defiant? Or would you pause and try to connect with that child and make a safer choice?

Now when I leave my son in the care of a ski instructor, karate coach, or anyone, I tell them: “If he doesn’t seem to be listening, then do not assume he is being defiant. Assume he does not hear you. You will have to get eye-to-eye with him to bring his attention back to you and your request.”

No matter if it is someone who has had training with 2e kids, autistic kids, or gifted kids, I still tell them. Because if they just “follow protocol” instead of following my child, then he is likely to be injured again. And I will not give anyone the excuse of not recognizing his “bad” behavior for what it is, nor the out of not knowing what to do.

BROKEN HEART

To the Principal:

We disenrolled Tigger because his health and safety needs were not being met and we were not willing to put them further at risk while we waited even longer for the school to put a plan in place. I am writing now to bring the most salient concerns to your attention without the filter of the IEP team and to ask one question.

The problem easiest to discern is Tigger’s increased eloping. His classroom teacher reported that he was showing up unexpectedly at the SpEd room, at the counselor’s office, and at other teachers’ classrooms. The study written in Pediatrics shows that wandering is a serious issue but an important one for families and schools to attend to. His classroom teacher said that she wrote a Safety Plan but that it wasn’t working. He was still eloping during the school day and leaving the school before dismissal without her permission. You can imagine our concern when we learned this information, especially when we considered how he has been telling us that he “doesn’t deserve to be alive” and that he was going to “walk into traffic.”

His decline in mental health is only slightly harder to coincide with his school attendance. At the start of the year he was known as an energetic, charismatic, and creative young boy. He was intellectually insatiable with a special craving for novel and complex systems (scientific and social). By January he had stopped showing interest in learning, working creatively, or doing karate, and it was noticed by the providers and people who have known him intimately for years.

After the community-building part of the year (the first three weeks), he started begging to stay home from school. Hour-long meltdowns seven days a week lessened to five days a week, then to five minutes per day, but they never stopped. Angry or sad, he requested daily to stay home from school. He started sobbing during our evening prayer claiming “I don’t deserve love.” That was when things first started to unravel at school...the music teacher called very concerned about the holiday performance. Next he confessed to his therapist/yoga instructor “I don’t deserve to be alive.”

The recommendation from the counselor’s Suicide Risk Assessment was to “give him different language” to express himself. She was wrong to assume that Tigger’s vocabulary is insufficient given that he has demonstrated above-average verbal comprehension on the Verbal Comprehension Index and we have been actively and intentionally teaching him skills to identify and name his emotions since he was born. Her response suggested that she could not (or would not) offer me viable or valuable solutions to meet my son’s needs. That evening he threatened to walk into traffic but it had been the last day of fall semester.

Winter break was not without intensities, but in those weeks he never uttered a statement of self-loathing. Two days after attending school in January he stormed toward the exit of our house to walk into traffic again.

His emotional outbursts were not happening just at home any more. I started getting calls, emails, or pick-up assertions that he had had a “bad” day - crying unexpectedly requiring intervention, angry outbursts, increased eloping, required interventions from whomever was available (sometimes the speech therapist, sometimes the counselor, sometimes the classroom teacher). The classroom teacher and others were asking me my advice but not able to implement what works at home for lack of resources. For example, the classroom teacher told me that she tried to give him the sensory breaks he needs but that she cannot because she has an entire class full of children for whom she is responsible. She also said that he performs beautifully academically when he has one-on-one support but that she could not give him one-on-one support he needs, again because of her responsibilities as classroom teacher.

So I requested increased one-on-one support either in the form of pullout or classroom aide. I even reiterated my proposal for a new program that I volunteered to build that would serve more than just Tigger.

At parent-teacher conferences last week everyone asked me what had happened at home that might have caused Tigger’s decline. Believe me, if there was something we would have taken care of it. We have had the same daily and weekly routines for two years. My husband has had the same consistent and fulfilling job. We are screen-free, food-dye-free, and eat good food made from scratch. (Gluten-elimination and casein-elimination yielded no changes.)  No one has come or gone from our lives unexpectedly. His therapists concur with us that his life at school is the source of his anxiety, imminent depression, and suicidal ideations.

Why was my request for the School to meet my son’s needs for more one-on-one support denied?

I have not received an answer that demonstrates ownership of any misunderstanding or wrong-doing. (Duh.) And so I am left to draw conclusions based on piecing together the responses I got over the course of the year and the way I was treated during those answers...as an overbearing hysterical looney of a mother.

The single most telling “data” I have is what the school counselor told my son’s advocate. I had given permission for them to connect to, hopefully, partner to find a solution to his behavior which was becoming increasingly problematic at school and worrisome at home:

“Plenty of kids have it worse than Tigger.”

That is what happens when a twice exceptional child is seen by an uninformed person. That is what happens when the bottom line is academic success instead of mental, emotional, and physical well-being. That is what happens with a well-spoken and seemingly robust child asks for help through tears. The tears are assumed to be a manipulative tool, the sophisticated language an indicator that he is “fine.”

He was not fine. And when I observed a school-wide 500-person assembly, he was the only child I saw stimming in an attempt to self-regulate. He was also the only award-winner who was taking advantage of physical space of a the stage (half of it!) to move his body - bouncing, spinning, flapping his arms, and shaking his head. He had won a reading award but his body was brimming with physical energy and anxiety.

That’s not what they saw. My gut told me:

• The counselor thought Tigger was stupid and certainly not gifted.
• The assistant principal thought I had no right to bring to bear my knowledge about anything regarding education.
• Everyone thought he was manipulating situations.
• The speech and occupational therapists “had their hands tied” and could not provide care despite recognizing the need for it.
• The classroom teacher was in over her head.
• They couldn’t handle my son. Everyone was worn thin by his overexcitabilities, stretched thin because they are always stretched thin in public schools, and would not own the fact that they were failing to keep him safe.
• They wouldn’t ask for help from the district...unless I sued them.

They all heaved a big sigh of relief when I disenrolled my son. He was too much, and so was I.

This was written as part of the GHF Bloghop. Cruise over to their site for more blogs about Issues of Twice Exceptionality.