Diary of a Wimpy Mom

So today on my lunch minute (yup, i am being sarcastic but it has been hectic this week!) I happened upon a new blog.  I was intrigued, as Jenn the blog author asked her readers to dare to dream about the perfect school situation for children of ADHD and FASD.  I can't speak to the latter, as I don't have a formal dx of that for any of my children.  (though I have suspicions that occasionally worry me).  But I can speak to ADHD because I have 2 with that dx. And I realized upon reading her blog entry that I am a wimp.  Because I didn't believe I could dream that perfect school.  I couldn't make myself be Don Quixote and tilt at the windmills of the administration for my kids.  I was afraid that there would not be enough change, fast enough for my eldest.

Part of me still feels I made the right call, pulling him out and homeschooling.  And don't get me wrong, I love homeschooling.  And we were so able to tailor his education to his uniqueness that we didn't even know there was more involved than ADHD till he tried to get out in the work force.  But I digress.

I had a 6th grader who was utterly and completed overwhelmed by the chaos of the lunch room.  I could see why.  I vividly remember arriving at the school for an IEP meeting and truly hearing the sound of the caf outside in the parking lot.  And it wasn't anything unusual. It was just lunch noise.  But to a child who is easily overstimulated it was more than he could take.  It was physically painful to him and he would become wildly out of control.  He would be too distracted to eat, and then consequently his blood suger would drop in an hour or so and things would be even worse in a classroom.  I remember asking if he could eat somewhere else and being told that the teachers needed a break.  OK so they needed a break and that trumped the needs of a child designated as a special needs student.

There was such a catch 22 situation with Chet.  At one point they decided to mainstream him into regular classes because he is very bright.  We had the joy of getting a retired military guy who decided that he was "going to make a man" of my child.  Chet was really tall by 6th grade.  He looked like a young adult.  But he was a child.  And emotionally he was so, so much younger than the 6th grader he was. Let's just say this particular student/teacher match was not made in heaven.

There was the special ed teacher who gave him detention for tapping his pencil during class.  When I pointed out that this was a SPED class for children who had disabilities and that he couldn't physically be totally still, I was told that it still wasn't acceptable. It would cause other kids to do other annoying things and chaos would reign. That is not an exact quote but it is the honest gist.

There were countless missed recess times because of violations of school rules.  It never EVER made sense to me that you would take the one energy burn the hyper kid has and take it away as punishment.  On my worst day, with my worst migraine, I would NEVER ask any of my high energy kids to sit still without first giving them that time to burn some steam.  When I would say that this would just make things worse, I was reminded that schools had rules and we needed to find a way to help Chet follow rules.   My knowledge as a parent had no value. I think in actuality that they were pretty darn sure I was an over indulgent fool who was taking up space.  After all, life would be good once they got me on board with token economies right?

Oh yeah. We did token economies.  And they worked.  For like a week.  I thought for a long time that they failed because Chet doesn't care passionately about most tangible stuff and most experiences.  And he isn't a foodie so treats of that nature were no incentive.  It took years before what I realized was that compliance with the demands of the token economy was so hard that he could really only sustain it with that week of effort.  After that, he just decompensated and fell apart.  But if you asked the school it was my fault, because I didn't find a proper incentive to modify his behavior.

A lot of people question the way homeschoolers will socialize their children.  I used to laugh when people asked that about Chet.  The poor boy had no friends in public school and that was the thing that probably killed me the most.  How do you get to 6th grade and never get invited to one single party.  The only play dates he ever had were ones we orchestrated and by second grade, there were no willing folks who could be lured to spend an hour with us.  Obviously it isn't the schools job in a sense to teach friendship, but it did nothing to create a climate of acceptance where his differences would just be , well uniqueness.  As opposed to coming home from school happy because a kid gave him a nickname.  Friends have nicknames for each other, he told me.  Yup, except his was dipstick.  One of those moments where I just wanted to cry and couldn't because he was standing there.

I will give you that when he was 19 we found out that Chet was more than just a quirky kid with ADHD but that he also had  Aspergers Syndrome.  So the problem was bigger than his impulsiveness and bigger than his hyperactivity.  But truthfully , the educational climate wasn't one of collaborative work to offer a quality educational experience to my child.  It was more about shunting him off to the "behaviors room" at which point, I truly did become a wimpy mom.  Because I put down my sword, waved my white flag, and became a homeschooling parent.