In terms of school behaviour?
My son is 10 and just entered the fourth grade. He is having a really good year so far. I mean very, very good. I keep waiting to hear some bad news from the school since I have had other years when I have thought things were going pretty good in the classroom and then I hear about other issues usually by this time into the year. However, he seems to really be happy about school this year (Although he never fought or truly hated school, just everything that bothered him sensory wise and he tended to be mouthy about it and get into trouble at school and then bring it home at the end of the day.).
He is getting his three 5 minute breaks like clockwork. They have them scheduled during transition times, so he won't miss anything. plus, he gets the added bonus of not doing anything stupid with another kid in the hall, which was when most things always seem to happen. The desk and chair touching are still bothering him, but nothing they have taught him he says works and he won't use the desk set up for him by itself, so his solution is just to try and ignore it. I think he is able to do this because of the breaks and he also has asked for break on his own once or twice when he felt tension building he said. Fourth grade offers much more freedom and he seems to be enjoying that a lot. His two teachers this year are very hands on with learning, which he prefers to sitting all day. His Language Arts teacher is rumored to be a great writing teacher. They get an assigned writing page every Monday night and a free write on Wed. nights. She loves his writing and thinks he is so creative. She writes wonderful comments on his writing.
I had a meeting with the teachers on my own two weeks into school to talk about his IEP, etc. and all they could say was that they wish all their students were as enthusiastic as my son. One of his teachers just got her Master's in counseling, but was unable to find a postion for this year, so her method of working anything out with him is just to talk to him about it and I think she only has had to do that once when he rolled his eyes at her and was a bit rude a couple of weeks ago. I haven't even noticed me having to force him to go to his room after school for a break at all. I needed to do this often over the last 2 years because he wouldn't give himelf the break when it was obvious he needed some downtime after school and he would be very difficult some days.
So I have to wonder if this will last? Is this a maturity leap? Is it a phase? Is it that at the moment we have the right supports in place for him to manage on his own pretty good? I like this. It seems too good to be true and I am waiting for some bad news though.
While not a huge concern at this stage, I haven't seen any real strides in executive function though. They have gone to a big binder this year with a folder for every subject and a planner to try and teach them organization skills. So far, he seems to be frequently forgetting to pull out his homework, but he isn't getting penalized for it being turned in the next day sometimes. And it is a good thing that his brother has the same two teachers because he usually forgets to write anything in his planner and has no idea what the subject is for the assigned writing topic on Mondays, so his brother has to tell him. I do the Thursday folders for his homeroom, so I am the one who puts the graded work in the folders. It looks like there are several math and social studies type of workpages that is ongoing and kids turn in at different times because I never seem to have everyone's work on the same paper at the same time, unless it is a spelling test. I hope he is getting it all turned in eventually. He has a lot of papers in his binder/folders and I go through them and ask him what they are and what he is to do with them. He says he is still working on them. His twin has some of the same stuff too, so I know it is true, I just don't know if he is able to stay on top of it all. I will probably need to address some supports for these things with the teachers as I don't think they are noticing. Any ideas for what to ask for in this area would be helpful too.
28 Sep 2011, 8:20 am
