GRRR (just a vent)

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This is one of the irritations of having a mainstreamed kid. I don't mean to be insensitive toward people who would love to have their kid mainstreamed. The only real reason I am bringing it up at all is because most people would not even understand what is wrong with this.

From my 8 y/o daughter's report card "X loves sharing her thoughts and ideas with adults. She is such a kind, sweet girl and is well liked, but it seems she would rather work independently than with her classmates. I would like X to branch out and make some friends this year."

Ummm...she's autistic.

That's the first thing.

The second thing is that in her opinion, she has friends.

Can't we just be happy that she gets along with her classmates when she needs to interact with them? Can't we just be happy that she feels comfortable with her level of friendships?

I wish I didn't understand exactly.

This also reminds me of the aide who said, in surprise and distress: "He gets really upset! He was pounding his head against the wall! I don't think I've ever seen a child do that before."

Well, yeah. You drove him over the edge and did not give him the space to recover agreed on in the IEP, and now you are shocked to find out that he can really blow.

Later the same guy said " He gets REALLY angry! He used profanities and I don't think he was even aware of it. He was just.. kind of.. gone!"

So it seems they have a specialist who is assigned to work with autistic kids who has no understanding of meltdowns.

Fabulous!

I had the conversation you describe with his teachers back in 3rd grade.

When I said that it was unreasonable to expect him to work well in class with kids who spat at him and punched him in the schoolyard, they looked at me like I was crazy. "but all the other kids work well in teams! Don't you want him to?"

Last edited by Adamantium on 11 Dec 2013, 5:59 am, edited 1 time in total.

This is really typical, unfortunately.

When my son was in 1st grade, his teacher told me at one point, "I just wish he was not so self-centered." As anyone on here who has read my posts know, I am not very good at/don't always see the point in editing myself so I responded. "Well, he is autistic, (which she darn well knew as she was in the IEP meetings) and autistic has 'auto' as a prefix, which means 'self.'" She just nodded, and looked at me, b/c you know, what could she really say.

That was an awesome answer!

I feel that the more "typical" she looks, the more she is held to "typical" standards. Which means people see her as falling short instead of seeing what she has overcome. I just wish they would see her as a kid who has "overcome so much" instead of a kid who is "not quite there yet." It makes me miss the school where she went to pre-k for 2 years, and then kinder and part of 1st. In that school, all of the staff were amazed with her, because they knew her when she could hardly communicate and when she would run down the hallway screeching if the wrong food was on her plate. Now all people see is the kid who is bright and sweet, but "just doesn't get some things."

Which makes me realize something...when she was viewed as a special needs student, people really cued into her strengths and improvements, no matter how small. Sure, they saw her difficulties, but it seemed that people were more willing to note and celebrate the things she was able to do. But now that she is viewed as a typical student, I feel that people focus on her weaknesses and difficulties. Any strength or positive trait seems to be followed by a "but" that describes some kind of weakness that cancels out the strength. Kind of makes me sad for typical kids everywhere who are not superstars. Does that mean that when people look at them, they only focus on where they do not measure up? No wonder why so many kids have self-esteem issues and anxiety.

InThisTogether,

I think that is true. The special ed scale is such that any little thing is looked on as great progress, and great progress is understood as truly amazing. Part of it is lower expectations and the other is that the school has more of the burden b/c the child is impaired. When your kid is being compared to "regular kids" especially when the teacher is not knowlegeable, then you have a mainstream standard to contend with unless you have an unusually understanding teacher,

As far as regular, but not outstanding kids, it depends on how "pushy" the teacher is. Some will pick out weaknesses to work on, and some won't. The ones that have to point out "something" feel it is important that the child work on improvement, I think.

I hear you.

Both in my memories of my own education (I realize now that I "got by" with being odd because I DID have friends-- it was a very snobby town; it still had its odds and ends but we were all very marginalized and therefore had common ground on which to build relationships-- and because I was, for all I learned not to speak, an academic all-star) and in watching DD12 and DS6 navigate the school system...

...it seems like they want EVERY TYPICAL (or for that matter typical-seeming) CHILD to be a "Golden Child."

Saint Alan dealt with this by shrugging his shoulders and refusing to give a crap. His statement on it was, "Everyone has things they're good at, and things they're not so good at. Is she disrupting your class?? Is she a danger to the other children??" When they answered "No," his next line was, "Then why am I talking to you?? I have to be at work in X hours-- I should be in bed right now." He worked midnight shift at that point in time-- in high school, it had to be pretty extreme to motivate the school to call the parents of ANYONE with our last name (all having a reputation for being crack shots with terrible tempers, which Saint Alan didn't deserve-- he wasn't all that fond of firearms ).

I doubt you could do that nowadays-- I know I'm too terrified of being labeled "unconcerned" to try it.

But-- It's out of hand. People are just people, and very few of them are well-rounded AND gifted (ie, very very good at everything). If they were, we wouldn't need things like "teams" and "delegation" and "technical support." We'd be a nation of John Galts and Harrison Bergerons...

...and we'd be up s**t Creek, at least economically speaking.

Well said. My kid is like that too and I really struggle with the inclusion model. I love that he's in a a "regular" classroom and that we expect him to learn the same material, but as he gets older his differences become more and more apparent. The kids see him as different and don't really socialize with him. Or they pick on him. Also, the work is getting harder and he struggles against it rather than trying to learn. He does so much better with positive reinforcement, but then don't we all?

Spectrummom,

Yeah,

It is too hard for them to figure out a way to handle kids that are capable (or even excel) in academic work but have other special needs and or splintered academic skills.

School is designed to be a student factory. Special Ed is not truly customized and if your kid cannot handle a mainstream class, good luck getting decent academic content. So we feel we have to make this Faustian bargain and try to make the mainstream thing work or doom our kids to not learning any academics or having any real future. Some kids can handle a split of where they get some resource room and some mainstream, but those who can't are not given what they are needed.

*Not too bitter am I?***

.

Yes. Exactly.

I think the new core curriculum standards are improving resource rooms academically. At least I have been very impressed with our local Junior High. It's maybe not for academic super stars, but it's not what I remember from delivering messages to the resource rooms when I was in high school and the few times I substituted a few years ago. What I remember is 8th graders coming in for resource math and spending the hour watching Disney cartoons, or being given worksheets on the level of 1+1 that they completed within 2 minutes, so were obviously way below their level and then allowed to play the rest of the period. What I'm seeing now is pre-Algebra, fractions, and plotting coordinates in resource math and the properties of waves and gravity in resource science for my 8th grader. It may not be totally on par with mainstream 8th grade, but it is definitely not pretend school warehousing any more, and there really is that attitude of focusing on accomplishment instead of focusing on the negative.

DS's school told us there's not much they can do to help him because he doesn't have academic problems.
Then on his report card he got straight A's on tests and straight F's on classwork.
Golly gee, no problem there.

Wow I love when you said that auto is the prefix for self, I'm writing that one down! My son is in mainstream middle school and has made the honor roll for the first time ever ( I'm so proud I had tears of joy when I found out) anyway at his last teachers conference each teacher for each class said in different ways we love how his brain works we love how he sees things, but he needs to work on group work. He does not participate enough and they are all concerned about it.... Ok, his brain is WIRED this way what exactly do they think he or anyone else can do about it? Between three different doctors he's had dxs of ADHD combined type, Aspergers, pdd, anxiety,nervous tic disorder, learning disabilities, and his newer dr is telling me possibly OCD and Tourette's syndrome,which I'm not completely sold on. So for a kid with that many challenges stacked up against him,shouldn't we be ecstatic that he's on the honor roll while in a mainstreamed school instead of nit picking about how quiet he is and he doesn't like group work. That's kinda backwards if you ask me.