Marguerite
Active Member
It's been a difficult year so far for difficult child 3, we got his half-yearly report just in (our school years run Jan to Dec) and it is abysmal, which is out of character. He is taking a week to do one week's worth of work for one subject, when he should be doing four times this amount. He will stare at his worksheets and not understand the most basic stuff. I got worried very early in the school year but we have been to and from the doctor trying to sort it out. We finally pushed for an increase in medications two months ago, then we had three weeks' holiday over Easter, and assessment tasks (which he can't do more than one of in a week). Since then we've organised face-to-face lessons (intensive sessions with just difficult child 3 and a teacher) and again, he can't handle more than one subject a day, when last year he could handle two easily and sometimes push through for three. And last year the subjects were much more difficult for him; this year he chose his favourite subjects, it was expected to be an easy year for him. And it's been purgatory.
I finally spat the dummy on Tuesday and emailed the SpEd, warning her I think we need to pull him right out of school, at least for the rest of the year. Wednesday was the school's annual expo fair; it's a treat to go, we had booked in to go, but given that difficult child 3 was struggling to complete an assessment task, losing an entire day just to go in and play was not what I wanted. But I had a friend contact me wanting to come with us, her son probably needs this school when he finishes elementary next year.
So we went. As soon as we arrived, the SpEd was talking to difficult child 3 about dropping his study load back. Meanwhile I spoke to the principal, the year advisor and whichever subject teachers I could find in the crowd. So it turned out to be a good thing we went.
Thursday - difficult child 3 got a small amount of writing done on his task, stuff he should have been able to do in half an hour. Not four days.
Today - he got more done, but still only a third of the task is done. So I feel vindicated in my recommendation to cut his study load right back.
Plans at this stage - cut back his study load to a quarter, and try to find him a job. A cadetship, a traineeship, anything. But as I was talking to his SpEd this morning, I suddenly remembered - there seemed to be a bigger drop-off in his ability towards the end of last year, and that was about the time he was started on citalopram. I checked the leaflet in his pills this morning and bingo, some of the side effects fit. But even if it is this medication, it will still take us time to medication-wash, and he's so far behind in his work that I don't think he can catch up, even on quarter load.
So today, I got emails from school, I got email back from an agency that finds traineeships and mentorships in industry for school leavers with disabilities, especially autism (thank you, school, for telling me about this mob) and I also rang the local disability employment agency (difficult child 1 is registered with them) to let them know that difficult child 3 is now on their books (referred by Centrelink, the Aussie government welfare agency). We changed his appointment to Monday afternoon. Then I rang the pediatrician about the citalopram and we are seeing him right after the disability agency. I have to get a medical certificate from the doctor for school (for an assessment task extension I requested today), plus feed back the outcome of it all, to the school's support staff and his year advisor.
difficult child 3 is starting to come round to dropping his course load back and following through on the employment idea. I think he's finally realising that it's not me pulling him out of school to punish him, it's not even me - the system is spitting him out, basically, to save him from himself. But they are not letting go completely, they want to keep their tenuous grip on him as much as possible. Partly they want him to eventually succeed, and also it is the law - our students can only leave school before completing their HSC (Higher School Certificate - our high school graduation, generally at about age 18) under exceptional circumstances. At his current study rate, difficult child 3 won't graduate until he's 30.
I'm still concerned at the amount of time and energy he is spending on one particular website - it's a site for fans of some aspect of anime, and he seems really obsessed with it, although he is testing the waters creatively with writing and drawing - very new for him. But he is so caught up in it, he has trouble dragging himself away from it during the day. A workplace environment will give him another focus where he can't access the website, and it could help snap him out of obsession. Especially if the medications have been part of the problem.
In one of today's phone calls - his Physics teacher who has been his Science teacher and Roll Call teacher in past years - the teacher commented on how stressed I sounded. I'm normally fairly laid back and calm, I need to be around difficult child 3 to avoid stirring him up. But I haven't been able to sleep properly for worrying over what to do, and why this is happening. After today's phone calls, I feel a lot better and should sleep alright tonight. But next week will be busy.
Meanwhile I've been missing specialist appointments, simply too busy to keep my diary straight. Nothing drastic, I rescheduled one today, I'll see my neurologist on Tuesday when mother in law sees him, so we can drive in together. I also need to see my optometrist, but it's not urgent.
I do feel like I'm fraying around the edges right now, but I feel more confident about things tonight than I did last night.
Any ideas from people - I'm all ears.
Marg
I finally spat the dummy on Tuesday and emailed the SpEd, warning her I think we need to pull him right out of school, at least for the rest of the year. Wednesday was the school's annual expo fair; it's a treat to go, we had booked in to go, but given that difficult child 3 was struggling to complete an assessment task, losing an entire day just to go in and play was not what I wanted. But I had a friend contact me wanting to come with us, her son probably needs this school when he finishes elementary next year.
So we went. As soon as we arrived, the SpEd was talking to difficult child 3 about dropping his study load back. Meanwhile I spoke to the principal, the year advisor and whichever subject teachers I could find in the crowd. So it turned out to be a good thing we went.
Thursday - difficult child 3 got a small amount of writing done on his task, stuff he should have been able to do in half an hour. Not four days.
Today - he got more done, but still only a third of the task is done. So I feel vindicated in my recommendation to cut his study load right back.
Plans at this stage - cut back his study load to a quarter, and try to find him a job. A cadetship, a traineeship, anything. But as I was talking to his SpEd this morning, I suddenly remembered - there seemed to be a bigger drop-off in his ability towards the end of last year, and that was about the time he was started on citalopram. I checked the leaflet in his pills this morning and bingo, some of the side effects fit. But even if it is this medication, it will still take us time to medication-wash, and he's so far behind in his work that I don't think he can catch up, even on quarter load.
So today, I got emails from school, I got email back from an agency that finds traineeships and mentorships in industry for school leavers with disabilities, especially autism (thank you, school, for telling me about this mob) and I also rang the local disability employment agency (difficult child 1 is registered with them) to let them know that difficult child 3 is now on their books (referred by Centrelink, the Aussie government welfare agency). We changed his appointment to Monday afternoon. Then I rang the pediatrician about the citalopram and we are seeing him right after the disability agency. I have to get a medical certificate from the doctor for school (for an assessment task extension I requested today), plus feed back the outcome of it all, to the school's support staff and his year advisor.
difficult child 3 is starting to come round to dropping his course load back and following through on the employment idea. I think he's finally realising that it's not me pulling him out of school to punish him, it's not even me - the system is spitting him out, basically, to save him from himself. But they are not letting go completely, they want to keep their tenuous grip on him as much as possible. Partly they want him to eventually succeed, and also it is the law - our students can only leave school before completing their HSC (Higher School Certificate - our high school graduation, generally at about age 18) under exceptional circumstances. At his current study rate, difficult child 3 won't graduate until he's 30.
I'm still concerned at the amount of time and energy he is spending on one particular website - it's a site for fans of some aspect of anime, and he seems really obsessed with it, although he is testing the waters creatively with writing and drawing - very new for him. But he is so caught up in it, he has trouble dragging himself away from it during the day. A workplace environment will give him another focus where he can't access the website, and it could help snap him out of obsession. Especially if the medications have been part of the problem.
In one of today's phone calls - his Physics teacher who has been his Science teacher and Roll Call teacher in past years - the teacher commented on how stressed I sounded. I'm normally fairly laid back and calm, I need to be around difficult child 3 to avoid stirring him up. But I haven't been able to sleep properly for worrying over what to do, and why this is happening. After today's phone calls, I feel a lot better and should sleep alright tonight. But next week will be busy.
Meanwhile I've been missing specialist appointments, simply too busy to keep my diary straight. Nothing drastic, I rescheduled one today, I'll see my neurologist on Tuesday when mother in law sees him, so we can drive in together. I also need to see my optometrist, but it's not urgent.
I do feel like I'm fraying around the edges right now, but I feel more confident about things tonight than I did last night.
Any ideas from people - I'm all ears.
Marg