I saw my difficult child in action this morning

[Gaia]

It was both eye opening and heart breaking. I went with Eric to extra help this morning. He has been going on Wed and Thurs mornings for about 3 weeks now with no change at all. The school psychologist suggested I go with him once, to see if he would do his classwork while I was there.

Well, he didn't. He couldn't. I could see that he wanted to. His hand was shaking and his body temperature went up (I could feel his head was getting hotter). At one point, he looked like he was going to cry but he didn't. He was trying to grab the crayon, but just couldn't get himself to do it. I saw it, he was trying. I wanted to cry myself. Luckily I held it in until I left.

It was eye opening because I saw with my own 2 eyes what he does. He was clearly having anxiety over this and the teacher agrees it is not behavioral, in the fact that he wants to do it, but can't.

Between this meeting and reading the book "The Explosive Child", I am learning so much about Eric. Tomorrow is the meeting with the principal, school psychologist, school counselor, special education coordinator, the teacher, me and my husband, and Eric's social worker will be on the phone. I am not sure what to expect out of that. But I am glad I saw what Eric does in school before that meeting.

 

[SRL]

I'm so sorry, Gaia. I'll bet there's not a parent here on this board who doesn't remember how gut wrenching it is when they see for themselves the differences in their child who isn't functioning well alongside typical peers. Heartache a million times over.

What is very positive here is that the school is jumping right on board here and they are involving you from the get go. At this meeting tomorrow they should all be giving input and asking questions, and then ask you to sign authorization for evaluation. They will request copies of records from other professional diagnosticians who have seen him previously and I suggest you hand deliver those instead of signing for them to request the copies.

At this meeting it wouldn't be unusual for the team to discuss putting in some emergency provisions for him in order to relieve this debilitating anxiety. I don't know what that might look like but sometimes that might be transferring him into a smaller, more supportive classroom, adding an aide, dropping to half days, or starting minimal support services even though the evaluation is in progress. Not all districts will do this before the evaluation or IEP is in place but many will if the child clearly is headed for an IEP, which yours is. If they don't offer, ask them specifically what can be done for him now. Under federal law, districts now have more flexibility than when everything had to be in an IEP or it wasn't happenin'.

I would also encourage you to keep your mind open about overall diagnosis at this time. Obviously anxiety is running the show but there may be a neurological umbrella under which that anxiety falls. Since the team is familiar with the local professionals you might ask about the social worker who assessed him and if it might be good for you also to pursue neurologist and/or neuropsychologist evaluations. Personally with as much trouble as the poor little guy is having, I'd be scheduling both of those.

Good luck with the meeting--let us know how it turns out.