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OK at school Not OK at home?
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<blockquote data-quote="rlsnights" data-source="post: 408227" data-attributes="member: 7948"><p>An update -</p><p></p><p>I called the school psychiatric first thing Friday am about getting difficult child 2 assessed. I felt like grinding my teeth when I found out the program specialist (district Special Education person) had not even told the school psychiatric about the March 1st meeting let alone that it would be really helpful to have some initial results for that meeting. Fortunately I was able to set up an initial interview with her for next Thursday and she said she had some time that day and the next to do some testing with difficult child 2. She said she would put the March 1st meeting on her calendar and try to have some preliminary results for the team.</p><p></p><p>When I took my daughter to her school, I had a minute with the principal and asked her about the truancy services in our district. She said there really was no one who would come to the house that she knew about. She said she did that herself at her school about once or twice a year and the result was that she rarely had to do it more often since none of the kids wanted the principal standing in their bedroom wanting to know why they weren't at school. <img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite1" alt=":)" title="Smile :)" loading="lazy" data-shortname=":)" /> She asked if I had talked to the Parent Advocate at difficult child 2's school and I said no - didn't know there was such a person.</p><p></p><p>Made a beeline for the Parent Advocate, Mrs. W., when I took difficult child 2 to school. I nearly cried - I finally found someone who seemed to understand my frustrations, didn't think I was the reason my son wasn't going to school and could actually help right NOW.</p><p></p><p>She said she had talked to my son a couple times when he was waiting for me to come pick him up. He was very angry and impatient, way out of proportion in her opinion, certainly much more than the other kids who had been waiting just as long (as in 5 - 10 minutes). She had no problem at all thinking he should be classified as ED. She was right with me when I told her the district wanted me to home school him. She said "Right, if you do that, they get rid of the problem. No way. I wouldn't agree to that either."</p><p></p><p>She asked what the district was offering for a placement and was speechless when I told her the program specialist had no suggestions at all, that as far as she was concerned difficult child 2 was "just an RSP kid" and there was absolutely no reason to think he needed an ED placement.</p><p></p><p>Told her I had insisted on an ED assessment anyway and I'd just scheduled our first appointment with the school psychiatric on Thursday in hopes of having some initial results for the March 1st IEP meeting.</p><p></p><p>In the meantime, I asked if there was anyone who could come to our home and help get him to school. Yes there is!!! First of all, she said she would be happy to make a home visit - just call and let her know he wasn't getting up and she'd see if she was available to come.</p><p></p><p>Second she said "You need Mr. Johnson. No one messes with Mr. Johnson." Woo-hoo. Sounded perfect and I haven't even met the man. Mrs. W said there is a new department at the district that is supposed to be working pro-actively to prevent truancy and drop-outs. That group includes Mr. Johnson and she has sent him out to see boys (she said it's always boys) who aren't coming to school. She said it has worked quite well so far and she sent him an e-mail about difficult child 2 right then.</p><p></p><p>She said she'd talk to the custodian about giving difficult child 2 a job on campus that might give him a reason to get there on time - like putting up or taking down the flags. Have I mentioned that I love this woman?</p><p></p><p>Finally, Mrs. W told me there's a small ED class on that very campus. She thinks it has 10 kids and a male teacher that she says is terrific. A couple of the kids are mainstreamed but most are in a contained classroom. Of course she isn't in control of who gets into that class and didn't know if there was room in it so I'm trying not to get all excited about it.</p><p></p><p>My partner L and I talked about difficult child 2 and the Xbox that afternoon. I had taken it away 2 weeks ago after he raged for 3 hours because I set the family timer on it. L really doesn't like conflict and wanted to give it back to him to avoid another weekend of constant attempts by difficult child 2 to coerce us into giving in to him.</p><p></p><p>I asked her - what would we be doing if he was a "normal" kid who wasn't going to school? We would have taken everything away and told him to get his bu$$ to school if he wanted any of it back. We'd probably give him a bunch of extra chores and we'd demand that he performed well for at least a couple weeks before he got anything back.</p><p></p><p>Since the school people were telling us he's a "normal" kid then I figured that we needed to treat him that way and see what happened.</p><p></p><p>After school difficult child 2 started his usual demands to get his Xbox returned and accompanying rants about how we didn't have the right to take it, etc.</p><p></p><p>We told him we weren't giving it back at this time and asked him when he was planning to get back to school full time. He said he wants to go to school full time, he just can't get up and stay awake. So we said that we thought it might give him some extra motivation if he knew that he'd get some Xbox time once he got back to school full time. I would have loved to offer him some Xbox time if he just went every day on the part time schedule but there are no half measures with him - I know you all know what I'm talking about.</p><p></p><p>He said he would do that next week and we should give him the Xbox now. We said no it doesn't work that way.</p><p></p><p>Predictably he blew up and said he was going to break into our room and get it back if we didn't give it to him NOW. We said no so he went and broke down our bedroom door (broke the door out of the frame cause we have a double deadbolt installed) and found his Xbox and took it. Then he stomped around crying and yelling at us.</p><p></p><p>I quietly went and called the police and asked for help.</p><p></p><p>The cops got here pretty quickly this time - it only took 30 minutes. He had taken off just before they got here and they picked him up on the way into the neighborhood. He was defiant but not so bad that they had to get in his face and we got a really great pair of younger officers who handled the situation really well. They calmly explained to him that our rules were reasonable, that his actions were wrong, that he had to abide by our rules until he moved out and paid his own way and had little sympathy when he tried the "I live with women and they don't understand me." line that he has used successfully with other officers in the past.</p><p></p><p>They tried to reason with him when he told us all he would sell his Xbox and get his own place. He just repeated the same thing over and over about how he would get enough money that way to get a place to live. The officers gave up and left but not before they told us it was clear to them that he wasn't "thinking straight" and was mentally ill. They said they wished they could do more and to please call them again if he got aggressive.</p><p></p><p>Got to run but I'll post more when I get a chance about how things go the rest of the weekend.</p><p></p><p>Patricia</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="rlsnights, post: 408227, member: 7948"] An update - I called the school psychiatric first thing Friday am about getting difficult child 2 assessed. I felt like grinding my teeth when I found out the program specialist (district Special Education person) had not even told the school psychiatric about the March 1st meeting let alone that it would be really helpful to have some initial results for that meeting. Fortunately I was able to set up an initial interview with her for next Thursday and she said she had some time that day and the next to do some testing with difficult child 2. She said she would put the March 1st meeting on her calendar and try to have some preliminary results for the team. When I took my daughter to her school, I had a minute with the principal and asked her about the truancy services in our district. She said there really was no one who would come to the house that she knew about. She said she did that herself at her school about once or twice a year and the result was that she rarely had to do it more often since none of the kids wanted the principal standing in their bedroom wanting to know why they weren't at school. :) She asked if I had talked to the Parent Advocate at difficult child 2's school and I said no - didn't know there was such a person. Made a beeline for the Parent Advocate, Mrs. W., when I took difficult child 2 to school. I nearly cried - I finally found someone who seemed to understand my frustrations, didn't think I was the reason my son wasn't going to school and could actually help right NOW. She said she had talked to my son a couple times when he was waiting for me to come pick him up. He was very angry and impatient, way out of proportion in her opinion, certainly much more than the other kids who had been waiting just as long (as in 5 - 10 minutes). She had no problem at all thinking he should be classified as ED. She was right with me when I told her the district wanted me to home school him. She said "Right, if you do that, they get rid of the problem. No way. I wouldn't agree to that either." She asked what the district was offering for a placement and was speechless when I told her the program specialist had no suggestions at all, that as far as she was concerned difficult child 2 was "just an RSP kid" and there was absolutely no reason to think he needed an ED placement. Told her I had insisted on an ED assessment anyway and I'd just scheduled our first appointment with the school psychiatric on Thursday in hopes of having some initial results for the March 1st IEP meeting. In the meantime, I asked if there was anyone who could come to our home and help get him to school. Yes there is!!! First of all, she said she would be happy to make a home visit - just call and let her know he wasn't getting up and she'd see if she was available to come. Second she said "You need Mr. Johnson. No one messes with Mr. Johnson." Woo-hoo. Sounded perfect and I haven't even met the man. Mrs. W said there is a new department at the district that is supposed to be working pro-actively to prevent truancy and drop-outs. That group includes Mr. Johnson and she has sent him out to see boys (she said it's always boys) who aren't coming to school. She said it has worked quite well so far and she sent him an e-mail about difficult child 2 right then. She said she'd talk to the custodian about giving difficult child 2 a job on campus that might give him a reason to get there on time - like putting up or taking down the flags. Have I mentioned that I love this woman? Finally, Mrs. W told me there's a small ED class on that very campus. She thinks it has 10 kids and a male teacher that she says is terrific. A couple of the kids are mainstreamed but most are in a contained classroom. Of course she isn't in control of who gets into that class and didn't know if there was room in it so I'm trying not to get all excited about it. My partner L and I talked about difficult child 2 and the Xbox that afternoon. I had taken it away 2 weeks ago after he raged for 3 hours because I set the family timer on it. L really doesn't like conflict and wanted to give it back to him to avoid another weekend of constant attempts by difficult child 2 to coerce us into giving in to him. I asked her - what would we be doing if he was a "normal" kid who wasn't going to school? We would have taken everything away and told him to get his bu$$ to school if he wanted any of it back. We'd probably give him a bunch of extra chores and we'd demand that he performed well for at least a couple weeks before he got anything back. Since the school people were telling us he's a "normal" kid then I figured that we needed to treat him that way and see what happened. After school difficult child 2 started his usual demands to get his Xbox returned and accompanying rants about how we didn't have the right to take it, etc. We told him we weren't giving it back at this time and asked him when he was planning to get back to school full time. He said he wants to go to school full time, he just can't get up and stay awake. So we said that we thought it might give him some extra motivation if he knew that he'd get some Xbox time once he got back to school full time. I would have loved to offer him some Xbox time if he just went every day on the part time schedule but there are no half measures with him - I know you all know what I'm talking about. He said he would do that next week and we should give him the Xbox now. We said no it doesn't work that way. Predictably he blew up and said he was going to break into our room and get it back if we didn't give it to him NOW. We said no so he went and broke down our bedroom door (broke the door out of the frame cause we have a double deadbolt installed) and found his Xbox and took it. Then he stomped around crying and yelling at us. I quietly went and called the police and asked for help. The cops got here pretty quickly this time - it only took 30 minutes. He had taken off just before they got here and they picked him up on the way into the neighborhood. He was defiant but not so bad that they had to get in his face and we got a really great pair of younger officers who handled the situation really well. They calmly explained to him that our rules were reasonable, that his actions were wrong, that he had to abide by our rules until he moved out and paid his own way and had little sympathy when he tried the "I live with women and they don't understand me." line that he has used successfully with other officers in the past. They tried to reason with him when he told us all he would sell his Xbox and get his own place. He just repeated the same thing over and over about how he would get enough money that way to get a place to live. The officers gave up and left but not before they told us it was clear to them that he wasn't "thinking straight" and was mentally ill. They said they wished they could do more and to please call them again if he got aggressive. Got to run but I'll post more when I get a chance about how things go the rest of the weekend. Patricia [/QUOTE]
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