Another day of school refusal

[JJJ]

Tigger refused to get on the bus again today.

When I called the teacher to tell her that he would not be in, she said she wasn't either -- turned out she is at a seminar but she did not tell the kids she would not be there. I'm aggravated at her because she knows her not being there is a big trigger for him and while we are weaning him back into school, we need everything to go well. If he'd have shown up and she would not have been there, it would not have been a good day.

He is working on school work at the table. The good part is he finally admitted what I have known all along is that when something small goes wrong (he was called names yesterday) he blows it up in his mind (today the name-caller is going to hit me). We were able to do some CBT so maybe we made progress??? Guess we'll see tomorrow.

 

[TeDo]

My difficult child has the same issues. He doesn't refuse to go to school but can't handle having a substitute without knowing about it ahead of time. His SpEd teacher has learned this and now meets with difficult child right away in the morning if there is ging to be a sub in a class to discuss the situation and set up a reward for "behaving" with the sub. It should be very interesting next Monday and Tuesday because it will be the SpEd teacher that will be gone. He has been difficult child's "rock" that he checks in with twice a day and works with on Tuesdays. Have you discussed this issue with the SD so they can have a plan when the teacher is not going to be there? Does he have someone at school like my difficult child's SpEd teacher that can work with him on how to handle this?

I'm glad Tigger realizes what is going on to some degree. I hope you are able to use it to your advantage. Good Luck today and I will be thinking of you both.

 

[Jena]

i think it's great you made him do the schoolwork. my difficult child had school refusal issues for years and that was the one thing the therapist always said to me make sure she does the school work and being home isn't overly enjoyable kinda thing.

i know it's not easy.

 

[Shari]

It is so hard for them, anyway, why does anything have to be harder? So defeating.

Was interesting, Temple Grandin said jr high and high school was the absolute worst time of her life. She said in her day, kids called her names and she could run away. She would go ride her horse. Now, they do it with technology, and it never goes away, you can't run away from it. In her mind, the word on a computer screen will always be there, will always be out there to be seen and "heard" and even if she's not hearing it, she still knows its there.

She also said dealing with teenagers is a life skill she could live without. Some kids need to just go from being kids to being adults. Folks on the spectrum are like that.

Don't know how it helps, just random thoughts in my brain. Poor Tigger.

And what was the teacher thinking???

 

[JJJ]

She usually gives me a heads up when she is going to be out, I think she just forgot. She is the best teacher he has ever had so I am not making a big deal about this.

He is having a pretty good day so far...

 

[TeDo]

That's great. Hope it stays that way. You're doing a great job.