How do you know when your super-smart second grader has reached her limit of doing worksheets at school?
When you get answers like this:
In case you can’t read it, her answer is “My teacher said so.”
Well…she’s not wrong.
Oct 26, 2012
Virus vs Willpower: Virus Wins
October 26, 2012 By
Saying “I hate getting sick” is a ridiculous statement. I don’t know a person who LIKES to be sick. Well, maybe kids trying to get out of an exam, but that’s about it.
Most illnesses I fight off quickly and get back to business. Anything involving vomiting will keep me down for a few days, but other than that? I’m usually able to push past it and keep going. If I’m out for a day, I worry everything will fall down around me, because I’m always juggling so many items so very carefully.
But I’m sick. There’s no denying it. Two weeks ago I felt the start of a cold and beat it into submission with vitamins, sleep and spicy foods. That weekend the cold vanished and I gave a sigh of relief that it wasn’t going to get in my way.
Then last Tuesday, while on an Ohio Dairy Adventure trip (more on that later), I started to feel the stuffiness in my nose and a slight sore throat. By Wednesday the congestion had completely overtaken my sinuses. Daaaaaaaaaamn. Still, it was just a cold. Take some decongestants, vitamins and some strong coffee to keep me going and I’d be fine.
By Wednesday night, though, my voice was completely gone. Just a whisper. That’s fine, I’m still feeling OK other than no voice and general cold symptoms. My voice came back over the weekend and the cold seemed to go away. No cold is getting in my way.
But then then cough started. Oh my goodness, this may be the worst cough I’ve ever had. I’m on a steady diet of cough suppressants (including honey) and ibuprofen, but I cough day and night, my head and muscles ache from the coughing, and I’m utterly exhausted. No other symptoms – just a hard, dry cough that won’t stop and leaves me gasping for air at times.
I’m so frustrated because I have no energy or breath to get everything done. It’s maddening to see my to-do list keep growing and not be able to check off items fast enough.
Next week I hope to bet better or at least have more energy, because I have SO much to write about. Cordy’s IEP meeting happened, and as a result big changes have been going on with her at school. And I want to tell you all about what I learned from meeting these gals last week:
Oct 19, 2012
We Might Belong On The Gluten-Free Bandwagon
October 19, 2012 By
Gluten-free seems to be the new big thing in food lately. Some say that switching to a gluten-free diet will cure nearly anything bothering you. While that’s certainly not the case, there is a growing body of evidence that many people might be sensitive to gluten, even if they’re not completely unable to eat it. And for those who truly need to be on a gluten-free diet, the influx of new products in the grocery and restaurants with labeled gluten-free menu items has made it a lot easier for them to find foods that comply with their dietary needs.
I’ve wondered if my family would see any benefit from going gluten-free. I have no digestive problems, but I do have a constant battle with low energy, especially after eating. Aaron, on the other hand, has a long history of stomach aches, cramping, and other digestive problems. But I’ll admit I also feel like gluten-free is the new fad that, while necessary for a small percentage of people, is being adopted by some for no reason other than being trendy.
While at BlogHer in August, Udi’s Gluten Free Foods was there as a sponsor and suggested I try going gluten-free for 14 days to see if there was any benefit to it. I expressed interest, and they sent me a sampler of some of their products to get me started.
I’ll confess: I did the challenge more for Aaron than myself. He’s never talked with his doctor about his digestion issues, and I suspected something in his diet was probably the culprit. If he was willing to try it with me, then maybe we’d have a clue to his stomach issues, or at least be able to cross one potential cause off the list. (Note: we didn’t have the kids go gluten-free. I didn’t feel the need to stress them out with a sudden shift in their diets for such a short period of time.)
We started on October 1 and stayed gluten-free for 14 days. The Udi’s bread, cookies and muffins were great to help with our craving for baked goods, but we didn’t limit ourselves to those items. I found a gluten-free pasta at the grocery made from corn and quinoa that was just as delicious as any wheat-based spaghetti.
It was HARD to go out to eat. Everything had to be carefully scrutinized, ingredients checked, restaurants vetted over the internet before we made a choice, etc. And even then we still ran into problems. We carefully checked before going to a local pizza shop for dinner one night. They advertised their gluten-free pizza crusts – too bad they were all out of gluten-free pizza crusts at the time. I had a salad and some baked gluten-free fries for my dinner that night.
I also found that gluten is in nearly everything. Sauces were a big hidden source of gluten, especially soy sauce. Even some lunch meats have gluten.
But there were also several foods we already were eating that were still safe to eat. My ham sandwiches were fine as long as they were on gluten-free bread. Pirate’s Booty cheese puffs and hard cheeses were still OK. Our Indian dinners we make at home were also naturally gluten-free. Some McDonald’s entree salads were still fine, too. And Nutella? Still gluten free. (Yay!!)
While we did have to be more careful and switch some of our usual products to gluten-free versions of the same food, it wasn’t as hard as I expected it to be. I didn’t feel deprived of any food. And the gluten-free foods tasted really good, too. Udi’s whole grain bread has a lot more flavor and texture than the bread I had been using. The bagels and cookies are also delicious. They were moist and had plenty of flavor, erasing my worries of food that tasted bland or had a hard texture.
At the end of 14 days, it was time to return to gluten. To make it even more of a gamble, it was the same day I was leaving for a three-day trip to Cleveland. I hoped that nothing horrible would happen to me.
The results: I do not appear to have any gluten sensitivity. While I enjoyed the foods, and did notice that I wasn’t quite as foggy-headed after eating, I didn’t notice any significant differences overall.
Aaron, on the other hand, was a different story. Throughout the challenge, he said he didn’t feel all that different. I started to doubt that gluten was a problem for him. But then he went back to his usual diet and, well, Monday was a rough day for his insides. Not to get into too much detail, but he felt pretty lousy from the stomach cramping and intestinal upset. He’s already returned to eating gluten-free to see if it will calm his digestive system down again, and will be seeing his doctor to get more information.
(If he’s willing to call the doctor and talk about this, then I know it must be pretty severe. He hates going to the doctor and hates discussing this topic even more.)
The next step will be deciding if we’ll try going gluten-free with the kids. Mira’s pediatrician has said it would be worth a try since she had a blood test for allergies that resulted in no actual allergies but an elevated IgE level, meaning she was having an inflammatory response to something. And if one or two members of our household are gluten-free, then there’s a good chance most of the food the other members eat will be gluten-free, too, just for ease of food preparation.
I’m not exactly thrilled with the idea of having family members who need to be gluten-free. It is a little more expensive – or a lot more if you buy mostly convenience items – and requires more thought and planning to eat outside of the home. But if it’s needed for the health of my husband and/or my kids, of course I’ll suck it up and do it. At least it’s easier to find products and support for it now.
Big thanks to Udi’s for giving us the push with the 14-day gluten-free challenge! It helped us think more carefully about what we eat and may have even uncovered a clue to Aaron’s health.
Full disclosure: Udi’s sent us product samples and coupons to help start the 14-day gluten-free challenge, but we still supplemented beyond that. And while most beer has gluten, I can happily report that most vodka is gluten-free.
Oct 11, 2012
"Worst Child" and Continuing School Problems
October 11, 2012 By
We have been so lucky thus far in Cordy’s education. When she was diagnosed with autism, we were lucky to have her placed with a special needs preschool teacher who completely understood Cordy, what she needed, and how to bring this child out of her own mind to be with the rest of us. I’d argue that she possibly knew what Cordy needed more than we did.
When it was time to move on, that teacher knew where to send her and called in favors to have Cordy placed at a school on the other side of town where she knew the special needs pre-K teacher there would be the right fit. That teacher also continued nurturing Cordy, and prepared her for the road ahead. She then went to the special needs teacher for the elementary age kids, who quickly realized Cordy’s potential and got her on track for mainstreaming.
Our daughter has been surrounded by school professionals who have clicked with her and recognized her talents, and we’ve continued to be lucky. Last year was her first year of being fully mainstreamed, and first grade was an absolute success for her. I’ve witnessed other parents online fretting and stressed over IEP meetings and school issues, but we generally had no issues and sailed through each IEP meeting, all of us in agreement on what was needed and how well she was progressing.
Second grade, however, seems to be the wrench thrown into the well-oiled machinery.
Cordy had her first ever PEAK experience last week. For a reminder, PEAK is the school’s bad behavior process. It stands for Positive Efforts for Adjustment and Knowledge. Getting sent to PEAK involves missing at least a recess for isolated behavior issues, where the child sits in the PEAK room with a teacher overseeing them, and has to fill out a form addressing what they did wrong and how they will correct it for next time.
Last week she grabbed a boy around the neck while they were playing zombies at recess. She was protecting the other kids from the zombie, and the playing got a little too rough. Fair enough, I thought, she needs to know there are limits and even though she completely freaked out about it, I considered it an OK consequence. I was more excited that she was actually playing with other kids, and not spending her recess wandering around by herself.
Then last week she had another incident. This time she was laying on the ground when it was time to line up at the end of recess. When the principal came over and told her to stand up, she stuck her tongue out at her and ended up in PEAK again for it. Cordy couldn’t really explain why she did it, other than saying she wasn’t herself at that moment and an alien must have taken control of her. I was upset, but considered it a fairly minor offense and wondered if she was just having a hard day and couldn’t express it.
This Tuesday came word of another incident. This time, while standing in line for the pencil sharpener, she poked the girl in front of her in the elbow with her pencil. Well, stabbed really, since it broke the skin. Her second grade teacher was standing right there and couldn’t say if it was an accident or not. Cordy didn’t really know how it happened, either – she admitted she wished the other kids would hurry up so she could sharpen her pencil, but also said she didn’t mean to hurt the other girl. Cordy received PEAK again, only this time she lost her long recess.
I don’t believe she was trying to hurt the other girl. From what I can tell, she was next in line behind this girl, was very focused on sharpening her pencil and possibly distracted by other noise in the class, and then decided it was her turn to sharpen her pencil, missing that there was still an arm belonging to another person in her way. Not seeing the other people around her is very believable to me. Yes, she was careless and deserved a consequence for hurting someone else, but I genuinely don’t believe there was malicious intent in what she did.
That afternoon when I picked the kids up from school, Cordy’s special needs teacher talked with me about the incident and we discussed what could possibly be causing all of these problems to happen all at once. Cordy has never been in trouble at school before now. Her special needs teacher said that she thought Cordy wasn’t getting along well with her second grade teacher and the class style.
(This is going to get long, so can we all agree that special needs teacher will now be SNT moving forward, and second grade teacher will be referred to as T2 to save me some typing?)
Cordy doesn’t like that T2 has a loud voice and says that voice scares her sometimes when she thinks that T2 is yelling. SNT also says that class of kids is more rowdy and loud than the average class. I suggested that maybe we should have Cordy speak with the guidance counselor about ways to help her deal with her anxiety.
As we were leaving Tuesday, we saw T2 further down the hall getting ready to leave. I’m sure T2 saw us as well, but quickly turned and went out the door. “Mommy, can I go say goodbye to T2 and give her a hug?” Cordy asked. I agreed and she ran ahead of me and out the door.
This is my own opinion of what happened, but I’d swear T2 walked faster when she heard Cordy calling out to her. But Cordy did catch up and give her a hug. I was getting closer up the sidewalk, but T2 gently disengaged from Cordy, said something about needing to get home to her own kid, and walked off before I got there. Wouldn’t you want to say something to a parent of a child who is struggling in your class?
When I picked the kids up from school yesterday, SNT asked me to come inside the building. Oh, no. She told me Cordy had PEAK again. This time she called T2 a witch. I don’t want to make excuses for my child, but in this case I think T2 misunderstood. Cordy told me she thought T2 laughed like a witch she heard on TV. In our house, witches are totally cool – especially near Halloween – so I don’t think she was trying to be insulting. I can admit she may not have said it in a way that made that clear, though.
However, Cordy later told me that she was never told why she was sent to PEAK, nor did T2 say anything to her when she called her a witch. No form was filled out like previous times so that we could have a report of what happened, and no one talked to Cordy about what she did wrong or how she should behave in the future. Her teacher just dropped her off in the PEAK classroom on the way out to recess with no explanation. She sat out her recess confused as to what she had done.
My frustration level boiled over at that point, and I started crying in front of the SNT. The ugly cry. I turned away to make sure my two daughters who were playing on the other side of the room didn’t see, but I could no longer hold back the emotion of the last week. For the first time in a long, long time, I am scared for my daughter.
I’m starting to worry this is affecting Cordy’s self-esteem. She likes to please, is very hard on herself when she makes mistakes and may be internalizing that she’s a bad kid. She’s required to sign her PEAK forms, and on the second one she wrote “worst child” under her name. On a class worksheet, she wrote “I am horid.” (misspelled, but points for creative word choice) at the bottom.
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“worst child”
But after talking with SNT yesterday, I think I’m starting to see the issue. SNT describes the class as loud and T2 has a loud voice and sometimes yells over the kids talking. Cordy also has her desk right next to the door, the coat rack and the pencil sharpener: a recipe for sensory disaster. She’s assaulted all day with noise from kids talking, a loud teacher who makes her anxious, and lots of background noise from the hallway, the pencil sharpener and the coat rack. It’s no wonder she’s having trouble keeping it all together. Hell, I’d have trouble dealing with all of that, too.
Cordy is also extremely bored in class, meaning the background sensory input is even more distracting to her because her mind isn’t focused on learning. She needs more challenging instruction and a more peaceful learning experience. A smart kid who is stuck in a boring situation most of the day is being set up for trouble. (Again, shades of my own childhood.)
And while I’m sure T2 is a great teacher and I would never judge her total abilities on her interactions with one child, I think she’s a bad match for Cordy. My gut feeling is that she doesn’t make an effort to accommodate Cordy’s needs, and at this point has written her off. Sent to PEAK for calling her a witch without even asking what she meant or trying to tell Cordy why some might think that’s not a nice thing to call someone? That isn’t helping the child at all.
Also, despite all of these things happening in the last week, there’s been no effort made from T2 to reach out to Aaron and I about it. We’re left learning about it through the SNT, who isn’t present in the room when it happens and is then stuck in the middle. Send a note home, give us a call, send an email…something to let us know you’re concerned about our daughter and want our input on how to make it a better experience.
Add in the devastating news that Cordy’s SNT, who has been a strong advocate for her for over two years now and the one person in the school she feels the safest with, has just been given a promotion and will be leaving the school at the end of this month, and I’m now in full on panic mode over what will happen to our sensitive older child. Who will be there to help her through this, and will the next person understand her as well?
I’ve cried for two days now at the fear that this entire year may be a complete loss for Cordy, even more worried that this could change how she views school permanently and affect her entire future. There’s no explanation for this behavior other than something is happening in the classroom. Her diet is the same, her home life hasn’t changed, and the only change we’ve witnessed at home is more anxiety that seems to be related to school.
But we are lucky again, at least for the moment. Her SNT is still with us through the end of the month, and we’re getting her IEP meeting in place immediately. I’m also asking for Cordy to be transferred to the other second grade teacher’s classroom and the SNT thinks this could be a good idea. She sees him only for reading and science at the moment, but Cordy tells me he has a “quiet, steady voice” and she thinks he teaches more “interesting” things. She would then have him as her primary teacher and only see T2 for limited subjects. (They team-teach.)
When I first asked Cordy what she thought about moving to his class, she gave her standard answer of not wanting anything to change. Even if she’s in a situation she doesn’t like, any change is viewed as worse than the status quo. (So common with autism.) But this morning, she came downstairs and immediately announced that she would be OK with changing classes and that she thinks she would have a better experience in his class. We were stunned that she would be so open to such a big change that quickly.
I’m still not sure what the final resolution of this will be, but I have a new-found admiration for those parents who have to navigate these murky waters on a more regular basis. It’s time for me to read up more on the IEP process and start writing out detailed lists of what Cordy needs in case they no longer continue to match what others think she needs. It’s been so easy until now, and I have a feeling it’ll continue to get harder as she gets older. I’ve failed at keeping myself prepared on how to handle these things, and plan to remedy that so we can be strong advocates for our daughter’s education.
But right now? I’m scared out of my mind.
Oct 4, 2012
Fighting Inner Demons and Zombies
October 4, 2012 By
We’re several weeks into the new school year now, and for the most part it’s gone well. We had bus issues at the beginning, but since they readjusted the pick-up time in the morning, we haven’t had any problems with the kids arriving late to school. We’re still choosing to pick them up from school each day because no solution could be found to shorten the afternoon bus ride to under an hour and a half.
I had originally worried Mira might be challenging for her kindergarten teacher. She’s not only smart, but she’s clever and knows how to manipulate a situation to her favor. But so far everything has been great. She’s already gathered her own gang of friends, she’s progressing quickly with learning to read, and she claims she’s never had to move her name once on the behavior board. (If they get in trouble, they have to move their name to a different spot – the lower you go, the more privileges you lose.)
Cordy’s year has been a little more of a struggle. When the bus was running late and they were helping her deal with the anxiety related to that, she quickly picked up on the concept that if she had anxiety in class, she was taken to the special needs room where she got to swing and relax. So, like most kids would do with this knowledge, she’d fake anxiety to get out of boring class time and go relax.
I realized what she was doing very quickly and collaborated with her teachers to remove this as a reward. Now if she has to go to the special needs class, she loses computer time. With that change, her behavior immediately improved and she remained in class all day for the past few weeks. Other than her complaints that they’re only learning “kindergarten-level” math (can you tell she’s bored?), she’s enjoying school.
This week has been harder, though. I don’t know if it’s the weather change or the full moon earlier in the week, but she took a full step backwards in behavior. Unfocused, hyper, irritable – it’s been a challenging few days for her.
Then yesterday I received a call from the special needs teacher. A group of kids were playing “zombies” at school, and the play got a little rough. Cordy, trying to protect other kids from the zombies, grabbed a boy around the neck and left small scratches on his neck. There’s no way she meant to hurt him – the teacher said all of the kids were playing rough and that’s when they were told to stop.
But because Cordy had hurt another kid, school policy required her to lose her second recess and spend it in their behavior correction class. It’s a classroom with a behavior specialist in the room at all times, who helps kids work through better choices for their actions. Some kids spend most of their day in that room, others (like Cordy) only are there for a recess and hopefully never return.
For a perfectionist like Cordy, the world came to an end. That is where the Bad Kids go, which means she must be a bad kid. Unable to separate out the difference between a bad action and a bad person, she immediately became upset. Her teacher said she was crying in class and couldn’t focus on her schoolwork, so she was taken to the special needs room to calm down.
She told her special needs teacher that she should be “thrown away” or that we should “kill” her because she’s such a bad person. They were shocked at her reaction and didn’t know what to do. My heart ached to hear it, but I wasn’t shocked. Cordy often overreacts like this when she makes a mistake, and we have to walk a very thin line in discussing the problem with her while also protecting her ultra-fragile self-esteem.
No matter how often we tell her that everyone makes mistakes, and we learn from our mistakes so we don’t make them again, she still believes that a mistake means she’s a failure as a human being. Her inner voice – or inner demons, really – convince her that each mistake is THE biggest mistake she could possibly make, and she will never be able to right the wrongs or redeem herself.
Cordy did eventually calm down after her teacher repeated much of the script we use when she overreacts, and she served her sentence of missing second recess. But she was still upset when she came home.
I was fighting back tears the rest of the day. Cordy is our gentle soul who doesn’t understand why anyone would hurt someone on purpose. She internalizes every mistake as a personal failure, with even the smallest error on her part worthy of the most extreme punishment in her mind. It hurts to see her struggle and tear herself down so much. She is a smart, happy, and kind child who likes to please others, but no matter how much I try to show her that and praise her, she only sees her flaws.
Also, at the moment she’s still mostly unaware of what her classmates think of her, but I’m sure that she’ll find out eventually. How long will it be until someone calls her “weird” or a “freak” and it sinks in? How will we handle that? I love this kid with all of my heart, but I know I can’t protect her from the rest of the world forever.
No one prepares you for this part of parenting. What To Expect When Your Kid Navigates The Social World of Elementary School and The Happiest Elementary School Kid On The Block aren’t handed out at baby showers when we’re anxiously preparing to become parents. Add in special needs and autism, and it’s three times as difficult. My heart aches.
(And yes, I’m already starting to worry what’s ahead when puberty sets in and kids get really mean.)
