Primal Scream

You would think with the Spark of Hope and all that things would be on the upswing. And maybe they are, but I guess no path is without its bumps.

It was one of those mornings. You moms know what I mean. Arguments every second of it. Practically dressing the child to get him out the door. Running back inside for something. Arguing on the way to school.

It shouldn't have been.

I told warned Dylan that I had to be at a meeting at 8:00am and that he had studying to do in the morning. Of course, he didn't think about that at 6:00am when I first turned his light on, but he also didn't think much of it when I finally got him vertical and he started getting dressed.

He did "study" as in read the words on the page, but I doubt strongly he was prepared to read it in class from memory (which he was supposed to).

I warned him again that TV (which wasn't even supposed to be on until he was dressed and had fully studied) had to be off at 7:20am.  At that point, all that should've been left would've been to brush his teeth. In reality, there were shoes to get on, a belt to find, and the teeth to be brushed.

I said I wanted to be out the door by 7:25am at the latest. Of course it was after 7:30am when we finally got out. 

I did harp, I'll admit. Dylan's response was, "Well, you know I'm not the fastest boy on the planet!" which launched a discussion argument over whether that was an excuse or not. (NOT, when you've been warned every step of the way what is coming next and why.)

When he finally got out of the car, I lost it.  Alone, by myself, but I lost it.  Screamed.  And screamed.  And screamed.

When I was in college, "the primal scream" was very popular. They even had primal scream events when everyone went to the green and screamed to release stress.  I thought it was supposed to help, but it just made my throat sore, and may have primed me for more screaming later.

That additional screaming occurred hours later when I realized I had forgotten to give Dylan his meds. I really lost it that time.  Totally broke down. Cried, screamed, yelled, you name it. For at least 30-45 minutes. Fortunately, I had a surprise reprieve from work and could do so. 

The stress - so much stress - has obviously been building up. Dylan's ADHD. Lots of negative stress at work. A less-than-stellar relationship with RockStar. Worries over money, nutrition, weight, my mom, cub scouts, our dog, our roof, you name it.

Now, I'm not a worrier by trademark. But a lot has been going on. Too much and I cannot get a handle on any of it. Or rather I try to get a handle on all of it, and everything suffers.

I don't know what happens next.  I read Tsh's blog letter to her 15-year-old self and I know I am feeling just what she describes toward the end when she more-or-less breaks down in Greece. My only question is:  when do I get the plane ticket to Santorini?!

Seriously, something has to give, but I honestly have no idea what it will be. I'm, gulp, talking to my pastor tomorrow (something I've never done - talk to clergy about a problem and get pastoral care). And I made an appointment to talk to a social worker next week. And I'm "talking" here. I feel like burrowing under my covers for...forever. But I know that is not an option.  I'm just so tired of being responsible for what feel like everything.

If you've read this far, thank you for listing to my rant. When I was screaming and crying I kept yelling, "I have no one to talk to." It was like all this stuff was coming out. Stuff that apparently has been bothering me, under the surface, but has been hidden by all the stuff I do.

No one primal screams anymore.  When I looked it up, I had to hunt for it amid bands with that name. Considering how it turned out, I don't recommend it. When you feel like screaming, please, just stop and get a latté or something. Don't unleash the furies like I did.

A Spark of Hope

I finally met with Dylan's new teacher. He's been back at school for a month already, but two previous meetings had been postponed, first due to the teacher's car trouble then to Isaac. I was initially nervous, but after so many cancellations, I was just happy to have it be over.

I was a little afraid that the language arts teacher would be there.  Every solo meeting I scheduled with Dylan's main teacher last year ended up also being with his language arts teacher.  Even when I asked that it be just her.  It's hard to stake your ground when you always feel outnumbered.

So I entered the classroom unsure, but it was just one.

It was so much more like what I had expected of a teacher meeting. More like what they had been like in third grade.  She really wanted to find out what interests Dylan, what helps him, what makes him tick.  She wanted to know about medications but she agreed that they are not the end all, be all.  

She reported about how she knew he had writing issues, but that she was still encouraging him to write what he could. In fact, she talked about a poem she asked the kids to copy. Dylan was spiraling out over it, but she calmed him down and told him to write half of it; that she would write the other half.  That calmed him down. 

She said his former teacher scoffed that she would have to write everything for him. The way she described the conversation I could hear the other teacher dismissing Dylan, dismissing his abilities and willingness to try. It made me angry that he ever had her, but happy that he has this new teacher who understands that he has issues, but she wants to help him overcome those issues.

In the end, I gave her a packet of information. Some specifically about Dylan. Some about ADHD and executive function deficits. Despite its prevalence, I don't find that the teachers really understand it, so I wanted to be prepared. I didn't want to seem pushy, but I want to advocate and get that information out there. I don't know if she'll read it all, but at least she has it as a resource.

I felt awesome when the meeting was over!  I had a Jazzercise right after and I worked out so hard I was beat the next day. But it felt great.

It felt like hope.

And then there was power

Our task of waiting for Isaac turned into a task of waiting for power once he arrived. The first few days weren’t so bad.  It was still windy and rainy, so the temperatures stayed reasonable. But once Isaac moved completely out of the area, the heat set in.  And the boredom. 
 

I have to admit, I wasn’t always as nice as I should’ve been.

We were fortunate - no blessed - that we bought a generator the morning of the day that Isaac came ashore.  It was noisy and needed gasoline and meant that wires ran all over my house. But it also meant that we could keep our food cold, we had light to read by, some entertainment via DVDs, and moving hot air courtesy of a fan.

I’m never as creative as I think I’ll be in a situation like this.  I always think I’ll come up with games and activities to keep us amused and pass the time.  When it comes, though, I’m just thinking, “Gee, I’m hot” or “Gee, I’m tired” from not sleeping well.

I actually slept pretty well the first couple of nights. Dylan slept with me because the complete and utter lack of lights made him scared. RockStar slept on our futon with the fan. It worked out pretty well except for when the hot box rolled over onto me and shared his sweat.

Today, the power came back on.  It was almost a religious experience.

And so the whirlwind begins!  Mountains of laundry to do. Wires to roll up. Dishes to wash. Beds to strip. Normalcy to get reacquainted with.

We are blessed every single day, but I must admit that so often I ignore it.  I ignore the beauty of electricity, the joy of plans made and accomplished, the freedom to go anywhere and find it fully open, with power and supplies.

This limbo we’ve found ourselves in seems to have refreshed me somewhat. I feel slightly more ready to deal with what comes. Ready to make some changes for myself.  I find it difficult to focus on myself, but having experienced my negative reactions, lumbering through this powerless experience, I can see how if I can make some small changes for myself, it will help my family.

I’m turning the light on.  And trying to see clearly.

(c) Argonne Chronicles 2012

Waiting for Isaac

We were supposed to have a student assistance team meeting today. While I wasn't exactly looking forward to it, I was looking to get it over with. Instead, however, we are home waiting for Isaac. As in Hurricane Isaac.

Having a day home from work and school is not a bad thing. But for any kid it can get pretty confining, especially when everything is closed. For a kid like Dylan, who can be a bit more oppositional, whiney, and less mature than his peers, well, it could be disastrous without a little creativity.

Refrigerator to the rescue!  In advance of the storm (and entirely unrelated), we had to get a new fridge and it was delivered quick and in a hurry before everything shut down. And what comes with a refrigerator? A refrigerator box!

Of course, it is way more than a box. For Dylan, it's a house. There's a window (positioned so that he can view the TV from inside of it) and a large skylight.

About mid-day we did some stretches from a vintage yoga book I found.  That felt good!

Then we made Jello.

We realized after the fact that he wanted to cut shapes in it so we dumped it out onto a cookie sheet. Not very successful, so we may try again tomorrow by making more Jello in a baking pan.

I have very fond memories of making Jello with my grandmother when I was a kid. I have never done it much with Dylan, which makes me feel a little bad, but of course, my grandmother didn't work 40 hours a week.

Finally, we took a walk.  Once the rain and wind comes in earnest, we'll likely be housebound, so we took a pretty adventurous path to a nearby bayou to watch the water churning.  It was good to stretch our legs and get some exercise.

We may head out to the lake in a little bit just to (carefully) see the waves. After that, we'll be officially hunkered down with our new (and outrageously expensive) generator (in the event of a power failure), some wine (for the grownups), and of course, Jello.

Experiencing Isaac.

 (c) 2012 Argonne Chronicles

The Honeymoon is Over

It was nice while it lasted, that calm, hopeful start to a new school year. It only took a week for the honeymoon to end, but I can't say I wasn't tensed up, just waiting for it happen.

It really began yesterday, officially one week into the year. I had scheduled an appointment with our pediatrician for a check up, and so we could discuss restarting meds and switching to something new.

Unfortunately, 98 other people also decided that yesterday was an ideal day for a check up. I get it; I really do. Start of school, immunizations, etc., etc. So I was patient. Dylan was, too, really. But with literally 30 other moms and kids in the first waiting room and the TV playing Disney Channel, he was not terribly successful in completing any homework. Even when we went to the second waiting room (it was so busy that they were handling it in triage fashion), it still was not an environment conducive to homework.

I thought maybe he could get started once we got in the exam room, but lo and behold, the doctor came right in!  We had a lot to discuss and honestly didn't make a decision on medication or rather, decided to postpone the decision for another week.  More than two hours after we first arrived to the practice, we finally left.

After a quick fast food dinner (coupled with multiplication practice), it was off to Cub Scouts for Round Up.  For those who don't know, Round Up is when you, well, "round up" new scouts.  Although current scouts are not expected to attend, Dylan is part of the color guard and was involved in the opening.  We literally raced to get there on time, and it was obvious Dylan was getting tired.  In fact, he had a melt down just before he went on but pulled it all together enough to say the Scout Promise (loudly!) in front of all the new parents and scouts gathered.  I was very proud of him for putting his emotions aside to do that!

The Round Up took another two hours, so it was after 8:00pm before we got home...and homework was still undone. I helped him attack science by sharing reading duties with him and letting him dictate answers to me.

Things began to get dicey when I read in his agenda that he had "not followed directions" in language that day. Apparently, the instructions asked him to underline the nouns, then correct the proper nouns.  Dylan had done that with no problem.  At the end of the page, however, there were new instructions asking him to go back and circle the subject and do something else with the predicate.

He didn't do that second part. Now, I'm not going to say he was right, but I can't disagree that the instructions were a little frustrating, asking him to do one thing, then go back and do something else. He told me, indignantly, that if that's what they wanted, they should have asked him at the beginning of the page!

We have had issues with his language teacher before. She has blatantly disregarded his 504 Accommodations and has been utterly dismissive about his learning deficits. Unfortunately, this is his third year with her and she's gotten no better better time.

He had another page in the same workbook for homework. The first part was similar to the the previous - he had to cross out the italicized proper noun and replace it with a pronoun. Although it was 9:00pm by this time and we were both exhausted from our hectic pace, he went through the problems with minimal complaints. That is, until the last item on the page, which asked him to write something.

As I mentioned in my last post, Dylan has now been officially diagnosed with dysgraphia, which is a written language deficit. Not only is writing physically difficult for him, it's mentally difficult, too. Somehow, there is a block between what's in his head and what comes out onto paper. When he has to write, he completely freezes up.

He needs to work on it. While he'll never become a calligrapher, we all need to physically write things out at some point. That said, 9:15pm at night after a long day is not the time to try to start a task that you are handicapped in. I told him to get ready for bed.

Ideally, he would have gotten up and done the writing this morning, but honestly, we were all still tired.  It was RockStar's day to get him up and going, and we all ran a little behind. It just didn't happen.  I told him to do it over lunchtime, but apparently that also never happened.

To be honest, things began to go south for him even before language class. According to Dylan, his table-mates were not working with him on a group project. I don't know if his exclusion was real or perceived, but it's evident that he became anxious. Very anxious. So anxious, in fact, that he began cutting his shorts with a pair of scissors.

I've since learned that when the teacher discovered what he was doing, she brought him into the hallway to discuss it and he began to cry. I later got a call from her, but because my cell service is terrible, I could only get a little of her message and only understood that she wanted to know if he were on medication.

That would have been bad enough, but language was yet to come. Dylan 'fessed up to the language teacher about not doing the writing part, although he did throw me under the bus by telling the teacher I told him to stop and go to bed. (He never mentioned that I told him to do it at lunch.)

The teacher (if you can call her that) actually told Dylan,"Oh, no!  You are not starting this again. You are too old for this." Keep in mind that this is the same teacher who tried to tell me that accommodations are not something you have for more than a short time. 

Dylan's day ended with him getting sick in aftercare. Stomach sick. I think all of this is working on him and literally making him sick. In fact, it's making me sick, too; sick and tired!

What kind of education are we giving our kids that they are so anxious they cut their shorts and lose their lunch? How can a teacher blame a child for his or her learning disability?

Of course, by the time I learned about what the teacher said to him, it was at the end of the day and it's a Friday, so I can't do anything until Monday. I'm livid with nowhere to go with it (but here).

How do you deal with your child's school? What would your response be to a teacher who really doesn't believe in learning disabilities?

Playing to your Strengths

We finally got the results from the psychoeducational testing Dylan took in June. To say I have been waiting with bated breath doesn't even begin to explain how anxious I was to see these results.

It's not as though I expected something groundbreaking. And, indeed, the results are very much in line with what I expected. But to me, the results give me concrete tools to add to my toolbox. 

Results I can use in understanding Dylan during homework.

Results I can use in looking at his grades.

Results I can use (I hope) in getting more and better services at school.

I know that the last is somewhat of a long shot; that in general schools - public or private - don't usually want to provide services to kids with ADHD. At least, however, it gives me an objective and professional opinion to back up a lot of my own findings.

What did the evaluation show?

For starters, it shows that Dylan has superior perceptual reasoning skills. From what the psychologist said and what I've read, this means he can look at shapes and patterns and really understand them. He can identify shapes even if they turned and twisted. It suggests that he can pick up information from non-verbal sources and use that to complete his understanding of something. Sounds like a good skill set to have for someone who wants to study astronomy!

It also showed that he is challenged in terms of written expression. Again, no surprise here. I have long suspected Dylan of having dysgraphia, based on the extreme challenges he has even writing a simple sentence or paragraph describing his day. He's often reported that his thoughts get lost on the way from his head to his fingers. The psychologist strongly encourages that Dylan become more proficient in keyboarding, something I want to approach school about.

It also showed that he has a very slow processing speed. Anyone who has tried to get Dylan to do anything that isn't immediately entertaining knows this to be true. Although his 504 already provides for extra time on tests and (theoretically) shortened assignments, this will provide further reinforcement for that, especially on those nights when homework would take hours for him to complete.

In general, most other areas were average or within normal limits. There are a few areas to watch and few outliers, like the fact that he has good spelling skills which you typically do not find with dysgraphic kids.

Although I've had the results for about a week, I haven't done anything with them. When I met his teacher, I had just received them and I wanted to digest them. I will prepare a copy for her, along with the letter I've been trying to write to her for weeks now (even before I knew who she was).

I've also left a message for the social worker in the hopes of convening a team meeting. The psychologist recommends a full speech and language evaluation to complement the evaluation of written language, especially since he has developed a lisp in the past year or two that appears to be getting worse rather than better. He began receiving speech therapy last year, but only on the basis of a rudimentary screening. This gives us more information that supports a full evaluation.

I'm relieved. Relieved that nothing contradicted what I thought and relieved that it's behind us and we can move forward with more information. Based on last year's experience, we'll probably still have challenges, but at least there are some new teachers this year and it's a fresh start for everyone.

Hopefully, they will recognize that Dylan desperately wants to do well and he has the capacity to do so; he just needs teachers and administrators to understand his unique learning abilities and to work with his strengths.

You can't get blood from a beehive, but you can get a lot of honey.

(c) Argonne Chronicles, 2012

First Day of School Blues

I don't have a picture of Dylan heading off for the first day of fifth grade.

I didn't even think of it.

That is, until I got on Facebook and saw photo upon photo from other, more excited parents.

I feel sort of guilty, but I think it goes along with my whole feeling about the start of school this year.

At orientation on Tuesday night, another parent said she couldn't wait until Thursday for school to start. I told her I was dreading it.

I really am.

It was a good orientation. His main teacher seems nice and is familiar to us. He will still have one of his same teachers from last year, but we expected that.

I even (finally) have the report from Dylan's psychoeducational testing earlier this summer so if we have any issues that should at least help us to make the case for better services.

But it's so hard to shake off the trauma - yes, trauma - of last year. Last year made me hurt for my child. I got to see firsthand how our pursuit of test scores have left kids who fall outside strict parameters way behind. There was a complete and utter lack of compassion and nurturing. It was never, "Gee, Dylan seems to be having a hard time, let's figure it out." It was more like, "Dylan does not want to try and there's nothing we can do about it."

It will take a while to get over that.

I've been singing the praises of fifth grade to Dylan, hoping he cannot see through my facade. I want him to believe in himself.  I want him to know that I believe in him. And that I am and will be there with him, every step of the way.

So maybe I'll take a photo tomorrow. Document what could be the beginning of a transformative year. Start off on a positive foot and in the process, maybe, set us both up for success.