Jonathan had a really hard time waking up today. I feared the worst day at school. But at 3:45pm, I got an email from his teacher saying that he did so well today that he got a blue ribbon award. I am so puzzled. I cannot find the pattern to his tiredness.
We met with the school's special ed teacher, his kindergarten teacher and the OT. We reviewed the new goals and made certain adjustments. Since he is up for a new IEP in June, they did not make changes to the number of special ed hours that he is supposed to get a month (20 hours a month/1 hour a day), but instead, they focused on activities to help him. One thing that made me happy is that they agreed to do OT type exercises in the morning before the class start to boost him up. 10 minutes of jumping, pressure, etc. I think this will be beneficial. But my concern is that they are not spending enough time a day working with Jonathan. By "they" I mean the special ed teachers. His kindergarten teacher is phenomenal and I really like her. But she is not a special ed teacher and needs their help to guide Jonathan appropriately. I will let that be until I can show to them that their strategy does not work. Only 1 hour a day is not enough to teach him or help him to self-regulate and self-control. He is there from 9am until 4pm daily. 6 out of 7 hours a day, he only gets help from his kindergarten teacher and her assistance. And this is while they teach a classroom of 26 kids. She said that she doesn't mind, but her concern if that he will not do well in 1st grade if he continues with the same behavior. Again, their current strategy is not optimal, but I want to give this new idea a try (2 to 3 weeks) before I make more fuzz about it. This is better than sending him to the Special Ed classroom.
One positive note is that the teacher decided to test Jonathan yesterday based last week's meeting observations to see how much truth there was with the music teacher and PE teacher's claim that although Jonathan seems distracted because he is not looking at the teacher when he/she is giving an instruction, he can actually do everything that was said. We made the same observation. Jonathan seems not to be listening, when in fact he is getting everything that his bod let's him absorb. She tested that yesterday by letting him move around and do his thing while she was reading a book and then questioned him. He was able to answer all the questions. So Jonathan is learning. So the biggest concern becomes the extra prompting that they have to do to get him to start, continue or complete a task as well as his exaggerated tiredness. These two don't happen every day. They happen together and they last an entire day or a several days. The inconsistency is what the kindergartener teacher is concerned about. She knows he can do it, and better than many other kids. During the first trimester, Jonathan's score on the kindergarten test exceeded what he needed to pass kindergarten.
I spent the entire HBOT hour talking to a good friend about Jonathan's situation. I emailed her his blood and urine test results to see if she had suggestions. I need another pair of eyes to give me an outside view. She was great. Gave me really good ideas on certain things I should try. One of the things that we talked about is bringing his liver enzymes values down (stop DMPS and diflucan for a while) before I can do LDM100. So I will not do LDM100 during the spring break as I was planning. I will concentrate the next 2 months on bringing his liver and methylation cycle to a decent level and then try LDM100 during the summer.
It was also nice to talk to A. about concerns on what to do about 1st grade. This topic is driving me crazy: keep him in a large classroom (26 to 28 kids) with 1 hour a day of support or find a private school?. We are both on the same boat. Her son has similar behaviors as Jonathan and is also in kindergarten. So bouncing ideas is very healthy.
He again went to bed by 9pm today. I hope for a good day tomorrow as well.
1 comment:
Hi Alex,
I love your blog and hope you don't think I am trying to tell you what to do. I just want to share my experience. We had our son in public school and had a similar experience as you are having. They were more concerned about the "rote behavior" than the learning and accomplishments. They prompted him CONSTANTLY because they didn't trust him to do it on his own. The thing is, he could do it and would do it in his own way, but that wasn't the way they wanted him to do it. So I found a wonderful small school for children with learning disabilities. My son is very smart and the work is for the most part too easy for him. But the environment is great. It's a slower environment so he can take his time starting - he's able to do the work quickly so he finishes with everyone else - or even before. Since the school work isn't too hard he is able to work on skills that I think are more important - referencing the teacher and children, managing his time and choices, socializing (he actually has time to focus on the other kids here!) - for him it's a much more typical environment than a public school would allow. And he is happy and confident now because the school lets him figure things out for himself in the time he needs. They don't prompt him three times while he's still processing the first. This school allows - and encourages - my son to be a "real" child - it has been a saving grace for us.
I hope you are able to get Jonathan the environment he needs to continue to grow - whether it's in public school or another place. Good for you for pushing for what your son needs. They are hard to find, but sometimes there are alternatives. I wish you the best.
xoxo
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