The Mean Reds

The alternative title to this post is: Stay the Course, My Ass

Today was a rotten, horrible, no-good, bad day. We're yet to hear any good news come out of the school. The Kid's been in kindergarten for 9 days, all sad faces, no, he did well. Not even a "he did okay." I'm getting really discouraged, but at least we're getting some work done.

Mrs. Social Worker called this afternoon to tell me that he was hitting again today and at one point had a chair poised above his head threating to throw it but apparently chose not to, because he set it back down. Again, I was told this kind of behavior is going to result in suspension. I asked her, Why put it off? Suspend him now! But what would Suspension do? He's not tested to behave in my house. We've already been through how he doesn't act violently in my home.

She "off the record" agreed with me. In this case, it probably won't do anything, except to reinforce that he can't do those things in school. She paused and added, "But I truly believe he has such an advanced case of ADHD that his impulses control him, and that suspension wouldn't help much." So much for the dance of last Friday, huh?

Suspension is the county protocol for obvious reasons, however. I believe they get two suspensions before expulsion. I asked her, out of curiousity, where he'd be sent if he got expelled. She said he'd likely be put in a school with kids with severe emotional issues. So, like other kids with ADHD, I ask? No, more like kids who've experienced deep and disturbing trauma in their lives, kids with emotional scars and the behavioral flaws that grow from that. Oh, let's NOT suspend him then, alright?

We talked about the happy face chart thing and I told her what Mrs. Ris told me the other day, that if its not working it needs to be tweaked or The Kid is just being set up for failure. I requested a change to the system, and suggested that more criteria be added so he can see when he does something well. This is something that seemed to work well at The Preschool, I added.

Mrs. Social Worker said she talked to The Preschool. The Preschool teachers gave her a laundry list of all of the terrible things The Kid did while he was there, all of the time, every day. He threw things, punched, ran from class, and would make himself throw up. EVERY DAY apparently. Funny, because while he was enrolled the same Preschool told me that he was improving, that things were going well, that I should stay the fucking course with him. Yeah, we had bad days. HORRIBLE days there. But I got daily reports from them. They weren't bad every day. In fact, I remember him having WEEKS of good days.

Then this summer, I heard next to nothing from them. I would pick up The Kid, talk to his teachers every single day, not hear a single bad thing. When I asked The Kid how the day went, he'd tell me, Great! No news is good news, right? He must be really improving. WRONG.

One day in the first or second week of August, while I was traveling for work (which happens rarely, once or twice a year), one of the teachers decided it was her job to finally let the truth out about The Kid's horrible behavior. TO MY SISTER.

When I confronted them about how inappropriate it was to talk to my sister about things they had yet to even talk to me about, they said that he has a lot of issues. OH REALLY? But then I asked, are these daily issues? Is he violent every day? They had no documentation. I asked why, when the channels of communication had been so wide open from August to May, that from June to August again, they had completely closed those channels and I'd heard nothing. Again, they had no documentation of conversations, although they said we'd had a number of conferences. Perhaps they had, but I had not been invited to nor was I present at a single one of them, and well, they had no documentation of those conferences either. There was no communication, and to this day I didn't know whether these behaviors were daily or not.

I feel so betrayed by those people it shoots anger into my eyes and I feel I may well go blind. These people told me to stay the course. That I was doing a good job with him. Okay? I'm not parenting for my self esteem. I want the truth, and I want to help my kid.

STAY THE COURSE? Oh I am raving with anger. Surging with fury. Why would they tell me lies? Why would they tell me NOTHING?

So I'm feeling completely blindsided with The School, when I get daily phone calls about how violent and impulsive The Kid is, and we're 0 for 9 in the good-day tally. It's frustrating but at least I know what's happening.

So, I get right on the horn to push the referral to The Children's Hospital and to get the appointment ASAP, rather than waiting to hear from them, like I had been instructed. This is when I completely lose it. The Children's Hospital has a two month backlog. In two months, The School will have kicked The Kid out and he'll be attending a school for emotionally disturbed children.

I'm back to square one finding a physician to help my son. Thus, the mean reds.