The principal called me today to say that M was suspended for 1 day for the stealing incident from last week. I kinda freaked. Surprising, isn't it? Sadly, it's not. I called the hubs and told him what was going on and as usual, he is much more prepared to deal with things as they come than I am. Gimme an hour or 2 and I'll stop freaking and start thinking, but he lives this shit every day at work, so he can just spew stuff out like it's air.
So I go to pick M up and I ask to talk to the principal. Ok...if you know me, then you know when I get really stressed or really angry, I cry. Crying seems to bother people, and I hate that. Today it was just stress boiling over the top and out through my eyes in the form of tears. The principal (who I really do love - she's been awesome) looks at me and says "Bless your heart." LOL I stopped crying and explained to her that I've been really stressed about school lately because things seem to be so negative with M. I went on to say that I think we need to change the way we deal with M, both at school and at home - to catch him doing good things instead of always highlighting the bad things. He has started to internalize that shit and feels like he can't do anything right.
She told me that 3rd grade can be a challenge for most kids, but then add on M's issues on top and it can be explosive. Yeah...ya think? I told her, kind of bluntly, that the reality of the situation is that while being in 3rd grade may mean one thing for the majority of kids, for MY kid, we may need to slow the roll and get him on a positive note before we try to transition him to being more of a 3rd grader. We talked about social stories, talking to the counselor to find positive things about himself, "community service" for when he does have inappropriate behavior, not getting to go see a favorite teacher as a consequence for inappropriate behavior....lots of stuff.
I kind of unloaded on her.
On another note, I feel badly for his teacher that she has to deal not only with him and his IEP, but other "different" kids and their quirks. I cannot imagine that she has an easy job, and I really hate to push this issue. But I have to be an advocate for my kids - nobody else is going to do it. And when I see my kid coming home with so-so days fairly consistently, that tells me that the system we have in place isn't working. I need for my kid to come home with good days so that he can feel positive about both himself and school. Being the kind of kid that he is, it's important to foster a pleasant feeling about school in general.
I hope I didn't go too far, but I fear I might have.
1 comment:
I don't think you went too far. I just wrote a story about "not poking a Mama Bear". When it comes to your own child, you can't go too far (in my opinion). I'm sending positivity your way in hopes M gets a little of it too!
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