So I generally pride myself on taking a hands-off approach to my older son's education, only stepping in to have a conversation with school personnel to say "thank you," to ask a question about scheduling, e.g., for orchestra concerts, or if he really leaves me in the dark about something I need to know. Oh yes, there was that one teacher who made flippant remarks to the students about guns, and that led to a call to "headquarters," so to speak.
With my daughter, it's been a mixed bag of hands off, and now and again all hands on deck. We can track the intensity of our involvement to the intensity of her needs/acting out. With Noah, it's just always all hands on deck. Not in a bad way. Frankly, the micromanaging we've done with Noah is the good kind, if you can believe there is such a thing. Since second grade, it's been about working closely with a team of dedicated and caring professionals to help Noah succeed. They have been incredible to/with us, and I hope they've appreciated us as parents.
Middle school is new terrain for us, but in the less than two weeks that Noah's been there, I've had phone and/or email contact with: the principal, the assistant principal, his aide, the special ed. teacher in the science classroom, the guidance counselor, one of his two speech therapists, the school psychologist, and the head of special ed. And we have yet to have open school night!!
I'm a bit overwhelmed by it all, because I have yet to put faces to most of these folks. What's been lovely is that they've generally been the ones to contact us, and that's very encouraging. But it's not entirely clear to me how all the pieces fit together. Partly that's a result of the fragmented nature of middle school; partly it's a result of the fact that Noah's partially mainstreamed.
In spite of all the years of dealing with this, I'm still not used to it. And elementary school is downright quaint compared with middle school. It's smaller, for one thing, and there's only one academic teacher to keep track of. Things break wide open in middle school. And since my child can't really tell me anything about his school experiences, I'm truly dependent on the good will and information I get from a whole group of people I have yet to get to know. Some days, I just feel like I'm too old and tired to keep starting over, but I don't really have any other choice.
Tuesday, September 9, 2008
Monday, September 8, 2008
Tears and Fears
Funny how I wrote this lengthy blog entry only yesterday about Noah's summer, about all the new things he did, and all the triumphs he had. Last night, my sweet, lost little 12 year old boy cried in his bed as I snuggled with him. "What's wrong, Noah?" I asked. "I don't want to go to school." "But why?" His reply, "It's scared." "Noah, is school scary? Why?" And after some effort to draw him out, Noah said, "it's loud." "Noah, why don't you want to go to school? Because?" "It's loud and scary," he finally told me. This through his sniffles and tears, and while hugging his Lambchop puppet.
Do we kid ourselves when he goes to school without fuss, and doesn't seem to raise one while there? Is he working overtime to hold it together for us, and then just can't anymore? I cannot tell you the heartbreak of hearing this child of mine cry. He just seems so lost sometimes, working so hard to fit into our world, and then cracking a bit under all that pressure.
I wish he could tell us more. I wish he didn't seem so vulnerable. I wish I could go with him to school, smoothing over any rough spots, and making all better, like moms are supposed to do. And it's not that caring, effort-filled people aren't looking out for Noah during the day; they're just not mom.
All part of the journey, I suppose, but that doesn't take anything away from the pain and heartache of seeing Noah struggle, of wiping away his tears, of knowing how hard he works and how tired he gets. I cannot make Noah's fears disappear, any more than I can make my own vanish. Perhaps the best I can do is help wipe away the tears and let him know that mommy loves him.
Do we kid ourselves when he goes to school without fuss, and doesn't seem to raise one while there? Is he working overtime to hold it together for us, and then just can't anymore? I cannot tell you the heartbreak of hearing this child of mine cry. He just seems so lost sometimes, working so hard to fit into our world, and then cracking a bit under all that pressure.
I wish he could tell us more. I wish he didn't seem so vulnerable. I wish I could go with him to school, smoothing over any rough spots, and making all better, like moms are supposed to do. And it's not that caring, effort-filled people aren't looking out for Noah during the day; they're just not mom.
All part of the journey, I suppose, but that doesn't take anything away from the pain and heartache of seeing Noah struggle, of wiping away his tears, of knowing how hard he works and how tired he gets. I cannot make Noah's fears disappear, any more than I can make my own vanish. Perhaps the best I can do is help wipe away the tears and let him know that mommy loves him.
Sunday, September 7, 2008
Last Gasp of Summer
Well, summer's not officially over, but once school starts, for all practical purposes, it seems to be. Noah's in middle school now, which I'll get to in a bit, but I can't bear to lose the strands of summer just yet, so let me recap.
Noah split his summer, with mornings in classes at one of our middle schools, and afternoons in the recreation program at one of our high schools. I wasn't sure how Noah would handle three hours of morning classes, but he came through just fine. He took cooking, sculpture and computer art, and I was thrilled when I got notes telling me how much he enjoyed making certain foods, and how many of them he tasted--including chocolate cream pie! The computer teacher seemed so taken with Noah that she made a copy of one of his artworks (a drawing of a computer, actually) to put in her office at school during the year, to cheer her up when she's having a tough day. Those stories mean the world to me. It's Noah spreading his magic yet again.
In the afternoon, Noah swam, did gymnastics now and again, participated in arts and crafts and computers, and generally seemed to do well. But it's when he transitioned to our town's outdoor camp program that he really impressed us. Noah went sailing!! Noah played tennis!! Noah continued to jump off the diving board at the town pool. One of the counselors at this camp commented on the changes in Noah compared with last year. Any parent of an autistic child will tell you that hearing about (positive) progress, especially when the comments are unsolicited, is more than music to our ears. It's what we live for.
We followed camp with a family trip. Noah loves the Berkshires, and off we went for four days. He loves to go walking on the rocks in the brook near the house we stay at. This year, for the first time, we let Noah and Ariel go down by themselves. We could hear them from the porch and see them, up to a point, but they were on their own. It's wonderful to give them that kind of freedom just to be kids.
We even pushed the envelope a bit, taking the kids to an outdoor reading of Shakespearean monologues by a group of teens at Shakespeare & Co. in Lenox. Noah sat fairly well for most of the time, but since it was in a tent, coming and going a bit wasn't an issue. And you could have knocked me over with a feather when Noah last 4.5 hours!! at MassMOCA, where he participated in an art-making scavenger hunt for half the time. And he and Ariel loved a Jenny Holzer installation in a giant, dark, hangar-like space which had words projected on the walls and gigantic beanbags on the floor. Len's always apprehensive when we try things like this, but my feeling is that we've got nothing to lose. Either they'll work well, or they won't.
Niagra Falls and Toronto were fine too. The highlight there for me was watching Ariel take Noah under her wing in swimming, trying to teach him stroking and kicking. Not sure how successful she was with that, but he was a willing student. Best part of all was watching them hold hands and jump into the hotel pool together. Sheer joy!
Noah split his summer, with mornings in classes at one of our middle schools, and afternoons in the recreation program at one of our high schools. I wasn't sure how Noah would handle three hours of morning classes, but he came through just fine. He took cooking, sculpture and computer art, and I was thrilled when I got notes telling me how much he enjoyed making certain foods, and how many of them he tasted--including chocolate cream pie! The computer teacher seemed so taken with Noah that she made a copy of one of his artworks (a drawing of a computer, actually) to put in her office at school during the year, to cheer her up when she's having a tough day. Those stories mean the world to me. It's Noah spreading his magic yet again.
In the afternoon, Noah swam, did gymnastics now and again, participated in arts and crafts and computers, and generally seemed to do well. But it's when he transitioned to our town's outdoor camp program that he really impressed us. Noah went sailing!! Noah played tennis!! Noah continued to jump off the diving board at the town pool. One of the counselors at this camp commented on the changes in Noah compared with last year. Any parent of an autistic child will tell you that hearing about (positive) progress, especially when the comments are unsolicited, is more than music to our ears. It's what we live for.
We followed camp with a family trip. Noah loves the Berkshires, and off we went for four days. He loves to go walking on the rocks in the brook near the house we stay at. This year, for the first time, we let Noah and Ariel go down by themselves. We could hear them from the porch and see them, up to a point, but they were on their own. It's wonderful to give them that kind of freedom just to be kids.
We even pushed the envelope a bit, taking the kids to an outdoor reading of Shakespearean monologues by a group of teens at Shakespeare & Co. in Lenox. Noah sat fairly well for most of the time, but since it was in a tent, coming and going a bit wasn't an issue. And you could have knocked me over with a feather when Noah last 4.5 hours!! at MassMOCA, where he participated in an art-making scavenger hunt for half the time. And he and Ariel loved a Jenny Holzer installation in a giant, dark, hangar-like space which had words projected on the walls and gigantic beanbags on the floor. Len's always apprehensive when we try things like this, but my feeling is that we've got nothing to lose. Either they'll work well, or they won't.
Niagra Falls and Toronto were fine too. The highlight there for me was watching Ariel take Noah under her wing in swimming, trying to teach him stroking and kicking. Not sure how successful she was with that, but he was a willing student. Best part of all was watching them hold hands and jump into the hotel pool together. Sheer joy!
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