I Get It, More Than You Know
For all the things I love about Game Teen's school, there is one thing that has been a bit of an annoyance since pretty much day one: the secretary.
Maybe it's because she is not trained in Special Education, she seems to lack patience with some of the students, mine being one of them. She has several children around the ages of my two, and it seems as if she expects these kids to behave exactly like her offspring.
There's a problem, these are kids who have varying degrees of emotional blindness and are, in many cases, fall well below their chronological age behaviorally. I just have to walk on the campus to see it with my own eyes, to know that my son may keep pace (and even excel) academically, but he behaves like the younger elementary school kids.
With my child, there seems to be a snarky tone, when she is explaining to me incidents that happen, it's more like an older kid tattling "well, he did THIS, and he did THAT and well, that's just unacceptable and I can't deal with this and you need to come get him RIGHT. NOW! "
What she doesn't realize is 1. I live with him, and well, the behavior you think I don't know about? I see far more of it than you do, because he does actually *try* to hold things together in school-we aren't afforded that same luxury at home. And 2. By coming to get him when he misbehaves, that sends him a message that if he acts out enough, he'll get to come home and by going home, he won't have to do any work.
We know the precipitate for this: He failed to take his medication yesterday morning and last night, what Ed thought was the night time dose of one medication was actually a morning dose, so the child went to school under medicated. (We remedied the dose situation last night and this morning, but it takes a while for these medications to kick in.)
My concern in all this is the tone she takes with the kids and their parents when telling of the problems. These are kids who take it all in, trying to comprehend this foreign concept of emotion and normal interaction. So, the emotion coming off of her probably should be a little more (okay, a lot more) compassionate. One can be firm and kind, the teachers and directors do a great job of this every day.
It just frustrates me that the school does so much good and this one person? Is not reinforcing the lessons the professionals are working so hard to instill in these students.
Maybe it's because she is not trained in Special Education, she seems to lack patience with some of the students, mine being one of them. She has several children around the ages of my two, and it seems as if she expects these kids to behave exactly like her offspring.
There's a problem, these are kids who have varying degrees of emotional blindness and are, in many cases, fall well below their chronological age behaviorally. I just have to walk on the campus to see it with my own eyes, to know that my son may keep pace (and even excel) academically, but he behaves like the younger elementary school kids.
With my child, there seems to be a snarky tone, when she is explaining to me incidents that happen, it's more like an older kid tattling "well, he did THIS, and he did THAT and well, that's just unacceptable and I can't deal with this and you need to come get him RIGHT. NOW! "
What she doesn't realize is 1. I live with him, and well, the behavior you think I don't know about? I see far more of it than you do, because he does actually *try* to hold things together in school-we aren't afforded that same luxury at home. And 2. By coming to get him when he misbehaves, that sends him a message that if he acts out enough, he'll get to come home and by going home, he won't have to do any work.
We know the precipitate for this: He failed to take his medication yesterday morning and last night, what Ed thought was the night time dose of one medication was actually a morning dose, so the child went to school under medicated. (We remedied the dose situation last night and this morning, but it takes a while for these medications to kick in.)
My concern in all this is the tone she takes with the kids and their parents when telling of the problems. These are kids who take it all in, trying to comprehend this foreign concept of emotion and normal interaction. So, the emotion coming off of her probably should be a little more (okay, a lot more) compassionate. One can be firm and kind, the teachers and directors do a great job of this every day.
It just frustrates me that the school does so much good and this one person? Is not reinforcing the lessons the professionals are working so hard to instill in these students.
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