Dear Noah.....trying a new method.......and red zone October 21....

I get tired of fighting everyone it seems within the school system just to try to get you what I want you to have or I think you need to be a success. I have done a lot of thinking about this....and praying about it. I decided to try a different approach.

I am going to try really hard to be ON Team Noah.....a big PART of the TEAM.....and do my best to try to get along with everyone else at the school to do what is right and best for you. There are ways around everything...and slowly a lot of those ways are materializing...slowly things are being corrected or added to your IEP that I expect to be there. We are now going to meet again for another IEP and move forward with a behavioral intervention plan. Academically you are doing well. The staff is more than willing to continue over and over to work with you.

I owe it to you and them to give this a fair trial....I am so used to carrying a hammer around for so long to DEMAND this and that for you....that everyone starts to resemble a nail. That may not really be fair.

SO I am trying to be more OPEN and RECEPTIVE to trying new things for you......offering my insights as well. I am pressing FORWARD with my desires for you within the public classroom setting and will continue to work hard to get you all you need. But fighting to get it is exhausting. It can destroy the TEAM. It can take way instead of adding to your benefits.

We will supplement you academically and socially here at home. This combined with all you get at the school should be a good thing. If things would worsen or change we can cross that bridge when we come to it. I think we all realize you will likely always have behavioral issues you will have to face. The school I believe finally agrees with this and is willing to help you in that area.

I have a new advocate that should be joining us at the IEP meeting.....whose job it is is to help the parents of a special needs child get everything they need to be successful in school. She herself has a disabled child. I think this is the same woman I spoke with 2 years ago when we first moved back to Ohio from Colorado.

SO I have decided NOT to post all the stuff that has been happening recently or what was said at the IEP meeting and after. It just adds too much negativity to the mix and fuel to the fire and does no one...especially you....any good.

Pressing forward one step at a time.......here we go! I really want to try to help EDUCATE the teachers and staff at your school about autism and Asperger syndrome and provide them with some additional information to help them within the classroom and working with you and other children like you. I found a wonderful LINK: Life Journey Through Autism: An Educator’s Guide to Asperger Syndrome here

Life Journey Through Autism

that provides TONS of helpful basic information and more detailed information for parents and family members but more importantly teachers to use within the classroom. To understand children like you Noah....much better. I forwarded the link to the school staff. I can only hope and pray they take the time to read it and search for some helpful information they can apply within their classrooms for you! While I still feel it a REQUIREMENT for all staff to be educated on autism....especially if they are working with autistic children....it is apparently THEIR OPTION at this time...and not something they have to do. This is so wrong. This would be like telling someone to babysit a newborn baby...who knows absolutely nothing about newborn babies. Or babysit a tiger cub.....not knowing anything about them. You get my point.

I love you Noah......the day of grandparent's night by the way you were in the RED ZONE at school. You were horsing around with another student on the carpet during reading.....(moved you to yellow) and you then got upset when a girl was trying to race you cutting pieces of paper into triangles to use in a math game the next day. You did NOT want to race and you are all not supposed to race doing anything in school.....the principal even went around to reinforce this.....you told the girl NOT to race.....she said "Ya wanna race? GO!" and you hit her on the arm. NOW I totally understand SHE also should have been corrected.......and it sounds like the principal DID go and talk with the class about NOT doing such things.

The principal said they are trying to make sure there are not peers trying to purposefully do things to upset you.....so that is good. BUT I think it goes the other way too many times...where you get into trouble because someone was doing something that upset you but the teacher does not correct them. Hopefully this will improve over time and hopefully you can learn to just TUNE OUT more of those types of things....IGNORING them to avoid situations like this.

Today you just wanted to go visit Grandma C. A LONG visit. You did not want to go to school. I told you if you stayed in the green zone and had a good day we would see her right after school. You said maybe green or YELLOW zone? I said preferably the GREEN only zone!

Hopefully your day will be a good one! I thank God for the progress we are making.

LOVE YOU!

Mommy
XOXOX