Hen23's Journal~Goodbye

[Henrietta23]

How very interesting. There was a big meeting on one of my autistic students today, that I missed because I was home with strep. One of the special ed. teachers emailed me to tell me how it went and to say that the student himself was home sick with strep! I saw him on Friday and he is a very in your face kind of kid. Not much question where I got it!

Sigh, I do not know what to do with my brother. Since my mom broke her wrist on Saturday, Easter dinner has been moved to our house. No problem. Mom will be not able to split the cooking with me, understandably. I made a list of what I intended to make to keep myself sane since I will have little time to cook ahead and church in the morning. I also know there's a good chance DB is not eating pork at this time. I asked him if there was anything he'd like to bring since I'm only making ham as a main course and will not be making bread since two of us can't be eating it. (Mom may very well buy some at the store though....) He will be happy to bring wine he tells me. Well, if he's hungry or thinks he's going to scarf down all the 'taters it's gonna get ugly. I also made it clear that I will only be having GF desserts. No comment, so he'll have to make do with that. He honestly has no clue what goes into making even a simpler holiday meal. He will sleep in and arrive just in time for dinner then sit around belching while my DH and I clean up. At Christmas I had to shut off the Wii because he was yelling at my son! DS was 7, DB was 43. His girlfriend may or may not come. We'll know if she shows up, or doesn't. She may be with her uncle or her sister but we never seem to know for sure until the last minute. Sigh.....

 

[Dace]

Hey Kristen

We chatted a while ago about your plan to start biking....just wondering if you started that yet?

Also what are you doing for breakfast? I am trying to minimize DD's gluten intake, she is bored to tears with yogurt, fruit & granola for breakfast!

 

[Aidenbaby]

Henrietta, I hope you mother is feeling better and I'm sorry to hear that your brother isn't helping out. When we have dinner at my dad's (all of us are grown but have dinner at my dad's once a month or so), whomever didn't help to cook must help clean up. It was started because my parents were tired of doing all the work while us able-bodied kids sat around and did nothing.

 

[Farmfresh]

Hey Kristen

We chatted a while ago about your plan to start biking....just wondering if you started that yet?

Also what are you doing for breakfast? I am trying to minimize DD's gluten intake, she is bored to tears with yogurt, fruit & granola for breakfast!

Hey can I offer a suggestion? I have been eating the Bob's Red Mill "Gluten Free Homemade Wonderful" bread mix. I have been doubling the eggs and adding a bit of sugar to the mix then cooking it in my bread machine. It is a really good loaf.

Now for the answer to "What are you doing for breakfast?". Today I had 2 eggs, bacon and a slice of GF toast! YUM!

 

[Dace]

I haven't ventured into GF replacement products, but I guess I should huh?
Thanks for the tip FF!

Kristin...sorry I misspelled your name

 

[Henrietta23]

Hey guys,
I haven't gotten the bike out yet, but I plan to. Still pretty cold. I have been working out with our Wii Fit. I've lost 16.5 lbs so far. Very encouraged!
DS is another story that I'll get to later..... diet is going well. We're avoiding soy now too.
Breakfast for me is typically eggs and uncured bacon or sausage from our CSA if I have it, smoked salmon or Canadian bacon as well as some fruit, usually berries. DS is eating the same most days but banana instead of berries.
Mom is doing fairly well. She has her hard cast and is coping okay. She is driving and able to work. As for expecting my brother to anything like clean is useless. Just not going to happen. I did hear from his GF that they are bringing salad and GF dressing. Fine. Chopping a bunch of veggies will be one thing I don't have to do and Mom can't! I've made it known that I will not be providing bread. Mom will probably go to the bakery for some. DB has been invited to bring something for the grill should he decide he doesn't want ham. His girl friend did acknowledge that DS's birthday is the day before so that ball won't be dropped. Again.
Hmmm GF is both girl friend and gluten free. Could get confusing!
I will have to try that bread mix for DS.
The latest rant is about DS's teacher, who had been so supportive. Now she is insisting that his diet changes have made his behavior worse instead of better. He is more spacey and difficult to keep focused than ever although he is better able to stay in his own space and keep his hands to himself. She wants him tested for ADHD. This all came out at his parent teacher conference on Wednesday. I've questioned it before but in the past she's always said she just thought he was a busy kid. Now she's changed her mind. Okay, we'll look into it. He has a pediatrician appointment in April. I'm picking up the checklists for her to fill out on Monday. I'm sure she'll fill it out in a way that the doctor will agree with her. We'll see what he suggests. I will not go with meds as our first course of action. He will only be in school two months more at that point. I think her teaching style of giving them worksheet after worksheet to do at their desks all day long is a big part of the problem. DS visited the Catholic school for the day on Tuesday. I called them and asked the 2nd grade teacher if she would share her impressions about how spacey he was and did she need to redirect him a lot. She didn't have any bells and whistles going off. She had to get him back to focus once or twice. She just figured that was him. She did suggest that we go ahead and follow through with talking to the doc. Of course we'll also be talking to the naturopath for her input. She's him squirm through appointments. She agreed with me that one month isn't really enough time to see a total change in his behavior. We're going to be even more careful about keeping him off processed stuff.
He started Little League today. They were in the middle school gym for clinics. I watched him stand in line waiting for his turn, with kids he knew from school and Cub Scouts. He talked with them calmly, didn't get antsy the way some did. He watched the other kids take their turns, knew what to do when it was his turn. No problems when it's something interesting and active. I really think there isn't enough movement in his day to engage his brain!
I could go off on a complete rant about his teacher but I'll refrain. She has dug in her heels that she is right and I am wrong. What shes doesn't seem to realize is that if she's right and he's diagnosed with ADHD I will not medicate this school year, if ever, and I will drive her nuts getting her to change how she deals with him in class. I will not have another meeting with her without an administrator present. If he's diagnosed he will end up with a 504 plan.
We are off the Wolfpack hockey game with the scouts. DS and I are part of the Color Guard for the opening ceremony!!! We aren't part of the group going out on the ice so I have no clue exactly what our role will be. I detest being in any sort of spot light but I was home sick when they pulled names out of a hat and couldn't get out of it. Grrr. Oh well. DS will have fun!

 

[FarmerDenise]

I used to have problems with DD's teachers at times. Many teachers just tend to generalize about kids and gladly try to put them into cookie cutter slots based on their limited knowledge of psychology.
Teachers are also stuck with classrooms filled with more kids than is optimal for teaching them well. So a child who does not fit their ideal and needs extra time one way or the other causes a problem for the teacher, who is already overburdened trying to adequately teach the majority of the students.
DD is super intelligent and easily got bored in class, she was also super shy. Some teachers mistook her lack of participation as lack of intellect instead of boredom or shyness. We had one teacher insist that our daughter couldn't read. I think it was for 1st grade. DD started to read at age 4 and had her own library card before she entered school and participated in the summer reading program before she entered kinder garten!
We finally got the teacher to agree to have DD read to her quietly, not in front of all the kids. We also had to twist that teacher's arm to get her to talk to DD's kindergarten teacher, who obviously knew how well DD read.
You cannot expect a child who reads at a 3rd or 4th grade level to get excited about reading "see Spot run"!!!
I have seen this at different levels with my DD, her friends and with the children of friends. I have noticed that boys tend to act out when faced with boredom and girls tend to zone out, but that is just my general observance. The boys tended to get in trouble more often.
Good luck with your DS. Hope the change in his diet works for him. I wouldn't want to medicate either.

 

[Henrietta23]

You definitely nailed a couple of things going on. I have to say earlier in the year the teacher gave us the impression that she understood DS marches to his own drummer (heck, he IS a drummer!) Not so much now. She was willing to let him be who he was then but now she's expecting him to be like "all" the other little angels. Ha, my mom has subbed in there. There are 25 kids and many are true behavior problems.
While I do think DS is bright, I don't think this is a case like my niece and nephew where he already knows what's being taught. This is a case where what's being taught is boring to him. Not because he knows it all already, but because it just doesn't capture his interest. Ask him to read about an archaeological dig in South America and you've got him. Ask him to read about Lucy's dog getting lost in the park and sorry, not going to intrigue him enough. Granted the school system prescribes the reading program they use but there have to be other ways to interest him at other times. His first grade teacher managed it.
What little boy wants to sit and write about Spring? This was an assignment: "Write a paragraph about Spring. Edit." That's just setting him up to fail! Give him a more specific topic. He felt so overwhelmed it took him 45 minutes to write an opening sentence. So together we came up with 4 things about spring that he loves and he wrote a decent little paragraph. With a little encouragement it took him 20 minutes to write the whole thing, edit it, share it over the phone with his grandmother and feel good about himself. Teacher was out Friday so she hasn't seen it.
What would really help most would be if she could find a way to get him moving while he works. And I think I'm going to insist that she move him back to the group. They work at tables rather than desks. She switches kids around frequently based mostly on behaviors. DS sits at a desk at the back of the room, isolated. I think this is something he requested at first. She let him sit there when he felt he needed space but now it's become permanent. She has tried to put him at a table but claims it doesn't work. I've read enough to see that this classroom is probably not arranged in a way that benefits any kid with ADHD and I'm sure out 25 kids DS is not the only one, medicated or not. Recommendations are to sit the student near the teacher with a few good models around him. She's doing pretty much the opposite. So he sits at the back of the room and gets himself into trouble by playing with stuff. Anything he can find. An eraser, his watch (not allowed to wear it to school anymore) a book from home that he is totally in to (not allowed to bring it to school anymore)
Okay I must go to church now. Breakfast isn't going to cook itself!
Thanks for listening and sharing your experiences. I know I'm not the only who has gone through this which helps a lot!

 

[hwillm1977]

You cannot expect a child who reads at a 3rd or 4th grade level to get excited about reading "see Spot run"!!!

I can remember taking 'Black Beauty' by Anna Sewell to school for my grade 1 reading time. It was the novel, no pictures... my teacher said I couldn't possibly be reading that and made me sit in the hallway alone for lying.

I walked to the office and called my dad crying... I think he was at the school in 20 seconds He tore a rather large strip out of the teacher and I was allowed to read whatever I wanted in class...

I was the same as farmerdenise's DD... painfully shy, quiet... but generally smart. I was supposed to skip to grade 4 after grade 1, but my parents decided against it because of my shyness, being 3 years younger than anyone else would have just made it worse.

 

[Farmfresh]

Do you have any gifted programs in either the current school or the new one? If the boredom element is a factor he might need tested as a "gifted" child.

I had three "gifted" children. Now a qualifier. I DO believe that my kids are very intelligent. I also believe that when you put them, with their stay at home mom, a REAL dad who always challenged them to learn and think, a LIFE full of reading REAL novels (aloud to them at first) and exploring the world using science and math, DEEP meaningful history lessons where hands on was a big factor, long in depth talks about the meaning of life, God and politics - in with "normal" Barney watching, TV and daycare raised, parents too busy to even cook a meal kids - MY kids look like rocket scientists!

It sounds to me like your DS has had a similar experience. All of the time you have spent teaching at home and just paying attention to him has now met with reality. Guess what ... I'd be bored too. :/