It started with the Preschool teacher Mrs. K.
“I think Jesse is having some troubles. He won’t participate in circle time, and he won’t talk to me when I ask him questions.”
I’m thinking…This is Preschool. But I try to be as polite as possible and ask,
“Did you ask him about electrical plugs, stoplights, or trains? Those are his favorite things.”
He knew his colors, he knew a lot of letters, and he was a smart kid who wanted to play by himself, not with other kids. He would play BESIDE them she pointed out. Mrs. K had good intentions, but I knew in the right setting (usually 1-on-1) he did fine. Later, that would prove very troublesome for getting a formal diagnosis because he “passed” many of their tests when presented in a 1-on-1 situation. This is an irony just about every parent of an autistic kid experiences…and he didn’t care that he wasn’t “pleasing” Mrs. K. She was very shocked the day he wouldn’t leave the sandbox after recess was over. She tried the lets-ignore-him-and-he-will-not-want-to-be-alone-when-we-all-go-inside ploy. She watched from the window as he continued playing with the sand without noticing that no other kids or adults were out there with him. I laughed inside – Good Boy, march to the beat of your own drum! She just didn’t understand him.
The first week of Kindergarten there was an extremely strict teacher who made Jesse do a time-out until I could come and pick him up. He had no interest in participating or talking to her (surprise!). Luckily, that was just the first week and the next teacher was much more warm and kind. Jesse still didn’t like to do the worksheets and during the parent-teacher conference, I learned he was often very distracted by the driving lawn mower on campus every Tuesday.
One thing I will never forget – the kids were supposed to sign in each day to practice writing their names. Almost every day Jesse wrote his s’s backward. I had seen him doing it correctly everywhere else except that sign-in sheet. If the teacher or I corrected him, he ignored us. Only he knows what he was thinking!
Our son was just starting kindergarten and was having trouble fitting in — didn’t like to socialize with the other kids and had some behavioral issues. The school called an Intervention Meeting where we were lectured about parenting, and they recommended a resource to help families (parenting classes). Let’s just let that sink in for a minute — still blaming the parents. We did everything they recommended, and we learned that compliance from a child is not predictable. We did learn a lot from some of these resources. At the time we had no money for therapists and had to work with what was available through the county services.
As our son grew, the calls from the school came more often. I don’t know why they thought that calling me would change his behavior. I felt like I was becoming the mean mom, always pressuring him about those dreaded homework worksheets — because I was pressured by the teachers who thought I was a bad parent for not “making” my child do their homework.
We didn’t choose home-school because I was trying to build a business, and I thought the time apart would help him listen to other adults. There was constant feedback/ complaints about his outbursts or stubbornness. They wanted him to act like all the other students (He did it once, why won’t he do it again?). I look back and wonder how things might have been different if we had chosen homeschooling.
His behavior issues never involved hitting or violence (I am so grateful), but there were yelling outbursts. The kids picked on him and he would get mad, and they would get rewarded. Usually, the adults only saw the latter. It was a vicious cycle. We eventually did try medication and it helped with the outbursts until he was old enough, and had enough therapy, that he could handle his anger better.
We could not get a formal diagnosis for a few more years and heard it all from teachers, school admin, counselors: The kid is smart, why doesn’t he do his work, why is he so distracted by other students not following the rules, he doesn’t have any friends………well it turns out, he has Autism. After the diagnosis, it is a label, and I didn’t like that part. It did not change the questions and challenges with school, but it got us on the IEP path, which allowed us to make changes to his schedule and get additional therapies paid for by the school.
