Dear School Special Needs Class
I have an idea! How about you STOP worrying about which one of your procedures I didn't follow over the summer making life difficult for YOU during the school year with my son and START worrying about the things you are screwing up with my son that I will deal with for the REST of my LIFE!
Are you not supposed to be in the business of helping teach these children how to navigate themselves through the life that THEY are going to have? Or are you instead trying to live in your land of delusions about what YOU think they are going to do? Whose agenda are you trying to fulfill? I know it certainly isn't mine, and by the way my son bangs his head on the car window every time we approach the school and shuts down completely right after school I can pretty much guess it isn't his either.
My son will not have the life that YOU have picked out for him. He will be living here with ME, NOT you for the rest of his life. He will not be attending college, he will not be getting a job or getting married. He will be here.........with ME trying to enjoy some quality of life. Quality of life.........does this mean ANYTHING to you? Is there no where in your superficial little procedures that you can find room to see that quality of life is important for ALL types of life......including mine and my sons.
What you screw up by not following parent recommendations, suggestions, and demands will last forever in my home. This includes the tiniest of things that you deem unimportant. This includes things you would never even pay attention to if not for BEING SPECIFICALLY brought up by the parents already. oh wait! You didn't even pay attention then!
Please think about this while you are enjoying the movie my son and I will never attend, going on the vacation that we will never enjoy, speaking to your kids and BEING SPOKEN TO by your children, and getting a long nights sleep that my son and I will also never enjoy. I know that you don't make a lot of money doing this so it can't be that you're here for that reason, so what is it? To prove what a miracle worker you are and dispel the rumor that parents of special needs children know what they're talking about? Certainly it is not because you were "called" to help the special needs children of the world because if that were the case, you'd be listening to their parents!
I know it gets exhausting, but please keep fighting with the school over this. My brother is 34. He has CP and autism. When I think of all the time that was spent the last several years in school teaching him "job skills" it makes me furious. He is very low functioning. Time could have been spent teaching him to crawl in and out of his wheelchair and bath chair - a skill that would have benefited both of us. Instead he was "taught" to pick something off of his wheelchair tray and drop it on another table - considering how much he hates things being in his bubble of space you can imagine how easy this skill was to teach. But job skills were age appropriate whereas crawling was not. Keep fighting them and good luck!
ReplyDeleteThank you Heather! Great to hear someone with the same perspective. I was beginning to think I was the only one that felt this way. Thanks for helping me spread the word!
DeleteYou are so right! All they worry about at my son's school is that he needs a haircut or he forgot to bring a fruit (which is rare to never). They also think they know more about your child than you do and don't know what effect they have on on him. When he comes home from school he does not shut down, I listen to constant yelling for at least 2 hours until he finally begins to calm down.It's nice to be able to rant with someone who understands. Thanks!
ReplyDeleteLiving very similar lives! Thanks for the post! For a minute there I thought I was the only one that this sort of thing ticks off!
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