Grrrr....

Well if this isn't a frustrating start.

When they make appointments at the OT office, they schedule you in 30 minutes before your appointment time. So this morning we are penciled in at 8:30, but his appointment isn't until 9. I get there just past 8:40 thanks to the school traffic, and what do they tell me? I have to bring him back at 1. They won't see him because we are over 10 minutes late. For an appointment that isn't supposed to start until 9. Bah. Oh well, it's okay really, it just means he gets to stay at home with me today. That is not such a bad thing considering how things are going at school. Which brings me to my next point of frustration.

When we decided to put him into DEAP, we did it based on the information we were given about the program. We didn't have a lot of choices, and at the time DEAP seemed to be the best choice. DEAP is actually Disciplinary Education Alternative Placement. Yeah, you got it, my kindergartener is in the alternative program. Our choices were to do nothing at his current school at the time, and that couldn't work because he was completely disrupting the classroom. We could put him on the 504 plan, but that wouldn't work because all they would do is just keep suspending him from school. We couldn't have him evaluated for the PBS (Positive Behavior Setting) because PBS is for special needs children and the evaluation would take weeks and they would have had to label him "emotionally disturbed" to put him in there. Seriously, I was not going to go there. He may have some things going on but he is most certainly not emotionally disturbed. DEAP was supposed to be a positive thing, set up for the kids to earn points, set up for the child to succeed....even though it is a punative setting, but everyone (including us) thought it would be a good thing for him. No transitioning classes, no major distractions, only a few children, and 3 teachers 1 counselor to work with him.

DEAP has turned into a nightmare for him and us both.

He's been there almost 30 days and not had the first successful day yet.

Whenever I call they tell me that they will have another school district level meeting to determine what else they can do with him - and when I ask what the "what else" is they cannot really tell me. She says, maybe put him on a behavioral plan. Well, to me that is exactly what he has right now. 5 things he has to work on, and his teacher lets me know every single little thing that he does wrong, trust me on that. His paper is outlined every day with an itemized list of his mistakes.

So I tell the counselor yesterday that his OT has said he has the markers for autism, that she feels like DEAP is not what is best for him, and you know what that lady tells me? That he might be borderline but he's not badly autistic. I'm thinking, "what do you know? when did you get your medical degree?" And when I bring up the fact that he has seriously regressed in behavior, the counselor tells me that is common when the kids get into the program because it is a punative program and sometimes the other kids in the room are worse than what your child is, blah blah blah - okay look, Alex is not a new student in there, there is no reason for some of these things to be happening, and I am D.O.N.E.

I feel like we have just been tossed to the side, and that is that. I feel like noone is willing to answer our questions, that noone is willing to help him or us. I don't get phone calls returned, emails returned....and I can really tell that they (being the school) don't want to talk to me, I am a point of frustration for them and so is my son. Whatever happened to the school system actually helping the students it has???

I think parents who get a diagnosis right away, before their child is school age, have it easier than parents like us. He's been in pre-k, but not really long enough to see anything, and all the school wants to do is say he has ADHD and have me give him pills.

Well you know what? It is my RIGHT and my CHOICE to not give him medication that DOES NOT WORK!!! I do not see any benefit to that whatsoever! And if they would actually stop and look at his behavior they would see that it is NOT ADHD! We've already been told that! But their precious psychologist (who cannot even write scripts, I have to get meds from Alex's pediatrician) said Alex does after ONE 45 minute session, so therefore it must be gold right?

Okay.

I think I'm done venting it out.

I know that God is with us, I know that He makes a way. But in all honesty, I wanted to share EVERY aspect of our journey with this, to be true witnesses. This is not easy. It is filled with nights that you cry, days you want to give up, days you get frustrated at all the "professionals", days you get frustrated at your child because you don't understand why, days you feel like a failure as a parent, and days where you truimph!

Continue to pray for our family, it really does help.