Getting ready to go to Ohio...

Michele, Greyson and I are getting ready to go to Ohio to visit family there. That will be nice since we do not get to go up that way much. We will stay for a few days but we know Greyson has about a 3 day limit...well I guess we are all ready to come home after that anyway. He had a good day today and I got to talk with Ms Suzy some this morning about his progress. I worry sometimes about his reading abilities and his comprehension. She made me feel better about things even though I know he is still behind. We do try to offer up reading and encourage it at home but it is hard. The whole thing is discouraging to him but we will always try to do what we can. We went to see Mr Mike and he thinks Greyson is still doing well. Greyson says himself he is doing "10,000%", (his words), better and is feeling good about himself. Mr Mike says the last time he asked that was last year. Greyson rated himself at "0" and said he was bad and dumb. He was the same Aspie boy that he is now....except for feeling like he could do nothing right ever. Nothing has changed except for his school environment so I find it hard to believe that they thought he was the sole problem last year. Sad as far as I am concerned. How do you take a child and allow for their self esteem and self worth to be destroyed in a school where you claim to embrace the individual child, community and diversity? A school where you are supposed to teach children about differences and not to pick on, ridicule, or bully people who are different from yourself.

I know I have to let that go...it's the past and we are in a much better place now but I still have issues with how that ever happened. I wonder whose child will be next? I find it sad, extremely sad. I met Pam for coffee today and she is probably traumatized by me. I get really passionate at times talking about what happened to Greyson last year. As we had coffee and she told me about school I felt like I was reliving some of what happened and having to explain why it makes me crazy. More so now because I just recently found out through his therapy how devastated his self esteem and spirit was after spending almost every day in the office as "the bad boy". Hind site is 20/20 but I am mad I even let it get as far as it did. I have alot of guilt from it as well since I picked what I thought would be the best place for him. And...yes....I know the whole..."Montessori isn't for everybody" Well...here's my thoughts on that. I know Greyson needs a little more structure than his environment last year provided but bottom line is....his original teacher allowed him to become a target that the rest of his class laughed at, told he was wrong, etc...etc... When he would feel cornered, and react inappropriately, he would be removed to calm down. Pardon me but personally I feel that sent a message very early on to him that he was bad, dumb, and unworthy of being cared about there. Had they taken the time to tell the other kids that they shouldn't yell at him when he made a mistake or accidentally knocked something over he probably wouldn't have had the outbursts he had. At some point he became the child they watched and expected to do the wrong thing. They never thought he was capable of anything other than bad things. What a great positive message for a child to learn. I am still paying for therapy for that message to be erased. Thank God, and CCS, we are well on our way. If you wonder why I am on this rampage long after we have moved on, it is because some of the leftover damage crops up every now and again on days like today...therapy day. It causes you to sort of relive some of that pain and frustration all over again. The good news is...we are on our way to a Greyson who believes in himself again. You see he is a fragile guy because getting him to talk about how much this stuff hurt him is next to impossible thanks to the Aspergers. Feelings and emotions are not his thing. It is coming out little by little though. Like today when he told Mike that going to the office so much last year made him really sad...alot sad he said. As his mother...hearing those words out of his mouth broke my heart. Knowing I let them tell me his downfalls daily at pickup while he sat in the car with me makes me even sadder. Almost sick...No more...It's all good. We will learn from this and be better people for it...I hope they can do the same.