I'm fed up with being reasonable
Sep. 14th, 2004 12:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
charliesmumCharlie got kicked out of school again. Happened on Thursday too. He apparently got all aggressive and wouldn't listen, and started running out of the classroom, and was hitting, and threatening to bite, and being super horrible. He was fine for most of the morning, then something set him off.
I talked with the principal, and with Charlie's case worker, and nodded and agreed with what they were saying, and tried to come up with reasons for this behavior, and now I just feel like having a righteous mommy rant.
He's in a new school, with new kids, and new teachers. He'd been going to his old school since he was 3 years old, so it is a big adjustment, especially for a child who doesn't handle transition well. It's just been 1 week today since school started and he's had problems 2x. The other days, though, he was very good. So obviously something is setting him off.
I can't help but feel like the teacher isn't being very patient with Charlie and his problems. I can't believe he is the only kid with problems in the class. I know for a fact that one boy who was with Charlie last year, can be even more disruptive. I know it isn't fair to the other kids in the class to have the teachers have to spend too much time with Charlie, but that's why he is in a special class, isn't it? If he were totally mainstreamed I would understand the teacher's problem, but it is her job to deal with this. And the case worker said that 'yes, she is trained to deal with this, but Charlie is being so difficult' yada yada yada. And I can't help but wonder exactly what they are doing in the classroom that is setting Charlie off. Because he's not a horrible kid.
And then I'm being told that he had problems during the summer. Well, first I heard of it. No one told me that he was being difficult. For all I knew he was doing fine. I didn't have to go pick him up from school once this summer.
I wanted to see if he would go back to class this afternoon, because I don't want him to think I can just come get him whenever he doesn't feel like being in school, and I was told that the teacher didn't want him back. Yeah, that's a good attitude.
And the case worker suggested maybe he's ADD or something, and maybe I should look into getting him medicated. I'm sorry, but I'm not drugging up my child just to make the teacher's job easier.
I'd love to hear from anyone who is on Ritalin or something, or if they know someone, because the only one I know is my friend's daughter, and I didn't see it helping a whole lot. It helped her focus in class more, apparently, but the side effects where sometimes worse than the original problem. It completely killed her appetite, and this is a kid who didn't eat much in the first place, and made her even more emotional than she was before.
And I just don't like the idea of putting my son on drugs.
Anyway...thanks for letting me rant. I feel, well lousy still, but slightly better for talking to people about it. People I might add, who aren't my family and won't start giving me well-meaning but annoying advice that make me feel like a bad mother and want to throw things.
I talked with the principal, and with Charlie's case worker, and nodded and agreed with what they were saying, and tried to come up with reasons for this behavior, and now I just feel like having a righteous mommy rant.
He's in a new school, with new kids, and new teachers. He'd been going to his old school since he was 3 years old, so it is a big adjustment, especially for a child who doesn't handle transition well. It's just been 1 week today since school started and he's had problems 2x. The other days, though, he was very good. So obviously something is setting him off.
I can't help but feel like the teacher isn't being very patient with Charlie and his problems. I can't believe he is the only kid with problems in the class. I know for a fact that one boy who was with Charlie last year, can be even more disruptive. I know it isn't fair to the other kids in the class to have the teachers have to spend too much time with Charlie, but that's why he is in a special class, isn't it? If he were totally mainstreamed I would understand the teacher's problem, but it is her job to deal with this. And the case worker said that 'yes, she is trained to deal with this, but Charlie is being so difficult' yada yada yada. And I can't help but wonder exactly what they are doing in the classroom that is setting Charlie off. Because he's not a horrible kid.
And then I'm being told that he had problems during the summer. Well, first I heard of it. No one told me that he was being difficult. For all I knew he was doing fine. I didn't have to go pick him up from school once this summer.
I wanted to see if he would go back to class this afternoon, because I don't want him to think I can just come get him whenever he doesn't feel like being in school, and I was told that the teacher didn't want him back. Yeah, that's a good attitude.
And the case worker suggested maybe he's ADD or something, and maybe I should look into getting him medicated. I'm sorry, but I'm not drugging up my child just to make the teacher's job easier.
I'd love to hear from anyone who is on Ritalin or something, or if they know someone, because the only one I know is my friend's daughter, and I didn't see it helping a whole lot. It helped her focus in class more, apparently, but the side effects where sometimes worse than the original problem. It completely killed her appetite, and this is a kid who didn't eat much in the first place, and made her even more emotional than she was before.
And I just don't like the idea of putting my son on drugs.
Anyway...thanks for letting me rant. I feel, well lousy still, but slightly better for talking to people about it. People I might add, who aren't my family and won't start giving me well-meaning but annoying advice that make me feel like a bad mother and want to throw things.
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no subject
on 2004-09-14 05:29 pm (UTC)However. That's me. I have ADD. And you might want to look into whether Charlie has ADD, but honestly (and I don't know him, so just take this for whatever it's worth) it doesn't sound like he has ADD to me. ADD is when kids are bouncing off the walls consistently, or else dreamy-dazed out the whole day. It's not when a kid's stress level builds up as a result of a bad situation and he winds up lashing out. That's much more an autism thing; kids with autism are obviously easily frustrated because they tend to have low tolerance for some things that most people can tolerate with ease. It sounds to me like the teacher is pushing him past his limits sometimes, if these have been situations where he's been fine for long stretches of time and then had a big episode in the afternoon.
It's a shame that ADD is the default diagnosis for kids perceived to be difficult these days. I mean, it's getting better (I've been reading so much more about the autistic spectrum lately, I find it heartening) but it's tried-and-true, you know? It bothers me because I've had people tell me, to my face, that ADD does not exist and I need to get off my meds because they're nothing but the realization of Huxley's Soma vision. It's not fair and it's frankly offensive to me, but I can see where they're coming from, because ADD is so shamefully overdiagnosed.
Anyway. That was one long comment.
no subject
on 2004-09-14 05:37 pm (UTC)I thought maybe my friend's daughter was snap diagnosed, but I'd never really seen her at school, so I really couldn't say. I know medication can help, but I don't like being told 'he's having behavior problems, maybe he should have drugs.'
I think you are right about the stress levels.
You're smart! You must have gone to Harvard! :)