I have written a couple times about the issues im having with Collins school. Well the two weeks ago I had to keep him home because i accidently scheduled an appointment at the same time as school. And then the next day there was no school due to meetings or something. Then this week I decided to keep him home two days because I am just so annoyed with the school.
I noticed this trend. When he goes to school he has more behavioral issues. On the days he has stayed home from school he has had half as many breakdowns, and due to this he is trying to talk more on these days. The days he goes to school he spends so much time screaming he has no time to talk or learn. Although he is "perfect" at school, but this is causing problems at home.
I dont know if its because he just does not like school, because he fights going there every day. Or because of how un structured everything is in regards to school. At home we dont have a precise schedule but generally everything happens around the same time every day. But with his school being with two seperate teachers on different days and different times each day there is absolutly no structure there. Is that why he breaks down these days, the lack of structure?
He is supposed to be going there to be helped but its just making it worse. I really dont know what to do.
I know the best thing to do is ask for another IFSP meeting to get this fixes, plus this environment does not seem to be the "least restrictive" environment either. But we are STILL waiting for the autism specialist to perform the autism evaluation for the educational diagnosis. They say it can take anywhere up to 60 school days ugh. And I have this feeling they are going to just wait until the last second. I dont want to have to schedule this meeing without this eval being done.
So do I just pull him out of school until they perform the eval then schedule the meeting.
Do I keep him in school and just deal.
Just give up and pull him out because the school sucks anyways.
Schedule the meeting then have another after the eval, which would only make them a month or two apart.
I just do know what to do and what is best for my son.
What I want for him is just to put him in a regular preschool where they actually do more than cutting paper all day. But I just dont have the money to do this on my own. And then I wonder is the school system worth all this grief or should i just help him at home as best as I can.
I would keep him in school and try to work with them to make sure he gets an environment that works for him. It's going to be so hard to figure out what is causing which behavior. I would consider observing him at school to know firsthand how he's doing there. If he's doing okay, I'd keep him there. I have gone through a few phases with my son where his behavior suddenly got worse and I could not figure it out at all and by the time I came up with several theories, the behavior went away. I think you need to ask more questions about what your child is doing at school and also tell them more about how is behaving at home. They should care and have ideas. I say this, but when my son was having some wild behaviors, I really felt like I was bringing up the issue again and again and getting ignored. It's hard when the help doesn't seem to be helping! I would try to focus on the big picture. School is generally good for autistic kids, so unless it's REALLY terrible, it's still a good thing for your child and you just need to try to work to make it better than it is (to the extent that you can). Unless you have a better alternative, you're going to have to stick with this school and try to make it work. I think it would have to be a pretty bad school to make the no school option a better one. You need to decide how it is for your son. Also, the important thing is that your son is treated well--sometimes these teachers/aides/whatever are not so good with parents, but good with the kids--so if Collin is getting what he needs, maybe it's worth putting up with several annoying people?