I’m feeling a bit all over the place at the moment. One minute I’m feeling positive and looking forward to the future, the next minute I’m in tears, wondering what’s going on with my girl, what’s in her head that makes her not even want to go into her classroom at the moment? Has something happened, has somebody been mean to her? Or is it some noise that has been exaggerated in her head so much that she has to avoid the situation and place that it happened in? If the original issue hasn’t been noticed and it’s got this out of hand it’s unlikely that we can resolve it either. Beth herself can”t seem to tell me what the problem is and she may have even forgotten it’s origin, only knowing the fear she has and having to avoid the place at all costs.
I went to see the osteo this morning and was talking with him about it. I’ve known him now for about 6 years and used to take Beth to see him for cranio sacral therapy. I was explaining how I didn’t want Beth to miss out on graduating with her fellow grade 6 students and that if she did part time at Emerson this year then she’d get the best of both worlds. Robin (the osteo) said, “not meaning to be rude but do you think she’d really care?” I thought about it and realised that maybe it’s me that’s the issue there. Maybe she in fact doesn’t care much about that side of things and it’s me who wants her to complete her primary school in a positive and fun way. But if she’s not enjoying going to school anyway, where’s the fun?
I’m in two minds about the idea of dual schooling. When Beth was at kindergarten she also went to an early intervention service called Irabina. When we had been at Irabina exclusively she really enjoyed going but when she went to both she grew to hate going to Irabina. Before this I had always planned sending Beth to a special school but when I saw how much she enjoyed mainstream kinder I realised that was what she needed. She would pick up the other autistic traits of the kids at Irabina and I feared that if she didn’t have the role modelling of so called normal kids she would get worse in her behaviours. I still don’t regret sending Beth to a mainstream school, especially our wonderful little school, but I think if I had the option I would have transferred Beth in grade 4 or 5 to a special setting, when the gap between her and the other kids at school began to widen. Anyway, that’s neither here nor there because we’ve muddled through and on the whole it’s still been a positive choice.
My concern with dual schooling is that it may scare her off of Emerson if she has both schools to go to. I think it will be difficult for her to adjust to not having a full time aide to start with, what if she realises she prefers going to our mainstream primary school and says that no, she wants to go back there full time. If she thinks that way then sending her there next year full time will be something we will both dread and her anxieties will go through the roof.
In a perfect world Beth would transition to Emerson with the kids she’ll school with next year, graduate with her peers this year and be looking forward to going off next year. Unfortunately that’s often a wishful pipe dream and I have to count on the worst and be pleasantly surprised if things work out. I’ll call Rod on Monday at Emerson and get his take on everything. Even if she was just to go there next year she’d have the transition days this year. If she was to dual school though I think it would be three days a week at Emerson and two days a week at mainstream. Is it worth it to get her through to next year? I just don’t know.
