I was going along my normal day. I was trying to work down my “To Do” list of totally unpleasant chores. I managed to get a work out in, and I was cleaning up. I had just finished my post work out shower, when I heard my phone buzz. That’s when everything I wanted to to that day went out the window. It was my son’s teacher. My son was having a meltdown. He ripped up some paper, but then started crying and couldn’t stop. The teacher was worried. She rarely contacts me for minor things. She texted me back in what seemed like an hour, but was actually 20 minutes, that E was calm and back at class, but my heart couldn’t just move on to get anything productive done.
In fact, I had grand visions of a blog post exposing the schools eligible for Disability Grants in North Carolina, and the new Education Savings Account. However, I got a phone call on Thursday. I was in the car and had just pulled up to the Wake County PTA Advocacy meeting. As the principal is reporting to me, that my son had a semi violent outburst in class, familiar faces are smiling and waving outside my car. I’m literally sick to my stomach and trying to figure out if I should even try to go to the meeting. I finish up with the principal and find my way to the meeting. My heart is sick and feel drained. I make a small remark to those around me, but inside I’m crying.
I’m crying for the child who was in the path of my son’s destructive behavior. I’m crying because I can’t seem to help my child control his anger all the time. I’m crying because this is the second bad day E has had this week. He makes up rules in his head and then refuses to break them. I’m crying because we just had a therapy session last night. His impulse control is so low this week.
I do manage to make it through the meeting and even managed to participate. I didn’t take any notes, and I have vague memories of things we talked about. I did agree to a little photo, but I really wanted to run and hide for a few hours. No such luck. I had things to get done which now included a meeting with the special education teacher.
After my wonderful husband was able to shuffle his schedule, I was free to meet with E’s special education teacher. She had a training the next day, and we wanted to see if we could make any progress as soon as possible. The meeting was long, but hopefully beneficial. We had added things to his most recent IEP, and I had an inkling that they had not been fully implemented.
So now we start a new week. We start really the IEP that we did in December. The team has added a few things to try. I’m nervous that they will not work or we will regress to last year. I know my son’s outburst scared them. It scares me, and most of all it scares my son. He seems to be working through something, and all he feels is angry.
Its been a tough week. My son would remind me, what my favorite word is. It’s persevere.