Not Exactly As Planned by Linda Rosenbaum

Author:Linda Rosenbaum
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Demeter Press
Published: 2014-07-01T16:00:00+00:00

9.

Special Needs Son, Special Needs Family

Toronto Island, 1993

ROBIN WAS HOME FROM WORK one morning when the phone rang. “Can you get it?” he asked, “I’m making coffee.”

“No,” I said, “it might be the school. You talk this time. I’m sick of handling everything myself.”

It was like every other morning I was home from work. I’d lie in wait, as if a bomb were about to detonate. When it did, in the form of a phone call from Michael’s public school principal, my shoulders tightened and I’d feel as if I was about to explode. I dreaded hearing the sound of her voice once again telling me Michael had done something “bad.”

When he was six, Michael entered Grade One in the public school system after successfully completing two years of preschool and one year of kindergarten at the Island’s Montessori School. Each morning after Robin dropped Sarah off at Yolanda’s on his way to work, I embroiled myself in the usual struggle getting Michael up, washed, dressed and fed. Mission accomplished, I’d get him out the door and we’d walk hand-in-hand to the path at the bottom of the Algonquin bridge, where I’d lie in wait until the school bus picked him up for the one-mile ride to the Island Public School. I’d come home, get back into bed, stuff my head under a pillow and wait for the phone to ring. More often than not, it did. The complaints went like this:

Michael threw stones in the playground during recess and lunch hour.

He hit some kids and a teacher.

He keeps fidgeting and won’t sit still when asked.

He walks around the classroom.

He kicked two kids after they teased him.

He doesn’t follow instructions, and willfully disobeys the teacher.

He doesn’t move from one classroom activity when asked.

He won’t get involved in group activities.

He’s more interested in “parallel” play than actively playing with the other children.

I was going to meeting after meeting to discuss these issues with Michael’s teacher and the principal. They called and asked me what to do about the problems. “How should I know?” I wanted to say, “You’re asking me? You’re the professionals,” but I didn’t. The best I could do was to describe the successful strategies Michael’s Montessori teachers had used during the three years he was there:

Don’t make Michael work in groups. He is a loner and can at best “parallel play.”

Don’t let him “just play” or be left on his own during recess in the playground. He needs structure and programmed activities.

Have him clean blackboards or put books in bookshelves…

Repeat instructions. He doesn’t understand them the first time he hears them.

If an instruction is multi-stepped, have him do one thing and come back for a reminder of what the next step is. He doesn’t remember steps that follow.

Give Michael advance notice and repeat warnings before he has to move from one activity to another. He gets stuck and needs time for transitions.

Give him a small ball, play dough or clay to play with in his hands at all times.

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