Alex’s school has been having difficulty with him for some
time now. It’s not for lack of trying or
lack of willingness. They’ve been
wonderful and willing to deal with a lot of stuff, more than I honestly think
they should have had to.
A slot has come up in a specialized program and they’ve
recommended that Alex take it.
Intellectually, I know it’s the right thing to do. He can’t stay where he is and any chance of
improvement is better than the no chance he’s got right now.
Heart-wise, it’s a little more difficult. Alex is seven, almost eight. Most of his peers are beginning to discover
themselves as independent individuals.
They’re exploring their worlds and seeing their horizons expand. Sometimes it seems as if Alex’s horizons are
collapsing around him. It’s a hard thing
to see.
The program looks good.
There’s some one on one teaching and each of the children has an
individualized program. We’ll have to
see how Alex adapts.
I think that’s one of the harder things about having a child
with special needs. Sometimes you end up
with a conflict between what you would like your child to have and what your
child actually needs. It’s easy to get
caught up in some kind of rosy idealized vision and forget that your child will
have a very different experience.
One family I know left their autistic child behind when they
went to Disneyworld for the weekend.
Sounds horrible, doesn’t it? To
deprive a child of a trip to the happiest place on earth. But this child is highly ritualistic, has
strong reactions to crowds and noise and has a low tolerance for new
places. To him, Disneyland would have
been a forty-eight hour nightmare. They
could have tried to force him into submitting to their idea of what a family
vacation should be. But instead they were compassionate and
looked at it from his point of view.
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