Today the teachers and administrative staff come back after a well-deserved summer off. So today I start my stalking campaign to get them to talk to me before classes start next week. Every year I try to arrange things in June before they leave. Every year I get told I have to wait until August. Every August, I get told that they have no control about when the teachers come in. So every August I have to leave my entire week open to accommodate last minute meetings.
Frustrating, but I'm used to it now.
This year there are a couple of key issues for each boy.
Nathan has been having trouble controlling his temper. Most of the time, it's yelling and sulking, but I need to speak to his teacher to discuss options. I'd like to set up a system where they report on his behaviour each day and he earns a reward here at home. I'm also working on figuring out a journaling option with him so he can practice talking about his feelings in an appropriate way.
For Alex, there are two issues: transportation and the helmet. I need to set up transportation for Alex since he'll be finishing in the middle of the day to continue his behaviour program. That should be just administration (although I've had some surprises with admin issues which I thought were obvious before) but the helmet is more critical. The school was using a helmet to eliminate Alex's self-injury behaviour (SIB). However, what we found was an escalation.
Usually when Alex bangs his head, he does it once. The school was putting the helmet on after a headbang. This set up a struggle and escalated the SIB.
We've gotten the SIBs down significantly over the summer without using a helmet. I'd like them to take it away so that we don't have an increase. I expect this will be a bit of a fight but I'm hoping I can prevail. I do have the comfort of knowing that the staff there really care about Alex and want what's best for him, so if I can explain it properly, I think I have a good chance.
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