My Job

We had a team meeting today, a Drew team meeting. His teachers, the social worker, Adam and I all met to discuss his progress. I’m happy to say there has been progress. I’ve definitely noticed an improvement with things at home. And at school, he has had an incentive chart which he is coming home with stickers of success and rewards. So things are better.

The thing is that they are better because everyone is on their toes where he is concerned. There are processes set up to make sure he is set up for success. Problem points during the day are inflated with more one on one teacher involvement. At home I’m noticing times that are more challenging for him and stepping up how I handle certain circumstances.

From a school perspective, it always worries me that at some point the teachers are going to get frustrated or annoyed that Drew takes up all their efforts. They have a whole class of children that have needs and wants, and constantly considering Drew’s challenges shouldn’t have to prioritize their day. I don’t want the teachers to get resentful that he needs so much from them.

From a home perspective, I’m exhausted. I walk a line all day working on properly engaging him, using vocabulary that is effective at keeping him calm and motivated, and rewarding and disciplining appropriately. It’s the same old sob story but I feel like I am unable to drop the ball for even a millisecond.

This meeting confirmed a lot of behaviors at school being similar to those at home. For instance, when asked to clean up he walks around aimlessly unless given a specific task to work on (i.e. help the teacher clean up the blocks). And the same thing holds true at home. But when you are rushing out of the house because you are late for the doctor, I just want him to clean up. I don’t want to stop and survey the scene, work with him on properly putting things away, etc. Rather, it’s faster to clean it up myself. Strike one for me.

It’s hard to keep everything at home as a teachable moment. With Gabby’s health concerns, ultimately resulting in allergies, I made it my mission to work through. And I have to treat this the same for Drew. The only difference is that I now have to focus every minute of the day.

The bottom line is that he is making great strides with this sort of tactics and I want him to continue to thrive. I’m hoping that these lessons will turn into skills that he can adapt and manage his day independently. Ultimately that is the job of a parent and if I didn’t want it, then why did I sign up for it? So who am I to complain…