AARRGGHH!!! Gods, he frustates the hell out of me!

     My child, who is an angel in my heart and soul, always... is also a little destructive devil.  The night of his birthday party, he was playing with a Thor hammer that his daddy was quite proud to have bought him for his birthday.  And part of playing with toys, in Teagan's mind, is completely destroying said toy.  He removed all of the foam around the inside structure, just to see what was in it.  Of course, this is not always the case, but the last two weeks, this is what he has been doing to all of his toys.
     Another thing he does is, when he gets mad, he will throw his toys, and if they break upon impact, he immediately gets upset that he broke them.  We have tried to explain to him before that his anger caused him to throw his toy and break it, but he will always try to blame it on the parent or person who angered him.  Because, after all, had they not angered him, he wouldn't have thrown and broken his toy.  Or at least he says so.
     It's just so aggravating, because Gods know we don't have any money, so what he does have, was bought out of love and the sacrifice of a bill or a tank of gas.  And then he destroys it because he's pissed off.  Grr!
     Anybody else have this problem?  If so, please, please, PLEASE let me know what you do.  I've had enough of his destructive behavior, I swear I am about to get rid of all his stuff.

My College Papers - New Tab Added

     I have added a new tab to the AOTA blog. It's called "My College Papers", and these are papers that I wrote for college about Teagan and his disabilities. There is a lot of good information in these, and I thought I would share them. Just click on the "My College Papers" for the link or click on the "My College Papers" tab at the top of the blog, then click on the titles to view the actual papers. Please respect my generosity, and do not copy these papers and submit them as your own. Thank you.

What Fresh Hell Is This?

     Yeah, you read it right.  So, Teagan has been having a very, very shitty year.  First, we already discussed the assault by his first bus driver.  Then, we have to pull him from his hateful school, and put him in a behavior program, which he really isn't a behavior problem, but this was their solution instead of continuing to send him home because the teacher did not want to deal with his special needs.
     THEN... the teacher's assistant, who is fond of grabbing Teagan around the upper arm jabs her nail into his baby flesh, making him bleed and leaving an ugly mark.  You know there was hell to pay for that.  However, Teagan tried to confront her, and she called him a liar.  See below about this lying business.
     THEN... some hateful kid at school gets pissed off at him because he tells this kid that he saw him running to class.  The kid tells him to "shut the f*ck up" and lobs his calculator at Teagan.  Teagan says it hit him in the leg, his lying teacher says it missed him.  I'm more apt to believe Teagan.  He does not lie well.  Well, what I mean to say is, he just can't lie.  He doesn't know how to do it and we will never correct that.
     THEN... four days later, this same kid gets pissed off because everyone in class got ice cream as a special treat, and because this kid is the Devil Incarnate, he takes his anger out on the first kid he sees... which just happens to be MY F*CKING KID!  This kid punched Teagan in the face four times and somehow in all of this a very large (like 6 inches wide) bruise appears on his leg the same day, before the three full-time adults in a classroom of 8 children could pull him off of Teagan.  ARE YOU F*CKING KIDDING ME?!?!?!?
     THEN... three days later, two girls get into an argument at breakfast and one of them says the other girl made her nose bleed, and Teagan told her he didn't see any blood, she tells him to "shut the hell up" then pinches the shit out of him.  You should have seen the bruises.
     So... I call a meeting of the team leader, the school therapist, and his case worker, and I explain exactly how it is going to be.  I told them I see one more person, adult or child, leave a mark on my child again, I will be filing police reports.  I may still do it against that one kid who punched him.  He is a f*cking menace to society.  And threatened to yank him out of their program, if it happens again, which would result in a loss of funding from his Medicaid.
     You know, there really isn't much more than I can take, before I start throwing punches.  Does my child not have enough going on already?  And I've only given you all half of the story.  He has something more going on, that I cannot even go into, due to the personal nature of it.  Eventually, I may be able to share the last pieces of Teagan's mental puzzle, but for now, suffice it to say that Teagan's mental trauma threshold has been filled to capacity and is nearly overflowing, along with my threshold for patience with everyone.

Family-Friendly Businesses? Yeah right.

     Let's talk about businesses that are purported to be family-friendly, but in reality, hate disabled children. Without mentioning any names... there is a very popular international pizza restaurant with a red roof... that hates disabled children. When we first moved to our neighborhood, we went to this local pie spot, and there were only 2 other couples in the whole joint. Teagan, as usual, was very excited when he saw they had arcade games, and wanted to play them. However, our policy is that he must eat first, in order to play games.  So, much raucous and fussing ensued, and he did eat, but then kept leaving the table to go to the arcade games. The supervisor came to our table and told us that we would have to leave because Teagan was disturbing the other patrons. Are you serious? I don't want to throw the race card around, but we were the only white people there. And it was clear that the supervisor was friends with one of the patrons there, but they never even cast a sideways glance in our direction. So, we were ejected from the restaurant. Well, of course you know what came next. I am not one to back away from a fight, especially involving my child, so I wrote their headquarters a very nasty, very lengthy letter, stating that if this was the way they do business, they need to stop advertising as a family-friendly establishment, and advertise as a "we hate disabled children restaurant". I also reported them to the Better Business Bureau, and threatened to call the local media.
     Very soon after, I received a response to my letter, stating that the supervisor that night apparently had many complaints about him, similar to mine, and had been terminated because of his behavior. However, 5 years after the fact, we still have not returned to dine-in, but we do order take-out from them frequently, as they are the only pizza place that delivers to our house. :-(
     The next time we got kicked out of a restaurant, it happened twice at the same restaurant. Needless to say, we do not take Teagan there, and have only been there without him maybe twice in the last 5 years. It was a very nice Chinese buffet restaurant with amazing food. I really love their food. But when Teagan was about 5 years old, and again at 6 years old, we were asked to leave because he was being "too loud and disturbing the other guests". Needless to say, I raised hell, and the next time my mom was with us and she raised hell. My momma is just like me. We're a couple of hellcats that aren't going to put up with anybody telling me what they think of my child. He's my child. If I think he's a brat, that's my deal, not yours. You try raising him for a day, and see how many grey hairs you sprout while maintaining some shred of sanity.
     So, basically, our family dining experiences now consists of those restaurants that have playgrounds, where all the children are screaming like wild hellions and the parents are speaking even louder just to be heard over the noise. And it's just fine with me. You don't like my child? You don't deserve my money.

Hatred of All Things... Educational - Part 5/5

     By mid-January, Teagan was in the classroom... but only for a week.  The next week, he missed the entire week because of the flu, which really sucked, because he was just starting to get used to the new environment.  However, during that first week, Teagan said something we have never heard before, and we thought we had picked up the wrong child from school that day.  I asked him how he liked his new school, and he said, "I like it."  I was like, come again???  I couldn't believe it.  Of course, he still says he hates it, but he already let it slip that he likes it, at least sometimes, so we knew this was a good fit.  I can't say I like his teacher, and I can't stand the assistant teacher, but they seem to be able to do the job.
     However, last week, Teagan showed me a mark on his arm that had scabbed over, and told me the assistant teacher had grabbed him by the arm and made that mark on him.  I had seen her grab him by the arm and drag him all over the place like this, and I wasn't happy about it, but I had kept my mouth shut, until now.  The next day, Teagan told the assistant teacher about it, and she flat out told him he was lying.  Now, let me briefly explain about Teagan and lying.  Teagan cannot do it.  When he tries to lie, he will at first try to do it, but then immediately tell on himself and try to rationalize with you why it was necessary for him to do whatever it was he was trying to lie about.  So, basically, the assistant teacher was full of shit, and trying to cover her own ass.  I e-mailed the teacher (not the assistant), and she called me the next morning to discuss it.  I explained the situation to her, and told her this, "He does have two hands.  Why can she not take him in hand instead of grabbing his arm and gouging her fingernails into his skin?  In the future, to avoid this situation, make her take his hand."  That same day, I asked him how the assistant teacher treated him, and he said she was very nice.  Yeah, very nice because she was afraid of getting her ass handed to her by his bitch mom.  Grrr!!!
     Well, as far as that goes, Teagan seems to be doing well in this program, though he is only in this program until the end of this school year.  Afterwards, they will make a decision where Teagan should be placed.  Teagan still mentally shuts down when he is frustrated, and refuses to do work, but with coaxing or bribes (removal of his therapeutic recreation time/Lion's Den spending taken away) he is able to get enough done that I don't have to come to the school to sit with him.  I can't say what the future holds for him, but I'm sure the battle of the schools is not over.

Hatred of All Things... Educational - Part 4/5

     This was the first year we had let him ride the bus.  I am extremely overprotective of Teagan, as you will eventually see in my posts, and I was scared to death that some older or meaner kid would pick on him, to which I would have to jerk that kid up by his or her ear and set them straight.  Anyway, it took me all summer to talk myself into it, since the school was out of the way for us, and because of finances, a lot of money would go for gas to and from school every day.  I finally allowed him to ride the bus.  About three weeks into the school year, I was sitting at the bus stop waiting to pick up Teagan, when this Hispanic woman, who spoke very little English -- I had spoken to her before about the bus being delayed, and though I am taking Spanish classes, it was difficult even relaying that little bit of information -- came up to me and in her broken English and Spanish told me that the bus driver had assaulted Teagan, and that her own son had told her about it 3 days before.  I was absolutely livid.  So, once the bus came, I went over to get Teagan, and with the mother, talk to the little boy.  I asked him if the bus driver that day was the same one, but he was a substitute.  All I can say is the bus driver in question was very lucky he was not driving the bus that day.  I would have jerked him right off the bus and thrashed him to near death.  Anyway, the boy said that Teagan was talking excessively, which Teagan does when he is overstimulated, and he loved riding the bus.  The bus driver told him to shut up several times, and when Teagan didn't, he went to his seat, jerked him up by the front of his shirt, dragged him down the aisle and shoved him into a seat at the front of the bus.  The little boy was very descriptive, and I was very pissed.  I immediately called the school and told them I was on the way to discuss this matter with them.  I told the principal and assistant principal about it, but I refused to put Teagan back on the bus, and it may be a very, very, very long time before I feel able to do so again.  Because policies had changed, it was now a law that the school had to report any incidents like that to the police, so a police report was filed, the bus driver was fired, and even though I didn't get to beat the daylights out of him, I was marginally satisfied with the results.
     After picking Teagan up many more times after Christmas break, I spoke to the acting principal, the one I can't stand was blissfully out on medical leave.  This woman was a godsend.  Apparently all other school administrators are idiots, or she was the only one in the entire district who had this knowledge, which I find hard to believe.  She informed me there was a behavior program -- now, first I will say that Teagan is not a behavior problem, not in the literal sense of the word.  His problem is lack of motivation and ability to stay focused in class, which stems from multiple diagnoses and lack of services.  Anyway, this behavior class was similar to a self-contained special needs classroom.  There is a teacher, an assistant, and a behaviorist in the classroom at all times.  They also provide individual, group, and if you wanted it, family therapy for every child in the program, as well as adhering to each child's IEP.  Whatever its label, this sounded like the perfect place for Teagan, and we at once set in motion the application process.

Hatred of All Things... Educational - Part 3/5

     Second grade wasn't as bad.  His one hour of resource was bumped up to one and a half hours, I absolutely hated his resource teacher this year more than the one the previous year, but his teacher was amazingly just like me.  LOL  She was firm, kind, but also knew how to make Teagan behave.  Though completing homework was still an issue, I wasn't fighting the school every day, like the year before.  For the most part, this year ended without incident...
     Except for the fact that his school got a grant to build a whole new school just for them.  It was going to be awesome.  They put in a bid for land, they took bids for their current land and school buildings, they found a buyer, they sold!  Then... the bid for the land for the new school fell through, so now the school had no school, no land, and no prospects of building a new school within a year.  So, their solution?  They decided to use all that money to merge with another school and building another building BESIDE the other school, along with a series of outbuildings that North Carolina is so wild about... which are really trailers they shove children in and pretend they are just like regular classrooms.
     During open house last summer, we learned that Teagan was going to be in a classroom the size of my bathroom x 2.  Literally, it was like a broom closet, I started calling him Harry Pottery.  His second grade teacher, always very candid and blunt with me, which I always appreciated, informed me that the other school, we'll call the new one D and the old one L, the L school was closed down until further notice because they found asbestos rampant throughout the entire building.  Like OMFG, right?  So there were these precious little babies attending school in the L building all this time, and they just NOW realized there was asbestos?!?!?!?!?  I was totally freaking out.  Once they got that cleared up, I pointedly asked his new teacher in his new classroom in the old asbestos L building if they got all the asbestos out.  She said she was sure they did, or they wouldn't let the students in there.  I looked at her like she was the stupidest woman on Earth.  Did she forget she had taught in this very classroom for I have no idea how many years with the asbestos in there???  Made me want to smack her on the spot.
     His new teacher was a useless piece of horse dung.  Never have we had so many issues with his teachers, until this year.  When that woman didn't want to deal with Teagan, she would call me to pick him up.  He missed probably half of the first quarter of school because of this bullshit.  It was totally ridiculous.  The week before Christmas break, I went and stayed with him at school all day long.  And guess what?  I didn't have a single issue.  He did his work, he got it all completed, little fuss, no trouble.  I honestly believe that teachers do not want to deal with special needs children, because it takes more effort, and they just don't care.  Now, that isn't to say all teachers, because there are some excellent special needs teachers out there who are angels in disguise.  But, regular education teachers... no, they don't want to be bothered by it.

Hatred of All Things... Educational - Part 2/5

     Teagan received services from a different one-on-one worker, who was nice, but just not the same.  Teagan did very well with her also, but when it came time for Kindergarten in the Exceptional Children's Program, he didn't need his one-on-one worker.  He was doing awesome in the new school, the classroom was great, the teacher and the assistant (we still love them!) were so wonderful, everything seemed perfect, my sweet baby was going to get an awesome education, he was going to grow up to be the little genius we all knew he would be.  The year went so well, that at end-of-year testing, he was academically exactly where he should be.  It went so well...
     We were called into an IEP meeting during that summer, prior to 1st grade.  We were informed that Teagan had done so well on his end-of-year testing that they were going to mainstream him into a regular education classroom, take away his IEP, all his services, and shove him into a classroom with 20 children with two full time teachers, instead of the perfect environment he was in with only 8 students and two full time teachers.  We begged and pleaded and begged again for them not to make this decision.  We knew he was not ready, he needed at least one more year to get the hang of it, even if it was another year in a mainstream Kindergarten class, which at the time they did not suggest.  They said their hands were tied, they had to make this decision based on his test scores.  Total bullshit.
     Enter the 1st grade in a mainstreamed, regular education classroom with a teacher who was too nice that Teagan literally bowled her over with his manipulative behavior and his awesome cuteness.  The assistant teacher, bless her heart, was so nice and loving, Teagan obviously was her favorite little baby, and she did everything she could to help him as much as possible.  Seven days after school started that year, the principal called me.  Her exact words were, "Teagan is struggling, and I have decided to place him back in Kindergarten."  To which I replied, "It's not happening.  We begged the IEP team not to place him in a regular education classroom, they did not listen to us, so now this is your problem, fix it." 
     So, from there, my husband and I spent the next several months fighting the principal and her team of psychologists, social workers, and school administrators who supposedly knew exactly what my son needed in order to achieve mediocre academic success.  We ended up contacting a child advocate who specialized in fighting the school for children with special needs.  She had been a school administrator and teacher for over 20 years, turn advocate, and she was wonderful.  After five months of fighting, we got Teagan back on an IEP, with "services" I wouldn't even discuss, except that wouldn't help me bitch about this school mess.  His "services" consisted of one hour a day of "resource" which was him sitting in a classroom for an hour with 10 other children, all from different grade levels and educational levels, being "taught" by a teacher who didn't do a whole lot of teaching, for the time I sat in her class.  From January to June that year, I spent half a day in Teagan's classroom monitoring him and trying to encourage him to complete his homework, since his regular education teacher and his resource teacher didn't seem to be able to do the job.
 

Hatred of All Things... Educational - Part 1/5

     So, here I thought I would rant and rave a bit about how much I hate the school systems of North Carolina.  This post ended up too long for one entry, such is my hate for the school system, so I separated it into five entries, that will post five consecutive days, so stay tuned for the complete story.
     Our story begins when Teagan was three years old, and he was first diagnosed with ADHD.  He qualified for the Early Childhood Intervention program/Exceptional Children's program, and he was placed into an appropriate pre-Kindergarten classroom.  Wait, did I say appropriate? 
     Of course, we knew that transitioning from playing all day at home to a structured school setting was going to be very difficult for Teagan, and we were prepared for it.  However, we were not prepared for the clinging, sobbing, heart-wrenching pleas not to leave him, could we please just stay with him, or better yet take him home?  But, we persevered, and left him in his big boy classroom with what we thought at the time, to be a very capable, kind, caring, and compassionate teacher and her assistant.
     About two months in, we were told that Teagan would mentally shut down when he did not want to do something, and would lay his head on the table and fall asleep.  This, we were also told, is exactly how the teacher let him stay until the end of the school day, which at that time was only a half-day program.  Seriously?  If I wanted him to sleep all day, I could have left him at home without the headache of juggling work, getting him to/from school, and coordinating with my mother when I wasn't able to take him or pick him up.  We met with the teacher and her assistant (the teacher we realized was a complete idiot and the assistant seemed to hate children, I have no idea why she was even in that line of work).  We explained to them that they were going to have to just wake him up and make him do the work, otherwise, how will he ever learn?  How will he ever get into the routine of school if he's allowed to sleep all day?  That just teaches him that if he doesn't want to do something, he can just shut down, fall asleep, and be left alone.  Needless to say, that first year was a complete nightmare.

     The second year of pre-Kindergarten, he was in the same school with the same teacher and the same assistant, but this time we had fought to get speech and OT therapies included in his IEP, which was no easy feat.  Let me explain the reason why we added these, and why I still hate this teacher to this day.  About this time, Teagan was diagnosed with Pervasive Developmental Disorder - Not Otherwise Specified, or for those not in the spectrum-know, Autism.  We gave this new diagnosis to his teacher, who promptly informed us that she did not see Autism, and that there was a child (who went on to become my son's very best friend, but also died from drowning 2 years ago  - We miss and love you Grayson!!!)... sorry about that.  Anyway, there was a child in his class who had Autism, and Teagan was nothing like him, and she did not see Autism in Teagan.  I'm sorry, since when do teachers have medical licenses?  If they did, I'm sure they would not be pre-Kindergartner teachers.  Well, she kept telling us that all year, but we got our way anyway, and got the speech and occupational therapy placed in his IEP.  We also got him a one-on-one worker.  One, because the teacher obviously could not or was not willing to try to work with Teagan, and two, to keep an eye on that teacher for me.  The one-on-one worker was a dream come true.  She was so nice and caring, Teagan loved her, we all did.  Sadly, at the end of the school year, she took another position.