Rye is skiing today and Don is catching up on sleep so I have a chance to sit and write and think.  Ahhhh.  I’m feeling myself exhale.  Lovely.  Rye’s been sick with a chest cold the past few days so I have not had much time to myself and it’s nice now to have a moment to regroup and let my mind sift out.

Things have been busy here.  Don is very busy at work and that occupies the majority of his waking time and energy and I am working hard to get my company up and running again.  As for my plight,  it’s really exciting but it’s not easy.  It’s a lot of work.  There is a lot of background work to do and that’s where I am now.  It will pay off in the end, though.  It will all be worth it in the end.  Generally the best things never come easy or everyone would do them, right?

As for Rye, he is doing well.  We went to the doctor yesterday for his cold and found out he’s grown again.  He is now just shy of 6′3″.  And we bought his first pair of size 15 shoes last week.  Growing, growing… I now have my own personal body guard.  It’s kind of nice, really.

As for other happenings…

…I met with Rye’s school regarding his psych/academic test results.  The meeting went well and although it was a bit sad in that the testing shows why he really struggles in school, the good news is that the testing [ in conjunction with the doctor note and diagnosis] qualifies him for the services he now receives (resource classes and a lot of accommodations) to continue into high school.  And that is good news.

…Rye got new (well, new to him) freestyle skis and brand new ski boots.  It was his late Christmas present from Don and I and he is loving them.  He skis every weekend with a student group and is practicing freestyle skiing.  As he says, the freestyle skis are a must because with them you can ski forward and backward.   Seems so fitting for him.

…I broke down and got a smart phone.  For work I need a real phone with a real phone service and good connections so I begrudgingly gave up my sans-contract ghetto prepaid phone, gave it to Rye, signed a 2 year contract, and got a smart phone.  I’m embarrassed to say, I’m kind of falling in love with the new phone.  At times I feel certain the phone might just be smarter than me and the voice command feature is just out of this world.

…I’ve gotten Don and Rye hooked on piling into bed and watching old TV miniseries.  We watched East of Eden with Jane Seymour and if you haven’t seen that, you need to. It was great.  Right now we are in the middle of Rich Man, Poor Man and it’s really good too.  We tried to start Winds of War but couldn’t really get into it.  Next we may watch The Thorn Birds.  I remember seeing that one as a kid but it’s been a long time.

…After a weekend a week or so back of feeling nearly crippled from what I guess is arthritis, I have now limited myself to eating sugar only one day a week (Saturdays) and I feel great.  No more aching.   It makes me think the sugar was acting as an inflammatory for me.  Time will tell.  If it can be fixed that easily, that will be nice.

…We saw the movie The Ides of March.  I’m not into politics at all (like I really hate politics) but it was a great movie.  I’d recommend it.

…Rye started on a new basketball team.  He likes it ok so far.

…We still need to find a good fit psychiatrist for Rye.  I’ve got to get on that next week.

And, I guess that’s about it for now.

Have a great weekend!

We met with the new psychiatrist this week.  Or what may become the new psychiatrist.  I say ‘may’ because I have also made an appointment with another psychiatrist so we’ll see who we like better.

So, how was he?  Well, ok, I guess.  This one is fairly young.  He’s less than 10 years out of med school and he’s young, energetic and tried really hard to be ‘hip’ and connect with Rye.  And Rye seemed to like that.  As for me, though, I was a little more leery.  I tend to like older, more tried and true doctors who have seen it all.  Rye’s previous psychiatrist had well over 35 years of experience (he technically could have retired if he had wanted to) and I felt like he was very good at what he does and was very mellow as well.  He didn’t get all hung up in the vernacular of things and was good at seeing the bigger picture.  The new pdoc?  Well, he’s newish in his career and associated with a hospital (he’s on hospital staff) so he has to follow a bunch of criteria whether he wants to or not.  And he has to answer to a bunch of people whether he wants to or not.  And that can get kind of annoying.

For example, he does not like to use the term ‘bipolar’ and feels unsure that Rye really has ‘bipolar’ because after all, he has known us for all of 2 minutes now and do we, as a society, really know what bipolar looks like in a child?  So, he uses the term “Mood Disorder NOS” and gave us a whole mini lecture about it.  Dude, wtf, who the crap cares what you call it? If it makes you feel better to call it Mood Disorder NOS, go for it.   Call it ‘Der Wienerschnitzel’ if you want but let’s not mess with what’s working.    And honestly, let’s not debate what bipolar looks like in a teen.  If your child gets so hyper that they can’t attend school, can’t concentrate, make terrible decisions, engage in dangerous behavior, have no peace of mind, racing thoughts, racing speech, superhuman strength, can’t sleep, can’t relax, get delusional, get paranoid, hear things, see things, have debilitating nightmares…it’s not just a case of the ‘hypers’.  For peet’s sake.  Let’s not reinvent the wheel here.

Another thing, because this psychiatrist is on hospital staff, he has no say in his schedule.  In other words, we saw him for an hour for our initial appointment and going forward we will only be able to see him for 20 minute increments for med checks.  Even if we wanted to see him for hour long appointments and pay out of pocket to get more out of the experience or get more help, we can’t.  He’s not allowed to do that.   So, our fate rests in the hands of someone who knows us not at all and who really can’t get to know us either, even if we wanted to.  Even if we wanted to pay extra for it.  I don’t like the inflexibility of that.

Also, he asked for records.  All of Rye’s records from the dawn of time.  Why?  Because apparently he is going to look them all over and decide if all of these ‘diagnosing’ doctors (his colleagues with much more experience than himself) are right in their diagnosis .  And, because he says it will take their hospital staff 100 years to get the records if we leave it to them (not very reassuring), I need to do it all myself.   Apparently it is out of the question to just pick up the phone and call Rye’s previous pdoc for 5 minutes to get the run-down, colleague to colleague.  And to this end, getting Rye’s records is a pain but overall no big deal and all sounds good and great but let’s think about this…given the fact that we have now already had our allotted one hour appointment and from now on we get 20 minutes every month or up to every 3 months (our choice) to see him in total every year, this record seeking journey hardly seems worth my time.  When is he going to look these records over and when is he going to discuss his findings with us?  In the 3 hours total a year he sees us (of which we’ve already used 1 hour up)?  It’s never going to happen.  Also, he expressed concern that Rye’s learning disabilites may be causing his ‘bipolar’ like behavior.  Ummm, no.  Let’s not be ridiculous.  Learning disabilities don’t land kids in hospitals with crazy erratic behavior and audio and visual hallucinations, etc. etc, etc.

Anyway, the good news?  He is very nice and personable.  And I know he means well.  He appears to be a sweet person.  And Rye really likes him.  And he’s close to our house.  And he’s covered by insurance.  So, we’ll keep him in the running.  And, most importantly, he didn’t change the meds or even ask about changing them.  So that’s good.

Let’s not try and fix what isn’t broken.

Apparently Rye’s talk with God the other day helped.

Last night he sat down, completely of his own free will while Don and I were watching TV in another part of the house, and wrote a 2 page, single-spaced story about himself.  No one asked him to do this.  There was no assignment he was trying to complete.  No one was waiting for a finished product.  He just did it.  For himself.  He just sat down and wrote and wrote and wrote.  And the grammar was decent.  And the spelling was reasonable.  And the story made sense.  It flowed.  It gave good visual references.  And it told a complete story with a beginning and an end and used a variation of sentence types.

This is nothing less than a miracle.

This is a kid who 3 months ago at age 13 could only write 3 or 4 barely legible sentences at a time.   He hated writing.  He is dyslexic and it has always been very, very difficult for him.  And because of this no one, including me, has pushed him to learn it.   Now, however, with the help of a tutor twice a week and him relaxing at home and leaning in a relaxed environment [and me and the tutor constantly reminding him (gently, of course) that if he can't learn to write well he will never be able to do college level work], this is what happens.

Beautiful.

And to top it off, he looked at me last night and told me he now thinks writing is fun and that maybe he will be a writer when he grows up.

Do it, Rye.

You will be nothing less than great.

Rye’s Reading.

As a part of our homeschool work I make Rye read a part of his reading assignment out loud every day as he is dyslexic and I need to make sure he is reading all of the words correctly.  Also, this way he can ask me how to pronounce words as we go or ask me their meanings as we go.  Wait, didn’t I just say that?  Well anyway…

Today as he was reading he was mumbling and blurring sentences together so I asked him to read it over again and read out loud as he would read it if he had an audience in front of him.   I thought that might make him put a little more effort into it.  He started over.  He began and this time he enunciated well, used a loud and clear voice and also read it in full song.  Oh yes, since he was imagining an audience in front of him, he sang the entire passage.   Crooned it, if you will.  In kind of a sultry, jazz/big band type voice.   The entire thing.  And then, of course, added some of his own lyrics just for good measure.  Which, of course, were really silly.

I’ll tell you, I tried but I could not help but just burst into laughter.  He can be really over the top sometimes and very funny.  The good news is he read [sang] the entire passage correctly and answered all of the comprehension questions correctly.  The bad news, the next thing out of his mouth was “I really want to be a comedian when I grow up.  I think I could be really good at that.”

And he probably could.

photo source

Check the video out.  It’s really interesting.

I definitely have one of the kids that is told at school that they will never succeed in life because they can’t get the ‘one right answer’.  And yet, this same child can find so many alternate answers if anyone would just ask about them or be open to them.

Thanks to Christine at www.welcometomybrain.net for posting this video for me to see and pass on.

The Good News: After a few days at home, Rye is back to himself.  Perky, animated, grounded.  His usual bouncy self.

The Bad News: The cause of his mental distress was and is his school situation.

This will have to be addressed.

This is the direct result of our state pushing for and insisting on mainstreaming all kids and doing away with special education services.

The good news is that the home life is good, Rye is doing well at home and has *so far* [I have a feeling this is about to change] what is probably his best school attendance ever.  He has only missed a couple of days so far this year and for him that is monumental.  The bad news is that the stress of school and football is starting to get to him and is tinkering with his peace of mind.  For him it is really hard to go to school, sit all day, do work that is really hard for him, and deal with all of the different kids and teachers and all of their different personalities and demands.  As a result,  he now seems to be having some occasional thought issues  and can get agitated at times (although it passes quickly).  He also today told me that at times he is seeing ghosts and such.  Not good.  So, what to do, what to do.  I guess we will call Doc and see about his meds.  I am leary to just up his meds so he can deal with school but I don’t want to just jump the gun and pull him out of school either as I know he is learning at least some of what he is supposed to be learning and it’s nice for him and I to have some time apart.  Also, its good for him to have some structure to his day and to learn to deal with different personalities, etc.   And I know there are parts of school he enjoys so it’s not a total loss.

Urgghh,  it’s always something.

And as for football, sadly his team seems to be imploding.  I guess quite a few people were turned off by the whole police/coach scene last week (us included).  Rye was completely freaked out by this (even though we weren’t even there to see it) as he has issues with feeling safe anyway and has a real issue with people that have been arrested due to experiences with BigB.  Anyway, as a result of that and some injuries due to sub-par coaching, many people are pulling off the team leaving not much left behind.   I guess we need to figure out what direction we want to go with that.

In other happenings, Rye told me yesterday after a very frustrating day at school that if possible he just wants to get his GED at 16 and go to community college and work outdoors.  He says he can’t see spending 5 more years sitting in classes all day being frustrated.  I guess I see his point.  If school was that hard for me and the stress of it made me see things, I would not want to do it either.  Although he does enjoy learning. I think the public school situation/culture may just be too much for him no matter how many IEP accommodations we have.   And  Special Education has basically been done away with where we are so there aren’t many options in the schools.  And I know there are alternatives to public school so we may need to look in that direction for the next few years.  He says he already knows that at community college you don’t sit in class all day every day and that that is more his style.  Class and then a break.  Class and then a break.  Makes sense.  And he says he never, ever wants to work in a job where he sits at a desk in an office all day.  That made me laugh.  Good for him for already knowing that about himself.

I can really see him in a job where he is outdoors all day.  That is the perfect scenario for him.  He gets great peace from nature and physical outside work.  I guess we’ll have to start looking in that direction.

So, as you know by now, we have a few difficulties with the school Rye attends.  And that would be a gross understatement.  Without going back over it all, suffice it to say this is not the most enlightened, progressive, or proactive public school in the world.  Or, even in our county  (which, by the way, has a huge discrepancy as to the level of education, facilities and services they provide to different schools within the county, some of which are only 5 minutes from each other).  Anyway,  after complaining ad nauseum to everyone under the sun, writing endless emails, and generally becoming a thorn in the side of the county, we are now maybe, hopefully making some progress.  And as of yesterday, Rye now has a Behavior Intervention Plan (BIP) as a part of his Individualized Education Plan (IEP).

What is a Behavior Intervention Plan?  As of a few months ago, I had never heard of one despite the fact that Rye has had an IEP since the first grade.  Because honestly, up until now and before he attended Fast Times at Ridgemont Middle (lets just call his school this for now) he never needed one.  And, I’m sure even now in a different environment or a private school with small classes, he would not need one again.  Nonetheless, we must live in reality.  Fast Times is where we are now and the classes are huge and the special education support is lacking so this is what we work with now.

Anyway, back to the BIP.  The Behavior Intervention Plan is a federal legal document (as is the IEP)  that is included as a part of a student’s IEP.  The function of this plan is to identify behaviors that the student has as a result of their psychiatric diagnosis that interfere with his or her learning or the learning of those around them and then to help the child in a positive manner correct and replace that behavior.   It is also used to help the child stay in school for the full day and this helps with learning as well.

The most important thing about this plan:  It protects your child from inconsistent and/or improper correction or punishment from teachers or administrators.

And if you have a special needs child in a public school, this is something that should concern you. Particularly in middle and high school.

The Behavior Intervention Plan is a federal legal contract enforceable under federal law.

The BIP is based on a Functional Behavioral Assessment (FBA) that is performed by one’s school psychologist [note: the term psychologist is used loosely here because for public schools the psychologist is rarely a PhD but rather a master's level therapist, which in any other circumstance would not have the title psychologist].  The school psychologist observes the child over a series of days and different classsroom settings, talks to teachers, talks to administrators, and develops a plan of problem/targeted behaviors and then develops a plan for the teachers to positively and proactively help the student change these behaviors a little bit at a time.

Now, I’ll admit, having the luck we’ve had with this school so far, I was really hesitant to see what was going to become of these observations and discussions and how objective the school psychologist was going to be.  Luckily in the meeting, though, I found I was pleasantly surprised.  She seemed reasonable and neutral in her bias and that was nice.

So, why is this plan worth having?  Well,  it makes is so the teachers and administrators to have to follow a pre-determined and mutually pre-agreed upon plan of correction for undesirable behaviors and to help the child replace those problem behaviors with constructive, positive behaviors.  It keeps you child out of unnecessary and/or overused time in ISS (suspension) and from being randomly punished for behavior related to their diagnosis.   And this is something we personally have had a big problem with in our school.  Teachers over-punishing for small behaviors and punishing in whatever manner they see fit, without any positive anything coming from it  except anger, frustration, lost time in the classroom and an increasingly hostile environment.

Now, will this plan work?  Will the teachers and administrators adhere to it?  If previous and present adherence to the IEP without this new plan is any indication, the answer is no.

But we will hope for the best.  And prepare for the worst.  In the case of the worst, we will file for due process.

_________

Please note:  If you have a child diagnosed with ADHD and/or Bipolar Disorder, your child qualifies for an IEP with a note from your doctor stating the diagnosis under the category of Other Health Impaired (OHI).

postcard from www.postsecret.com – suicide prevention project

This is not our first time around on homeschooling.  We did it for over a year in the 4th-5th grade.  At the point I pulled Rye out of 4th grade, he was falling behind academically and was extremely frustrated by the school environment. Which, for us, meant nearly daily meltdowns at home.  I pulled him out and he did well.  When I put Rye back into public school with 3 months left to go in the 5th grade (he was ready to try it again for a while), he was able to pass the end-of-year tests at school with higher scores than many of the kids that had been there all year and years prior. And he has significant learning disabilities.

How is this possible?

Because kids like Rye often learn much better in a one-on-one setting.  Rye is dyslexic, has an auditory processing disorder (meaning he often processes what he hears incorrectly),  significant short term memory deficits, and an extremely short attention span.  He doesn’t have much time in the day where he will actually learn and absorb book learning.  So, how do we work with this?

I have found our best bet is to use workbooks and for no more than 2 hours a day.  Normal text books aren’t great for us as he really needs for everything to be hands on.  He learns by doing.  So I do teach him informally how to perform a task and then he does it.  And I generally have to sit with him the entire time he works and work with him every step of the way.  It is not easy.  And it takes a ton of patience.  But it is worth it.  It works.  And this is why he was going backward in public school.  He could not possibly get this much help and attention there and it was starting to show.  In less than one year back  in public school he was going completely backwards academically.  So, here we are again.

So, what exactly do we use?

Well,  we use workbooks for core skills and we use books, hands-on experience and field trips for all electives.   Although we learn a lot in the elective world, we do not have a set structure for electives.  We only use sit down, structured learning for core skills – reading, writing, grammar and math.

Specifically, this is what we are using right now.

http://teachersfriendcatalog.com/daily_chores_friendly_chart-p-58979.html

I use this chore chart (I know, it’s a bit corny for use with a 12/13 year old but whatever.  It’s huge/poster size and it’s clear and it works).  He has his basic skills work on there – reading, writing/grammar/math – and then his other chores for the week.  He checks them off as either done or undone and his allowance and freedoms are based on these checks.  If he does not do his book work for the day, he has no friends over or freedoms that day.  And honestly, I am not a fan of chore charts as by nature I am not an organized or micro-manager type person but he wanted one because it makes it clear and concrete to him what is expected of him.  So, he got one.

For math, we use the Grade 6 End-Of-Grade Coach workbook from the public school he went to and some supplemental workbooks that vary by what is helpful and well laid out (meaning easy to read for him and not too much on a page).  These include Singapore workbooks, hand made worksheets by me and a McGraw Hill one that I can’t find a picture of.

For reading comprehension we use:

http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Reading-Skills/Flash-Kids-Editors/e/9781411400771/?itm=1&USRI=grade+6+reading+skills

I like these Harcourt workbooks because they aren’t overly complex and they don’t have too much on a page which is great for dyslexic kids.  They also cover all parts of reading comprehension – facts, sequence, contect, main idea, conclusion, and inference.

The writing ones are good as well but we use them more loosely.  And we go down a grade level as we are quite behind in writing skills:

http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Writing-Skills/Flash-Kids-Editors/e/9781411404823

And this is the grammar book we use right now:

http://shop.scholastic.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay_69639_-1_10001_10002

Again, we go down a grade.  I like these grammar books becasue they are well laid out, don’t have too much on a page, and have a clear lesson on each page.

And, that’s it for the core subjects.  As for the elective work, I’ll write more on as we go.