Mom & Pop Home School

“Overeducated suburban housewife.”

It’s a phrase I find myself stumbling across in my reading with increasing frequency. It sashays casually into texts ranging from political analyses, to neuropsychological expositions, to examinations of socio-anthropological contributions to modern warfare—not to mention popular women’s magazines and the patronizing blogs of fashionably cynical young feminists. It frequently keeps company with words like “underemployed”, “trapped”, and ”bored”. The sentiment that seems to be lurking behind this rather smug little phrase is that no woman with a semi-functional brain and even half a dram of self-respect would ever allow herself to be incarcerated in a gilded cookie-cutter cage, cut off from respectably cosmopolitan companionship, and subjugated into the humiliating bondage of unpaid domestic servitude. Furthermore, should any strong, sensible, intelligent, articulate woman with a college education actually experience the severe misfortune of waking up one day to discover herself married, jobless, and (horror of horrors!) with the final, absolute degradation of a puling, drooling infant attatched to her sagging breast, it is taken as an undeniable societal certainty that she will go rapidly and rabidly insane under the sheer, grinding weight of tedium and ennui. And why? Because prior to landing herself in the aforesaid unfortunate circumstance, she has experienced, through her education and possibly previous work experience, the extraordinarily resplendent, vastly liberating, offspring-free splendor of intellectual enlightenment that begins at the sagacious feet of institutional erudition and finds its penultimate consummation, it would seem, only through gainful employment.

Oh alas and alak! If only she had suppressed her mental yearnings! If only she had engaged in preparatory training more suited to her ignoble position! Had she merely posessed the perspicuity to maintain that level of blissful, benighted ignorance that is congruous with her plebeian caste, she might have been able to endure such a dismal, prosaic existence, blithely unaware of the cerebral summits to be scaled beyond the periphery of her parsimonious purview.  But no! She has dared to grasp at that which is above her station; she has savored the heady, exotic nectar of scholasticism. Thus overeducated, the pitiable housewife is hopelessly doomed to languish, trapped in her tract home, manacled by her manicured postage stamp landscaping, bound by her boredom, ever envisioning the eden of employment that she might have enjoyed had she only stood sufficiently strong to shake off the shackles of societal expectation or lift the lazy lassisitude into which she has lapsed.

And now, lest I be tempted to indulge in any further alliterative excesses, and in the interest of my valuable time, which despite the scoffing of those who employ the phrase in question I refuse to place upon the public auction block, I shall close by merely stating that I respectfully disagree with the notion that a woman can be “overeducated”, regardless of the career she has chosen. Truth is beautiful in any environment. Knowledge is beneficial to any pursuit. One of the great advantages to a woman of being master of her own time is that she has the opportunity to improve her mind and sharpen her skills as she chooses. She can exercise her talents on behalf of her family, her community, and her country as she sees fit without having to answer to anyone but God and her own conscience. And in my opinion any “housewife” who can think of no better way to fill her time, and no greater contribution she can make than cleaning her house (which, by the way, would have to be done regardless of her employment status) suffers not from an overabundance of education, but from a deplorable lack of creativity and ambition.

This morning as I was measuring Sunshine’s dose of laxative to go in her juice, a large clump of powder slid out of the bottle, overflowing the measuring cup and spilling on the table. Attempting to pour the extra back into the bottle resulted in an even bigger mess. While I stirred the stuff into Sunshine’s juice, Pop came to our rescue with the little hand vacuum, slurping up the spill. Sunshine’s eyes twinkled as she announced, “Now the vaccum has to go to the bathroom!”

Cricket has had a great week. He’s even been walking his sister to school in the mornings, and then walking home by himself. BY HIMSELF. As in, without ME!!! HALLELUJAH!! Seriously, I thought we’d be doing REALLY well if he got to this point by the end of the school year. And it’s not even October yet. Pinch me!

Sunshine, on the other hand, has had kind of a rough week. A few weeks ago she complained of abdominal pain, with symptoms that seemed consistent with a urinary tract infection, except with no fever. I took her in to the clinic to get it checked out. All the tests were negative. The pain went away. We chalked it up as “one of those things” and went on with life. Then, this past Saturday she was having the same symptoms, only they seemed worse. She said it hurt to run or jump and even turned down an invitation from her friend to go to Jumpin’ Jacks (basically an indoor inflatable playground), which is NOT like her at all. So I took her in to the clinic again (it’s nice that they’ll see you for “urgent care” on a Saturday). The pediatrician on duty was the same one who had seen us before. The lab work was negative for UTI again. He didn’t feel anything alarming in her belly. But it was clear that she was in pain. He ordered an ultrasound for early this week and sent us home with instructions to call if it got worse. Over the next couple of days she seemed to be feeling some better, but would occasionally still complain that her tummy still hurt.

Tuesday we had the ultrasound. We saw all sorts of teeny little innards, with nothing at all out of the ordinary (aside from a stick-figure cowboy alien drawn on the screen by the technician when Sunshine was looking nervous). She was especially fascinated to see all the little bitty eggs in her very own ovaries just waiting for her to grow up (wait…humans have EGGS?). She was especially proud because ONLY GIRLS have ovaries. And SHE is a GIRL! We had quite the anatomy lesson. And a lovely discussion about human reproduction on the way home, too, may I add. She is now quite well informed as to how babies are made–with the notable exception of exactly HOW the daddy’s sperm gets in there where the mommy’s egg is; it was enough for her to know that the daddy “shares” it with the mommy. We’ll fill in the gaps when she’s a little older…lol. (She needed to know that an egg couldn’t grow into a baby all by itself before a girl is big enough to take care of a baby.) But it was nice to know that her reproductive and urinary organs are all properly formed, in the right place and position, receiving sufficient blood flow, and…um…draining properly (we had before and after photos). There were no tumors, no cysts, no growths, no obsructions, no twisted ovaries or limited blood circulation, and no birth defects like the ones that caused one of her aunts so much trouble with her kidney. Yay! But still no answers about why it hurts.

Wednesday afternoon Sunshine had a previously scheduled dental appointment. A little background: a while back Sunshine had an abscessed tooth that had to be pulled.  It hurt. The next visit she was so worried that it was going to hurt like that again that she flipped out and would NOT let go of me. We got no work done. The plan at that visit had been to put a crown on the tooth behind the gap, which has a cavity, and attach a spacer to the cap in order to prevent the teeth from shifting so there will be enough room for the adult tooth when it erupts. It didn’t happen. In fact, she was so panic stricken that the dentist suggested it might be easier, since she had several cavities (takes after her mother in the tooth department, poor soul) to just sedate her next time and do it all at once with her unable to feel anything. Happy, happy, all done! Good idea. One problem. She has that intermittent inflammation in the cartilage of her rib cage (intercostal chondritis). I don’t think it interferes with her breathing in any way, but the dentist was not comfortable doing the sedation at the dentist’s office if there was any question of a vague possibility of a complicating medical condition. (I can’t say I blame him.) But they have privileges at one of the local hospitals where we could do the procedure with the supervision of medical personnel, and everything would be hunky dorey. Only that’s not covered by our health insurance due to the fact that Sunshine is over four years old. And it’s more expensive than we can manage out of pocket. So no dice. We decided it wouldn’t hurt to wait a couple more months and then try again the regular way. That was THIS visit. Trying again.

The plan this time was to just do one quick and easy little filling and try to make it as pleasant as possible in order to build confidence. We went in, and Sunshine began to get anxious and clingy. The (VERY ENTHUSIASTIC!!) dental assistant said the dentist had just returned from a dental conference where he’d learned about new guidelines for administering nitrous oxide to children, and they’d been told it was ok to pin ‘em down a little and dose ‘em up. I said I was game, so we peeled Sunshine off me, plopped her in the chair, and stuck the mask on her face. AAAAAaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhh! THAT’s beeeeeettttttteeeeerrrrrrrrrr…. She quickly relaxed and watched Finding Nemo on the ceiling tv while they worked on her mouth (though she didn’t let go of my hand, so I had an excellent view–I do NOT want to be a dentist when I grow up). Alas and alack! When the dentist began exploring, the one little cavity we were going to tackle had turned into a rather big deal. Infected tooth. Must come out. GAH! I had solemnly PROMISED we were not getting a tooth pulled today. Just a little filling. But waiting would not be good. Not good at all. And what’s more, there was a NEW cavity in the tooth behind. It would need a cap. (She brushes her teeth, I SWEAR!! Honest!) So, new plan. Pull the infected tooth, spacer cap on the tooth behind. Just like the plan for the same teeth on the other side. Well, it needed doing. The dentist upped the regular dose of numbing stuff to make sure it wouldn’t hurt as badly as last time. Out came the tooth. Grindy grindy, in went the cap. And the spacer. And we were done. And Mom needed to sit down for a few minutes while the dental assistant rewrote our records. Sunshine did great. Not a peep out of her. The dentist and assistant were so impressed with her courage that she got extra prizes to take home with her. Not the usual tooth box for her tooth and a token for the gumball machine up front with the little toy prizes, but TWO tokens, AND a balloon, AND a sticker. COOL! Not to mention the nifty silver ”princess tooth” (I’m told that if they’re in a boy’s mouth they’re Transformer teeth).

So that was Wednesday. She’s been showing her fancy tooth off to EVERYONE ever since. She’s quite proud.

Thursday morning Sunshine said her tummy still hurt, her mouth hurt, and her chest hurt, and she didn’t feel up to going to school. (Now, I know this is downright WEIRD, but it is highly unusual for Sunshine not to want to go to school. She ADORES school.) So I called up the clinic and reported the new chest pain symptom and continued abdominal pain. They said her regular pediatrician was back in the office and could see her shortly, so off we went. We told him again the list of symptoms, and reported that the UTI test was negative and the ultrasound guy hadn’t found anything unusual. He smushed her belly around with his hands and said he was reasonably sure he felt a mass built up in her bowel. Probably it’s just constipation. It’s evidently a fairly common problem in children her age shortly after school starts because, as he said, at school they kind of discourage children from using the bathroom. So they don’t. And it builds up. Often a little waste sneaks out around the edges, fooling you into thinking they’re still operating normally. And they’re old enough that they need no help or supervision in the bathroom, and you don’t think to monitor their…output. So now we have a high fiber diet and a strong laxative. And we’ll see how it…uh…goes.

But it’s been quite the uncomfortable week for Sunshine. (And Mom by proxy. I am tired of waiting rooms.) Tonight (Friday) she’s having a friend sleep over. Friend is most impressed with the princess tooth. Mom is hoping for a chance to catch up the laundry.

Oh…and one more Twilight Zone occurrence. Cricket cleaned up Sunshine’s room for her today. Voluntarily. On his own initiative. After specifically telling me he “need[ed] no other reward than the good feeling from doing something nice for someone else.” I mean….seriously? I’m not going to argue with THAT, but….who is this kid, and what has been done with the child I gave birth to?

Ok, I’ve been busted. You’re right, I really am part of an alien species who has been living on this planet for the past hundred years or so experimenting on the human population of the North American continent. Recently an anonymous blackmailer sent me photos of myself going back to the 1950’s, noted that I do not appear to have aged significantly in the past half-century, and threatened to expose me unless I paid him/her a huge chunk of the money I’ve made by investing in big oil for nearly a hundred years. However, I think that the humans with whom I have been closely associating have begun to suspect something anyway, and I want to keep my money. Therefore I have decided to publish this public confession along with the series of photographs so there will be nothing left for the blackmailer to expose.

Here I am, as captured by high school yearbook photographers through the years. (I found the artificial social milieu of American high schools fascinating and spent a lot of time there doing sociological research for my people).

This is the first photo (that was found, anyway) of me, from 1950.

 This one, from 1960 is of slightly higher quality.

And here I am again in 1964.

As you can tell in these photos from 1970 and 1978, respectively, I spent the seventies examining how differences in socioeconomic and cultural situation affected the highschool experience.

 The eighties were another ballgame altogether. I never could figure out the whole “big hair” thing. Here I am in 1980, 1984, and 1986.

By 1990 I had finally gotten the hang of the hair. More or less.

Which, of course, meant that we went back to straight styles. Here I am in 1996, 1998, and 2000. Before you ask, yes it was more difficult to maintain my secret identity in the field once I got married and had a child. This is why Iwithdrew from the research team in late 2001.

I am sad to say that my anonymous blackmailing friend also got wind, somehow, of the year I spent masquerading as a male of the human species in order to make an objective comparison between the social behavior of the males versus the females. I was quite relieved when my supervisors decided that I was really too feminine to pull the role off convincingly. However, in the interest of full disclosure so that there’s nothing left for the blackmailer to hold over my head, here is my yearbook photo from 1956.

So now, dear reader, you know the worst. And, you rotten blackmailer, wherever you are, you have nothing left with which to threaten me. So there! What do I look like now? Aaaahhh…..the world may never know…..

(A note to my fellow research team colleagues: if you want to check out what they may have on YOU, go to www.yearbookyourself.com. Be sure to post what you find on your blog and leave me a link in the comments. Wink, wink.

 —Mom)

Monday, good. Tuesday good. Wednesday good. Thursday not so great. Waiting in the office for me with Mrs. H the new speech lady when I went to pick him up today (usually just waiting in there by himself). Evidently he refused to do the assignment today. Threw his paper and stuff on the floor and just sat there. And was in a foul and oppositional mood when I collected him. Mrs. H. and I discussed the assignment. Cricket was NOT going to talk with me about it with HER there. So I took him home and let him unwind and then we talked about it.

The assignment was to look in magazines for two people expressing different emotions, then cut them out and paste them on the two halfs of a paper and write two words describing each emotion being expressed. That’s right, cut out two pictures, glue them down, write four words = meltdown (but a minor one, all things considered). What evidently had happened was that ALL the people in his magazine just looked happy. (Did I mention that reading subtle differences in facial expressions is NOT a strong skill for most Aspies?) He had become anxious because he didn’t know how to do the assignment when he couldn’t find two different emotions (likewise, problem solving is a bit of a challenge, autistically speaking, and asking for help is a social skill). So we discussed ways he could have handled it differently for next time, such as raise his hand and explain his problem to his teacher so she could help him find a solution, or ask to go out in the hall for a minute to calm down and then try again. Or both. Then we got out some magazines and tried again. He found a happy woman and cut her out. I pointed out that the toddler she was holding had a different facial expression. He said, “Yeah, but that’s a BABY!” I said, “Well, babies are people too, and they have emotions.” He looked a little skeptical. (Have I done my job as a mother?) I asked what he thought the baby was feeling, and he looked closely and said, “confused”. I said, yeah, and maybe a little bored. She wasn’t looking at the adults the mom was chatting with at all. In fact, she seemed to be looking at the cameraman. Cricket started to ask, “What cameraman,” but stopped halfway through when he realized I meant the person taking the picture, who was not IN the picture, and burst out laughing. Evidently it’s very funny to see a photo of someone looking at someone who is not in the photo. (Theory of mind at work, for those of you who care about autism jargon…lol). We decided the baby’s confused expression meant, “What IS that person over there pointing at me anyway,” and the baby became person number two. Assignment complete. Yay!

Really, though, this is going SO much better than I feared those first few days when I was having flashbacks of Kindergarten. Only bigger. And without a newborn in tow. I wonder what tomorrow will bring. That’s one thing about Cricket—every day is an adventure, surprises waiting to happen.

I’ve been too busy to write for a few days due to my running away from home (on a retreat offered by my church women’s group) and then trying to get my Homeschool Tracker software set up properly for record keeping this year. Seemed kinda important seeing as how we’ve already started school…lol. (I’m expanding the records I keep so as to be able to wind up with an actual transcript. I realize middle school transcripts are maybe not critical in the grand scheme of things, but I figure if I start now I’ll have the kinks worked out by high school.)

 Anywho…

I just had to drop a quick note tonight to say I WAS RIGHT!!!!  Neener, neener! (Or some such childish battlecry of triumph.) It would seem that the explosion last Thursday was, indeed, an extinction burst. Dr. Jeckyl/Mr. Cricket was a model citizen at resource class both Friday and today. I kid you not. Pushed his new desk right up there on the end of the row and sat with the other kids. Listened attentively, raised his hand and responded to questions. Got happily divvied up into a group for group activities, in which he participated cheerfully. Unless you were in the know, you’d swear I brought the “good twin” those days. Our one consession to abnormalcy was that he “needed” to bring a stuffed animal along for moral support. However, since the critters in question also behaved themselves with great aplomb and propriety, I have heard no complaints regarding their unorthodox presence in class.

Now, we have had a couple of outbursts at home—as Pop observed this afternoon (while Cricket was cooling off in his room), my dear boy does not believe in giving me an entire DAY of good behavior. But hey, I’ll take what I can get. And this is a vast, VAST improvement over previous school years, so progress is happening. Friday’s storm was over latch hooking (Surprised? Didn’t think so.) Today it was because the math workbook on telling time with an old-fashioned analog clock, which I so carefully selected because it did not have a grade level printed on it, included a sentence indicating that there was no need to worry if this was difficult because, “You will practice this more in second grade.” Doh!! For some strange reason (ha!) my big ol’ eleven year-old felt disgruntled at having to do first grade work. But hey, when you have holes in your education (whether because you were too anxious to pay attention or because you just didn’t see any point in learning about analog clocks when you could read a digital) you have to go back and fill ‘em in. Because your Mom is NOT going to read clocks for you for the rest of your life, and not every clock in the world is digital. Eventually, after a good long stint in his cool-down hidey hole, he came back and agreed with me that it was something he needed to learn and this was a useful workbook to use for that. And we could probably breeze right through it and get back to 6th grade math, which we began last year so we’re not getting behind by filling in a gap. I wonder what tomorrow’s outburst will be over….history I’m guessing, looking at the lesson plans.

What now, you ask? Are his behavior issues at school quelled once and for all? Ha! Not hardly. There will be resurgences of inappropriate behavior, most likely up to and including major meltdowns. However, what this probably means is there’s a good liklihood of those days being the exception rather than the rule. And if that is the case there’s a reasonably good chance, I’d say, that in next year’s IEP we’re going to have some pressure to dump him back in school full time. I’m not wild about that idea, but I do think it’d be nice to send him to school for a class or two in junior high and high school, just so I don’t have to teach them. I love my son, but…physics? Algebra? Shudder….

Or…

My son threw a humongous fit today.

Musings from my home-brewed experimental Aspie therapy program (yes, I’ve attended at LEAST one too many seminars…or maybe it’s one too many books…lol):

In the world of behavior modification, reinforcing (or rewarding) a behavior will most likely increase the behavior, and not reinforcing a behavior will most likely result in a decrease of the behavior. Reinforcement can come in unexpected forms. Even negative attention, such as scolding or punishing, can be reinforcing. When you want to decrease or eliminate a particular behavior, the behavior modification model tells you to use the ABC approach: evaluate what happened before the behavior (the trigger, or “Antecedant”), specifically describe the behavior (Behavior), and figure out what happened next that could be the reinforcer (”Consequence).  Once you have this figured out, you can engage in a technique called “extinction”. Extinction is basically defined as the non-reinforcement of a previously reinforced behavior in order to extinguish the behavior. The idea is that if you can figure out what reward the child is getting from the behavior and eliminate it, the child will stop behaving that way. Makes a certain level of sense, right?

This technique has worked very well with Cricket as long as the undesirable behavior is not rooted in sensory overstimulation. It can be hard to tell, sometimes, if it’s a “sensory behavior” or a  ”behavioral behavior” (I know, it doesn’t make sense, but that’s what I call it in my head), but one way to find out (beyond evaluating the surroundings carefully for sensory culprits) is to try out some behavior management techniques and see what happens. If he responds in the way one might expect from a behavior modification perspective, then it’s probably a “behavioral behavior”. If it’s a “sensory behavior” he will usually not respond to behavior modificaiotn techniques.

Having sat in the classroom with Cricket for a couple of days, I see no sensory culprits. The children in the small class are remarkably quiet and still, and have been nothing but calm and kind. The lighting is good and there is no auditory problem I can detect. It is a fairly stimulating room visually, with lots of “stuff” on the walls, but he is able to function just fine in settings that are much more visually cluttered than this one. I have a suspicion that what we are dealing with is largely a conditioned avoidance response–Cricket has so many negative associations with “school” that he automatically responds to the presence of “school” by doing things like hide under tables to avoid having to participate. This is not going to fly with his Mom. She doesn’t allow that kind of behavior at home, and she’s not going to put up with it at school either. (Have I mentioned that I’m an ogre?) That’s not to say he NEVER engages in avoidance behavior. He’s actually quite skilled at it. If he can get you to whine and cajole, threaten, rage, and plead he will. After all, the whole time that’s going on he’s getting lots of attention and he’s not having to do whatever it is he’s trying to avoid. Just what he wanted! However, we have succeeded in eliminating a lot of his avoidance behavior and significantly reducing the duration of what he does throw at us, largely through the practice of extinction.

So how does extinction work? Basically you withhold the reward he’s been getting for the bad behavior, and you begin rewarding the good behavior you want him to engage in instead. The first day we went to class and he hid under the table, one child and three adults tried kindly to coax him out and wheedle him into participating. (Reward for going under the table: attention, and getting out of participating.) The second day he went under and I just told him that he needed to come out and work if he wanted to have computer privileges after school, and then ignored him. (Reward for hiding under the table: none.) After a few minutes he came out, I ignored the fact that he had come out, but handed him the paper and made a deal with him where I’d do one step, then he’d do the next, and we’d alternate. (Reward for participating: attention.)

Today was fairly dreadful. He hid under the table; I reminded him that participation in the class was a requirement for afterschool computer use, and then ignored him and smilingly shooed away a nice lady who wanted to talk him out. He came out and sat at his desk. But he was NOT happy nor cooperative. What ensued is, I believe, what is known in the behavior modification world as an “extinction burst”.  An extinction burst is an increase, or escalation in the targeted undesirable behavior in order to try to get the desired reinforcement. (As illustration, when you push the elevator button you anticipate that the elevator will come. If it doesn’t, rather than just walking away you might push the button again. If it still doesn’t come, you might jab the button harder, or push it several times, or even swear at it. This is an extinction burst–an increase in the behavior that is “supposed to” result in the desired reward.) He flung his pencil and paper on the floor. I ignored it. He shoved his desk over. This got the attention of the rest of the class for a moment, but I just smiled and waved at them and they went back to what they were doing. I told him he needed to set his desk back up properly and get his work done, and then I ignored him. He began trying to grab my glasses. I held his hands to prevent damage, but otherwise ignored him. Then he went ballistic as he has not done in a long time, struggling and scowling and growling threats at me. He slid of his chair in an effort to get me to let go, and I slid down on the floor with him. I didn’t want to let go because there was a little girl at a nearby desk and I didn’t want her to get caught in the crossfire. It’s been awhile since I used it, but technique of slipping behind him, wrapping my arms around his waist, and holding onto his wrists with his arms crossed still comes naturally…sigh. And it still works, even though he’s almost as big as I am now. So we sat there for a few minutes with him huffing and puffing. I calmly informed him that I would let go when I felt he could be safe with others. He said he was going to keep it up until I took him home. I told him we were going to stay for the whole class regardless of how he behaved. Then I ignored him some more. He tried whacking me with his head, but I learned how to dodge that move years ago. After a remarkably short time for this sort of breakdown (yay) he calmed down and said he was ready to be let go. So I let go…and made the mistake of asking if he was ready to set up his desk. He rolled over on the floor and started scowling at the ceiling and ignoring me. I ignored him back.

After a little while it was time to go. He stood up and said he was ready. I said, great, I was ready too and we’d go as soon as he’d put away the things he’d used today. He looked at me like I had an extra head and said he hadn’t used anything. I said he’d used the pencil and paper for throwing, and had tipped over the desk, and he needed to put them all right before we left. He flopped down on the floor and said he was NOT going to stand that desk up. I said that’s ok, I’ll wait and went and found a chair to sit on and ignored him. He rolled around on the floor for probably ten or fifteen minutes hoping I’d change my mind. He flopped over by me at one point to inform me that the only reason he was acting this way was to annoy me. I said I wasn’t annoyed, as I had just found a nice book to read while I waited and had nothing better to do. Once a student tried to help him out by starting to stand up his desk. I told her thanks for being so nice, but it was important for Cricket to do that himself, and she left it. When I wasn’t looking for a minute a teacher who had been out of the room came in and saw the toppled desk and actually scooped it upright before I could stop her. I smilingly explained that Cricket needed to fix the problem he’d created, and tipped it back over. That didn’t go over well with Cricket, who thought he’d won when she started cleaning up after him. He tried telling me that since I had tipped it over, I had better set it back up. I told him he knew better, and went back to ignoring him. Not long after that he inchwormed his way over to the desk and slowly and sulkily set it back upright. I breezed cheerily over and thanked him for taking care of that, and told him he’d done a good job and I was sure it would only take a minute to put away the pencil and paper now that he’d done the big part of the job. He leaned over and picked them up. Then he got a nasty sneer on his face and crumpled up the paper. I smiled and pointed to where the trash can was, and I saw him teetering on the brink of throwing the balled up paper at me. But instead he shoved the pencil inside the desk and stomped over to the trash can. He flung the paper in it, and then turned around and said, “Can we go home now?” Why of course we could now that he’d put his things away, and off we went.

As we went down the hall he nattered on about how it was all my fault for bringing him here, and so forth, and I ignored him. As we walked down the sidewalk on the way home he jumped in front of me and bellowed at me that he hates me, and he’ll ALWAYS hate me. I said that’s ok, sometimes kids hate their parents and he could too if he needed to for a while. And then I walked around him and ignored him. That’s when he hauled off and hit me in the back. I ignored him. He hit me again. A couple of times. I ignored him some more. And then he just fell miserably into step with me and we walked quietly the rest of the way home. When we were almost there he asked in a meek voice what the consequences were going to be. I said that he had needed to participate in the class in order to have computer privileges. Had he participated? He said no he hadn’t so he guessed he didn’t get to use the computer today. What about hitting mom? Well, we set some consequences for that too, including (but not limited to) no computer use for the rest of the week. This will be a hard thing for him, as computer use is the “currency” that matters most to him right now. I left video games out of it so that I would have some leverage for tomorrow…sigh.

So what’s next? A couple of years ago I’d have said we had many more days like this ahead of us before things changed much. We might have another couple of bad days yet. But at this point my guess is that tomorrow will be a pretty good one at school. He will probably cooperate at least to some degree in whatever project they have for us. He will probably sit quietly at his desk. He will probably put things away when it’s time to go. And I’ll probably have the opportunity to lavish praise and attention upon him for a job well done, and maybe even offer a reward of some kind–reinforcing the DESIRED behavior. And the reason I think this is that I THINK that what we had today was a prime example of an extinction burst. It’s possible that the burst will continue or even escalate tomorrow, but with the way his behavior has been lately otherwise, I don’t think he’ll put us through that. My prediction for tomorrow is that the cloudburst has passed, and although I don’t expect clear skies and sunshiney dispositions, I think we’ll at least manage a low-grade overcast calm.

This is good, because if I’m right about this one the next step for him will be his gradually relaxing in the previously stressful environment, working toward actual participation, and possibly even enjoyment down the road a bit. This could be a really good thing.

And he didn’t even leave bruises this time. He lost it, but he didn’t lose it big. Even this is progress.

I think today went a little better over at E.M. Elementary School with Cricket. He did duck under the table once, but came out fairly quickly and I think it was mostly to see if he could get away with it. Part of the trouble was that we had a substitute today due to the speech pathologist who normally teaches that class (yet another Mrs. H, not the Mrs. H who was last year’s SP, nor the Mrs. H who was last year’s psychologist) being also in charge of the hearing screenings that were happening simultaneously. In fact, our class got to go do hearing screenings while we were there. Did Cricket participate? Yeah, right! But I made him walk down the hall with the class and observe the process from the doorway.

Today we practiced following instructions by making a “cootie catcher”. He actually did participate, with me doing odd numbered steps, and him doing even numbered steps. This is progress at least. Naturally the suggestion to do things like putting colors and numbers on the flaps and write messages under them did not go over well with him. We just skipped that part and pretended to pick bugs off each other and puppet-chomp each other’s noses instead. For a moment I think he even sort of enjoyed himself–that moment being when I allowed him to stomp it to death on the floor at the end.

I begin to think that once he and the multitude of resource teachers who are in there all get more accustomed to one another it will be less stressful for all of us. I spoke to Mrs. H about the class a little today after hours, and she seemed quite concerned about Cricket’s reactions–in the sense of “how can we make it better for him” rather than “what are you going to do about his behavior”, which is a good sign. I suggested that having his own desk in there rather than sitting off to the side at a table might give him more of a “landing pad” in there so he feels like he knows where he’s supposed to be and what he’s supposed to be doing. She thought it was a great idea and thinks it can happen as soon as tomorrow morning. (Yay!) I wasn’t sure how they’d feel about that seeing as how it’s only 30 minutes a day, but after all it is EVERY day, and part of the idea here is for him to learn to function in a group of “peers”. I think he’ll be more a part of the group and less an outsider if he also has a desk. (They have kids come in and out for various short portions of the day and they usually just sit at the side tables rather than join the regular “resource” class at desks, so they didn’t think about it. But this is his only class at school, he doesn’t have a “regular” classroom where he parks his pencils and hangs his jacket.) She and I are also on the same page about me being in there with him as long as it’s needed, and sort of phasing me out a little at a time beginning with gee, I need a drink of water, you stay here and I’ll be right back, with longer and longer “breaks”, maybe working up to me waiting in the office, then doing drop-off and pick-up, and then (with light shining down from heaven amidst angelic choruses) eventually having him just walk there and back on his own.  I will have to think about some other ways to make it better. I’d like this to work out. He has definite school-related “issues”, and even if he never returns to actual school I’d like him to be able to face up to his demons there and be able to walk into a school setting without the “fight or flight” reaction immediately kicking him in the pants.

At home, he worked willingly and cheerfully again. (Is he just suckering me in until I let my guard down, or is actually going to cooperate this year? Can it be possible to have learning sessions with this child without it feeling like alligator dentistry? I am not yet a believer, but I begin to hope…) There was a little fussing over the latch hook again today as the realization set in that when you work on the second row, the FIRST row is RIGHT THERE and the strings get IN THE WAY!!! However, the first row was all black, whereas there were a few white strands in row two, and he was pretty psyched about that. I only made him do half a row today. And eventually he buckled down and just did it. I read from one of our history books while he worked, and actually heard that magical phrase that all homeschool parents dream of….”Mom, could you keep reading please? I don’t want to stop there.” (Seriously, is this the same kid who was fighting me tooth and nail a mere month ago?) My maternal/schoolmasterly plotting includes having him do some “homework” this year, which will mostly be comprised of whatever parts of assignments we didn’t finish during “school hours” (which will be the same as his sister’s since she’s no longer doing half-day Kindergarten, and I must say I LIKE having neither the scheduled interruption in the middle of the day nor the pitter patter of little feet during lesson time). I had thought it was too much to hope that he would actually complete his “homework” independently, at least not until later in the year after working gradually up to it. But yesterday he did finished off the latch hook row on his own, and today he did his geography assignment without assistance (other than occasional reminders that he was supposed to be filling in the blanks on the notebooking pages, not just reading for fun). For geography we’re doing a survey of the 50 U.S. states in the order in which they joined the union. He will be making a notebook containing very basic information on each state, such as state bird, flower, tree, flag, symbol, capitol, and so forth. Since all this information is not in either of the two books we’re reading about the states he will be doing some research to find the info; Mom started him off with some links to suggested helpful web sites and an online encyclopedia. This week he researched the U.S. national symbols, and kept getting distracted with all the “interesting information” he found in addition. He read a whole big thing about the history of national mottos, for example. And he did all of it independently!!! (This is BIG STUFF!!!) It’s so nice to see that spirit re-emerging in him. He was like that when he was little, wanting to know EVERYTHING just because the world and everything in it are so interesting. I’m seeing that part of him starting to come out of its shell again; it’s one of the things that makes me feel like all of this is worth it.

Sunshine’s first day of school was August 20th. She was a bit apprehensive the first two days because she didn’t know her teacher and there were lots of strange new children. And the boy at the next desk kept swiping her pencil! On day 2 I asked the teacher if she could be sure to greet Sunshine when she comes in so that she will feel confident that an adult is looking out for her, and then she would likely be less clingy. Sure enough, it worked! Already she dashes confidently into the classroom, moves her lunch count clothespin to the appropriate string, tosses her backpack and sweater into her cubby (she was THRILLED!!! to learn on open house day that she gets cubby number ONE!!!), plops her homework folder into the proper bin, grabs her “morning work” out of the basket, and off she goes. Completely mom-free. Having been introduced to extreme school-phobia by her older brother, who required me all the way through third grade to peel him physically off my body and hand him over to his aide to cling to while I exited stage left, hardening my heart to the wails of despair, and returning him if he broke away and came flying after me–well, let’s just say I admit to more than one morning already on which I stood in the hall  watching Sunshine’s confident demeanor through the little window with my heart brimming over into my eyes. So many parents don’t understand what a MIRACLE it is! Such a little person taking on the big world with such gusto! That’s MY GIRL!!!

Today was the first day of school for Cricket. I gave him August off, as we spent most of the summer playing catch-up from Mom having the flu/bronchitis/pneumonia for weeks on end earlier this year. Conveniently, this was also the day when his IEP services through the elementary school started up. (Nice of them to wait for our school to start, eh? Perhaps I’ll just conveniently neglect to mention that such services NEVER seem to start until at least 2 weeks into the school year.) This year we’re trying something new, at the “new” elementary school. When the new school was built we arranged for Cricket to continue going to the school with which he was already familiar for his special ed services so as to increase our chances of cooperation by maintaining familiar surroundings. We sent Sunshine to the new school when she reached Kindergarten age so that she’d be in classes with kids in our own neighborhood. Better for making and maintaining friendships. The same psychologist services both schools, and last year it was more convenient schedule-wise to meet with her at the new school even though we still received our other services at the old school. She believed that he was more comfortable at the new school, possibly owing to its having fewer traumatic memories attached. Another benefit to this school is a communication skills/social skills resource class that meets every morning for  half an hour which had visited with varying degrees of success last year and which, it was generally agreed by the IEP committee, would be better for him than the 30 minutes once a week he’d been receiving. I agreed somewhat reluctantly because a) I hate to give up our former speech pathologist who was so personally interested in Cricket and had become a friend to me as well, and b) I see through their little plot to get the nefarious homeschool mom to send him back to school all the time (which as we all “know” is “best” for such children) by transitioning him in gradually–but I know my son well enough to know that they are in over their conniving little heads; nevertheless, I do think it could be good for him and I’m willing to give it a shot. Plus, in theory this gives me 30 minutes at the beginning of the day to toss the breakfast dishes in the dishwasher and do a little school prep. In theory. Then there’s reality.

This morning Cricket was apprehensive, but he did get dressed and ready to go in good time and with little prodding (progress in itself when it comes to anything resembling school). I admit he got my hopes up. Since I didn’t know where the classroom was, and it was evidently hard to describe by phone, we’d been told to go to the office the first day and have our contact paged and she’d come show us where to go. They had difficulty reaching her and by the time the nice office lady (who knows me well as Sunshine’s mom–that child could charm the hiss off a snake) tracked her down she was already teaching the class. So we got to go in with everyone STARING at us, which is not a good beginning for Cricket even though it’s a very small group, not a full-sized class. In fact, he took one look through the open door and panicked, fled back around the corner, plunked his behind down on the floor and announced that he was NOT going IN THERE! He came this far, and would go no further! And that’s that! (But he didn’t scream or throw any punches, so look how far we’ve come!) I sat with him for a few minutes while he calmed down a little and then explained pleasantly that any computer use after school hours today was dependent upon his cooperation, including attending this class. At first he just glared at me and refused to even grace that notion with a response, but when I drew a line in the sand with a deadline for his decision (I’m going to count to five, and then…) he decided he could go. It was pretty clear to me, though, that it was not realistic to expect him to let me leave TOO. So we both went in and sat at the back. So much for prep time. I guess that’s something to work toward, not something to actually expect. After he seemed fairly settled in I excused myself for a drink of water with the promise to return immediately (a technique which has succeeded in weaning him off me gradually in various settings in the past). He started hyperventilating a little, but I went anyway and he waited and was ok. This gives me hope. Maybe soon I’ll be able to wait in the office instead of attending the class with him. And then wait at home–which is, after all, only a block and a half away. With fair winds and strong sails it MIGHT be possible by next spring to get him to walk Sunshine to school without me and then come home alone. But it’s also possible that’s just psychotic fantasy on my part. And frankly, I think it’s partly my own stinkin’ fault for listening to the people who told me if I just peeled him off me and left him enough times he’d adjust. That works for a lot of kids, I suppose, but this one? Not so much. Kind of like spanking, it only makes matters exponentially worse with this one.

So we sat and listened to the lesson on the importance of following directions. Yay. Good stuff, that. And if that had been all for today it might have been okay. But today was Tuesday (there having been no school yesterday due to it being Labor Day). On Tuesdays the school psychologist comes in  to present the “social skills” portion of the program, which is another 30 minutes and which is also part of his specified services (not the psychologist we had last year who thought this was such a grand plan and who has moved on to the Jr. High this year, but a brand-new fresh-faced soul who I think may be doing this as an internship…sigh…) She passed each child a large piece of paper with his or her name written on it in large, outlined block letters and asked them each to color in their name in a way that told something about themselves. Then they were to write five words that describe themselves, draw a picture of someone they admire, and write a goal they want to work toward in any area of their lives. They would take turns sharing their project in front of the class next week as a way to get to know each other. She wrote the instructions on the board so the children could all practice following instructions, as they’d just learned about–an oh-so-smooth-and-professional coordination of lesson plans which I could tell she was quite proud of. Now, if you have been following our saga much you may be less surprised than Miss Psych was when she turned around to find Cricket in a huddle on the floor under the table, moaning. After making the rounds with the other kids and making sure they were off to a good start she approached me and asked whether I had suggestions as to what she might have said that would have caused such a reaction. I just kind of laughed and said, “Yep. Color, write, draw, and share with the class.” We had a short chat about his history of resistance to making marks of any kind on paper, along with tactile defensiveness and a brief explanation of how much he’s improved so there’s hope yet for the future and in fact one of my goals for the year is to get him to compose whole paragraphs. I didn’t get into the ‘up in front of the class with everyone staring at me’ issues much or the asking a very private-souled child to share himself with a roomful of people he doesn’t know and certainly doesn’t yet trust. She had enough of a look of panic in her eye already. In fact she sort of looked a little pale when she said she wasn’t sure how this was going to work out with her lesson plans because she’d included a lot of this kind of projects…but then she hadn’t planned the whole year yet, just the first several weeks. She did ask what kinds of things he enjoys and I offered a couple of suggestions–though being an “Aspie” his interests are somewhat narrow. We tried having him give me instructions on what to color and what to write, but he was too far gone. Clearly Miss Psych and I are going to need to have a bit of a chat. I actually have been expecting her call to set up a meeting for several weeks now and have been surprised not to have received one. ‘Twill be interesting to see how this progresses. I am feeling a little frustrated at having to train yet another “expert” who is supposed to know more about this stuff than I do. And I’m getting a little tired of encountering the attitude that I can not POSSIBLY do as good a job with him at home as a team of trained experts could at school. Pshaw! But I suppose that’s a story for another day. Or not.  

At any rate, I did manage to get him out from under the table before the end of class, and calmed and cooperative enough to hand the lady the still unmarked paper and the crayons when she was collecting them. I give him full credit for not having ripped anything up, thrown anything, or screamed at anyone, even the boy who tried very sweetly and kindly to coax him out from under the table in spite of repeated frantic requests to “please just leave me alone”. However, his mood was so foul and oppositional at this point that I was having flashbacks of our first year of homeschooling when it took all day to have enough moments of non-violent cooperation to get a whole page of easy math done. I was not looking forward to trying to teach this kid ANYTHING else today, and we still had all of our academic work to make it through. When we got home, though, I sent him up to his room to calm down while I sat in Pop’s office for a few minutes to vent about the experience while he was trying to work (Pop’s a good sport). Then I went down to the school room and wrote up our assignments for today from the weekly list, congratulating myself on not having scheduled anything particularly heavy-duty for the first week while we work into the school routine. Yay Mom! By the time I called him down, Cricket was actually quite cheerful and went to work on his math with good humor. In fact, the only time we had a problem was after lunch toward the end of the school day (saved it for the end on purpose) when I introduced him to the latchhook.

“Latchhook???” you say. Yep, latchhook. It’s a multi-purpose project and part of my own nefarious scheming. I anticipate, along with a certain level of very vocal resistance and non-violent civil disobedience, the following benefits from this project:

• An appreciation for colonial handicrafts (we’re studying the American colonies in history for a number of weeks)
• Improved small muscle development and finger/grasp strength, which should help with his pencil control and ultimately reduce his resistance to writing (other exercises with similar purposes have produced positive results in this regard)
• Practice in motor planning and executive function (that’s fancy therapy talk for one’s ability to think through what needs to be done step by step, and then do it)
• A productive activity for Cricket to engage in during times when I am reading aloud to him
• Personal pride and an increase in confidence as a result of having done something hard and completed a long-term project that requires perseverance.

A lot to ask from one craft project, I know, but call me an optimist. He can do this. After watching me demonstrate the first knot he thought it looked fun and easy and wanted to have a go. As expected, though, he couldn’t remember how it went, even though he’d watched carefully as I explained mere moments before. The first thing to do was….the first thing….first….PANIC!!! He calmed down quickly, though, and I assured him that I wouldn’t leave him on his own with it until he had it down solid. Until then I was with him every step of the way. So we worked the next several knots together as a team effort (and fortunately I’ve done this enough to be able to do it upside down and backward…lol) and pretty soon, after only “quitting” twice, he was cruising along with a big grin on his face and a swagger in his hook hand. Aaargh, Matey!  The fireworks didn’t start until he realized I wanted him to complete the entire first row (40 knots–12 inches) today and if he didn’t finish during school time then that would be his homework tonight. Of course, he was only a few strands short of half way by then, and I’d put in knots at halfway, three quarters, and the end for him so he’d have a visual of his progress. At the rate he was going he could have probably finished up before school time was over, but the IDEA of having to do that whole expanse was a bit overwhelming for him. As expected. He did a lot of yelling and swore he’d hate me forever, but again there was no throwing, hitting, or mangling of the project (although he did throw it on the floor flat and jump on it a few times to show it who was boss), so I’m proud of his restraint. He did get sent up to his room to quiet down again, but managed to get back in control in quick order. He finished out his school time (which pauses when one has to leave to calm down) and had a good time with play time until supper. After supper he amazed me by getting out his homework and finishing off the row quickly, calmly, and entirely without help. This kids’ gonna be ok I tell ya. Had me a bit worried for a few years, but it’s been quite a long time now since I wondered about the pricing and procurement of strait jackets. (Maybe a matching set, one for him, one for me…lol.)

Here’s what the job will look like when complete:

Also, possibly a fair rendition of what his mother will look like when he gets through with her. But we’re off to a decent star for another school year!