This afternoon I took Calvin to a birthday party of one of his friends from school. It is always interesting going to events with kids from school for several reasons.
1. Unlike public school where all the neighborhood kids go to school together, kids from Calvin's school live all over the county. It was 30 minutes to get to this friends house today and in a part of town I have never been to before. Talking to other parents who were there, they were all from different parts of town and each of them probably came 30 minutes as well, but from all different directions.
2. As parents, we do not know the other kids at the school or the other parents. Kids arrive on buses and go to class. The environment at school is very controlled so even when I do stop by school I do not see many kids. Since kids take buses to school we never see the other parents at school. It is only at these rare social events that we see the other parents.
3. The nature of these special needs kids is that they aren't amazing communicators or reliable reporters on the events and details surrounding these friends and their families. I don't hear from Calvin about the ages, parents, families and home towns of his peers. Also, of course Calvin doesn't know details about diagnosis, treatment and other interesting facts about his peers.
4. not many play dates to speak of for many reasons. Distance between homes probably being biggest factor.
Diagnosis of kids that were there:
Autism, significant expressive language disorder
Aspergers, ADHD, ODD
bipolar, ADHD, ODD
Autism
Aspergers, ADHD
(Calvin: Personality Change, ADHD)
Did not talk to everyone there but these were the few I did talk to.
All the kids there have the school districts paying for the non - public school. Everyone but us had to hire an attorney or advocate to get the district to pay for school.
I enjoyed taking Calvin to the party. It was fun seeing his friends light up when he arrived. They were all thrilled to see each other. They swam for a little while and then had cake and hung out for a bit. The kids have been out of school for about 2 weeks and haven't seen each other since then. It was also nice riding in the car with Calvin. On the way there he was kind enough to choose Sunday music to listen to. on the way home he was kind enough not to blow his party whistle and just talked to me a little bit. Most car rides are kinda stressful, usually because the girls are singing or in his seat or something. This was nice.
It was interesting talking to the parents. These parents have been through so much. One mother recently had to place her son in a group home b/c he was so violent with her at home (he is 11 years old) . It was heartbreaking to hear about this. Another mother had to place her daughter in an inpatient mental hospital for a few weeks to get her stable on medications (when she was only 3. Things are better now and they are very successful with the medication they are on). One mother got placement at the non-public school after her son was physically abused in his district special education classroom. The lives of these families with special needs children is stressful, intense and heartbreaking at times. It is hard work. While there are many similarities between children, dealing with behavior problems, communication issues, school placement, regional center services, insurance battles, extended family ... each situation is so unique and personal and each child is one of a kind.
One of my favorite people I met today was the mother of a 13 year old boy. He is most definitely autistic but I never talked to her about diagnosis or treatment or anything. He has a sweet disposition. She was a good mother. Had a great sense of humor about things and was very resourceful and knowledgeable. She is also a great mother bear, obviously an advocate for her child and making sure things are right with him. Turns out she is also an aeronautical engineer. Brilliant in math and sciences. Anyway, always neat to meet new people.
One of the other moms is now an educational advocate, helping other families to get the services they need for their special needs children. I have noticed as I've talked to advocates and attorneys in the field that many became interested in a career in advocacy because they have a special needs child.
As a side, every child there is a client of the Regional Center except Calvin (regional center provides services for people with developmental disabilities including autism, epilepsy, down syndrome, cerebral palsy and mental retardation). We are in round three of our fight to get Calvin accepted at regional center. We have appealed twice and now we go before a judge at a fair hearing where the final decision will be made. We have been working hard to try and get ready for this. I will write more after it is over but don't want to have too much on the open internet until it is done.
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