Email to The Teacher

Hi All - Here is the email I just sent to Noah's teacher today..... It's a first for us but I know it was the right thing to do. Maybe I'm making him feel different by allowing him not to go to school on Friday. Who knows? I just think that if it was me............it would be crappy to have to sit watch all of my friends eat their holiday food and talk about their family holiday food traditions. I hope I didn't over react.... Any thoughts?

Hi Teacher (name changed to protect the innocent - hee hee)-

Both Bryan and I feel like the focus of the Winter Holiday Breakfast on Friday is going to be over-the-top too difficult for Noah. We just can't focus on the "foods" of the holidays with him. We cannot adjust his meals to accommodate the timing of the breakfast and he cannot snack in between his meals. We don't want to bring in a "Special Food to Share from our Holiday Tradition" because we purposely downplay those food traditions in our home. He has begun to see how "different" his buddies eat at school which makes it even harder for him to listen to every child talk about the traditional foods their families eat and watch everyone sharing those foods with each other except for him.. We have spoken with him and given him the choice of whether he wants to be in school for Friday's Breakfast or stay with me. He wants to stay with us. He won't be in school on Friday at all. I hope you understand how really hard it is for Noah and for us, when it comes to these situations. He is such a trooper about it every single day when it comes to his Diet.

Thanks,
Cathy

CoNfUsIoN

I just met with Noah's first grade teacher....Can I just sit and cry for a minute? I feel frustrated today.....and sad.........and discouraged!

Last year Noah met several times a week with the resource teachers to provide additional educational and language support. At the end of the year, to my surprise, those great teachers informed me that Noah no longer qualified for extra services. His grades and his one-on-one resource testing showed scores higher than what he needed to qualify for those services. I was more than upset. I knew he would need support this year or he would begin to slip down the ladder of academia.....
Overall...something is missing for Noah. He does well one-on-one. But throw him into a classroom situation and apparently things are not going well. He wanders around when he should be in his seat. The teacher will sit with him and give him instructions. As soon as she walks away, he will just sit there and look around. He can't remember or chooses not to remember all of the instructions.
I think there are a few things happening....1. He is cute. He is the size of a 3 year old and the girls love that cute little face. So they help him like a they would help a toddler. He will "let" them do his schoolwork anytime. 2. TOPOMAX (dopomax) - causes short term memory issues, word finding issues and slows processing time. 3. Slower processing + short term memory issues = inability to hold long stretches of instructions, story content, etc. resulting in behavioral issues.
Not only is all of this going on but Noah is young in his life experience. He basically missed two years of his life due to seizures. He never experienced all of those environmental influences that a 3 & 4 year old experiences. He can't make the natural learning leaps and cultivate new first grader ideas because he missed those times.
For example - he still draws stick figures. Actually, he has added a body now. But, still no neck. Most first graders notice what others are drawing around them, make the connection with how they are drawing that figure and begin drawing more of a body with neck, arms, legs and feet. Noah is still drawing chicken type toes. Unless someone tells him how to draw a body and draws with him for a while, Noah will just continue on with his stick people.
I realize that I can no longer depend on the school to test and evaluate and help Noah. But you know what? I was hoping they could at least tell me what specialists I need to get him in to see. We have a great school. With great specialists. But they are overloaded and it'll be until at least the end of January before their evaluations are done and Noah receives additional help at school.
I know he needs to have an Auditory Processing Disorder evaluation done. He has to be 7 yrs old for that test. Waiting until February.....
What else? What specialists does he need? What help does he need? Where can I turn? I am sooooooo confused....
Excuse me while I sit in my corner and cry for awhile....
Thanks for listening.