Ah Yes, The Autism Hasn't Miraculously Vanished You Know...

I sing his praises so much you could be forgiven in thinking he was out of the spectrum, but of course he is not. He is doing well, so very well BUT it is incredibly frustrating when the fact he has Asperger Syndrome, will ALWAYS have Asperger Syndrome (AS), seems to be forgotten. Or ignored.

Big Boy & Boy 1 - Byron Bay
Copyright Madmother

The pressure at the moment is immense. We are coming up to the last week of third term and the work is snowballing. Why they do this is beyond me. Even Boy 2, who does the same work as Boy 1 though is in the grade below, Grade 6 (in a composite 6/7), is finding it terribly stressful. Tears of frustration are becoming the norm in this house.

Last weekend we had meltdowns, trigger tempers, tears. This week has been much the same. And it could have been avoided with a little forethought.

Boy 1 had a week off, the week before last. The whole family went down with some nasty virus, but he was hit the hardest. The school knew, because it was from school I picked him up on the Monday, green as the grass.  So he missed a week.

On his return the following week this is what he was hit with:

• Poster for his marketing/technology poster due on the Wednesday, he found out Monday afternoon. Given extension to Friday.
• Rough draft of debate due Friday - AND they put him in as THIRD speaker for the negative! WTF? Who in there right mind would do this to a child on the spectrum? Debating is hard enough, but THIRD SPEAKER? First speaker, maybe he would cope, but never in the think on your feet last rebuttal final speaker position...
• Science experiment parachute construction due Wednesday.
• Thursday off school at college orientation day.
• Assessments and class withdrawal by education department OT and also another session of assessment by physio.
• LOTE test on Friday sprung on him as he missed it the previous Friday.

Yes, I picked up a boy in tears on Friday afternoon having missed first break and part of second (thus not eating as much as he usually does - which is a part of his routine which keeps him settled).


Boy 1 Sept 2011
Copyright Madmother

 I just cannot comprehend how a school could not see this was setting him up to FAIL. There is no way possible for us to have managed or prevented such, and to be honest I really felt like letting them reap what they have sown for I feel they forget he is still a young man on the spectrum. Yes, he is amazing and doing so very well this year - so what? You want to bring him back down? You want to pull all the struggles back into the light?

And they wonder why I get frustrated with the system. The bloody system doesn't work!

Note: Big Boy and I went in first thing Monday morning. Big Boy was very proud of me for no teacher was harmed in the making of this post. Yes, I kept my cool. On the outside.