We met some of the nicest people there and some of the cutest dogs. Remember when I said I wasn't a "dog person"? Well, I was wrong. I am a "living creature person" because I seem to love all animals almost equally. They did the race in heats. When it was Maya's turn we expected her to not really know what to do but we did not expect her to look so frightened and just sit there looking around for us. I felt awful! She did not win, and actually at the end of her heat I had to go out on the "racetrack" to get her because she was just sitting there shaking. Did I say I felt awful? Because I really did. Poor Maya was glued to my side the rest of the day.
When we got home, my 3 older kids each had birthday parties to go to. My husband took my 5 year old to do something with him so I was alone with Maya. I recently got a bunch of DVDs to do instead of the shred because as much as I love it, it is getting repetitive now that I have been doing it for over 3 months. (that was an awkward sentence but as much as I try, I can't seem to fix it) I popped in a video and began. Maya chewed on her toy and watched me, like she always does. When I got to the ab part and I was lying on the mat, Maya dragged her bed over and placed it on my mat. I wish I had taken a picture because it was really sweet that she wanted to be so close to me. Annoying, but sweet. I can only imagine how clingy she will be after she gets spayed next week.
Switching topics here to something serious that bugs the crap out of me.
I brought my 9 year olds to their checkup on Saturday. I know I have mentioned before that my 9 year old daughter has difficulty with handwriting and other things. The pediatrician agreed with me that the school doesn't seem to know what they are doing in helping her so I should take her to an independent learning disability testing place. This way, someone with nothing to gain/lose from diagnosing her can identify the problems and come up with a plan to help her.
So far the school isn't really even really acknowledging that she has difficulties. If they did, they would be legally required to provide that help. That help costs money, which is why I believe they are hesitant to confirm the disabilities. Every time I bring it up, they say that she seems to be doing fine. They do give her some extra help with handwriting and reading, but otherwise they aren't willing to give her the testing that they are supposed to be legally required to do in order to figure out what she needs. Our insurance of course doesn't cover this testing with a private facility because technically the school should be doing it.
look especially at the word "bedroom". My daughter can not distinguish between b's and d's. She sort of randomly switches witch way she writes them in a frustrated attempt to get it correct. This looks fine? This looks like a kid who doesn't need some testing to see how to help her?This will all work out fine for my daughter because we are willing to pay to get her the testing she needs but what if we couldn't? What would happen to her academically? I can imagine the consequences of her feeling like she was dumb or whatever when that isn't true, she just has some trouble learning/learns differently.
The school is unwilling to admit that all her difficulties (writing letters backwards, mixing up numbers, trouble reading, trouble writing, etc.) go together so we are going to pay to find out how to help her. What if we couldn't? It is really frustrating to me to think about all the kids who don't have such involved parents, who maybe don't notice the issues and just think their kid is lazy or something and don't get them help. We shouldn't have to push so hard for them to give her some help, we shouldn't have to pay to get her tested and then most likely pay for the extra help she needs, but we will. But what if we couldn't/wouldn't?
12 comments:
Oh, how that unnerves me about your school system. Maybe there's a way to get the school system to pay for those private tests if they turn up some sort of learning disability. You know, approach their legal department or head of special services or something. It's just so hard to believe that where you are, schools are failing their students. Sad sad sad.
My mother went through the very same thing thirty years ago with my little brother. He is mildly dyslexic. Not enough to completely impede his learning ability, but enough to make reading and writing and general comprehension very difficult for him. My mother fought and fought with our his teachers trying to get him some help, but never got any. I would have hoped that in thirty years the school system would be more capable of recognizing dyslexia at this point.
I wish that I had some great advice for you. I wish I could tell you some fantastic way that we learned to help my brother. The ugly truth is that he just had to learn to work harder and compensate for it on his own because we could not get help. I hope that things go better for you.
SoMi's Nilsa-I know! At this point I have been arguing with them and pleading with them since she was in first grade. She will be in 4th this year. I am just going to get her the help instead of waiting who knows how long until the school helps her.
tara-that is what we have been doing, just working about 10 times as long with her on everything. Her homework takes her HOURS longer than the other kids and is so frustrating for both her and me. Luckily she is a very motivated kid who will do whatever I tell her to do so she will do all the work even when it is so frustrating. It seems like we are teaching her that learning is hard and takes forevr, which doesn't seem like a good lesson to get her to continue on in school when she has a choice. Hopefully this testing can at least let us know what it is that is causing the trouble so we can address that issue. I don't know much about dyslexia, but I am learning the best I can. We have already found a few activities that are supposed to be helpful, but I'd like to talk to someone who knows what they are doing with this stuff! When I taught, it was kindergarten, not this kind of stuff so I am really out of my element.
Aww, Maya is so cute! I can totally imagine her pulling her bed over to get close!
I am so sad to hear that about the school. I have a cousin (in-law) who is abusing the school system for a disability her daughter has, so they are probably afraid of things like that happening. That is BS. They should do what they are required to do.
My mom was a school teacher for many years and her biggest concern was always how the school system lumped all of the kids into the same mindset. Any kids that needed attention on a different level, it was all based on how the teacher wanted to spend time outside of the normal school hours to help them. Hoping you have a caring teacher somewhere that's willing to spend some extra time.
As for Maya, did you get video of the race? I'd like to see that.
kilax-I think a few people who abuse things ruin it for others but if they looked at her work, they could CLEARLY see what is going on. This is actually one of her better spelling tests. Usually she gets about 30% on them. Then she ends up frustrated because no matter how much we study or how we try to teach her the words, she still gets them wrong. Next year she will start getting letter grades and she is afraid because she knows she won't make honor roll if she continues like this. And there is nothing she can do about it.
Marty Mankins-I sent you an email about the race but NO! We forgot our camera! My husband was going to take a picture with his iphone but wen the time came, she was so scared that we forgot to even do it. We have no pictures from the race at all. I tried to talk my husband into taking one later but we couldnt seem to find a place that made sense so you would know where we were. I am bummed that we don't have a picture because we will most likely never do this again.
I happened on your blog through a link from another blog and just had to respond. I am a sped teacher and have frequently had to (secretly) tell parents that you have to right to insist your child is tested and can by-pass all the crap that goes with referrals. My suggestion is that you advise them that if they do not test your daughter, you will have it done privately and then have the bill sent to them or will contact a lawyer. Fear of litigation usually moves them. That being said, there are specific criteria that must be met to qualify for services and sometimes, unfortunately kiddoes do fall between the cracks. However, if it is a significant issue, they can use a "judgement" call and serve students anyway.
Good luck.
Michelle
Poor little Maya! Aw, that race must have been so cute though. :) I am a "living things" person too...except when it comes to frogs or toads. Ick.
And the situation with your daughter stinks...but I could write for days on the crap education system in this country. I am glad she has the opportunity you can provide for her.
That's terrible! Would they be obliged to do/pay for the extra if you had proved beyond a doubt she had a problem?
My nephew has very similar problems with his reading and writing but he has dispraxia so it extents to other things such as pronouncing 'window' as 'lindow'. His treatments are really interesting (because it's brain training), things like swirling a broom around and around. With the right assistance, this year has seen him climb three years in reading so he is only one year behind his school mates, but my sister had to find the help and initiate it.
Maya is still so young, I can see why she might have been scared. Clearly she sees you as her boss lady! I laughed at her following you everywhere and laying next to you, my dog does that too (but he weighs about 77lb so he is often in my way. You gotta love them though, its so hard to be annoyed when they love you so much!
What I saw with schools was that it was the kids that didn't do anything and caused problems that ended up getting the help, because they were obvious. And it was the kids that really might have a problem or two, but where otherwise good kids, that fell through the cracks. A broken system that really made me cynical about schools and education. Really.
Ohhh hun, I wish I had kept my primary school admittance test (age 5). It looked exactly like that. B's became D's at random because I just couldn't see the difference between them.
I was diagnosed very quickly after that with Moderate Dyslexia. I did used to get panic attacks from the stress of it all. One of the coping strategies that my parents and the specialist came up with was having me wear a watch with a D underneath on the band. If I wasn't sure I was writing the right thing I would just flip my wrist and double check.
Be your daughters advocate. My parents fought for extra time on exams and remidial work with properly trained techers.
I graduated high school, went on to earn my degree and do very well.
Spellcheck is still my best friend :)
You may also want to check out "The Gift of Dyslexia", it's an excellent book that might give you some insight into what she's going through.
http://www.amazon.com/Gift-Dyslexia-Brightest-People-Learn/dp/0285634127/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1246939005&sr=8-1
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