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Fairytales for a Practical Princess - 2008-11-30
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7:58 p.m. - 2003-05-10
The interview at the summer school facility went better than anticipated. The administrators seemed to "get" Wolf much better than the staff at Podunkville Schools. The summer school people seemed as underwhelmed as I am about the program in Wolf's regular classroom too. This gave me hope. As the summer school people oversee the special ed programs in every school district in the county, I was told confidentially mine is just the latest in a series of complaints and that there's going to be a serious overhaul of the special ed dept in the Podunkville System before the next school year. Thank goodness. Maybe next year my little Wolf will be in a classroom which actually helps him make some progress. Progress with his social, speech, and behavioral problems. Academically he's doing great. In some cases studying with the second graders, but academics have never been my big concern. Academics he gets at home. Letters, numbers, sciences, history, music, even foreign languages are things we play with to learn from all the time. But Wolf and I could both use some professional help with the other stuff. I'm about maxed out on how to help my boy overcome the other learning barriers he has. Someone who's had training and is less emotionally involved with Wolf may have more success than I at getting through to him. It seems like I'm forever knocking heads with this boy of mine. It's funny. Now that I have Wolf I can understand some of MIKE'S peculiarities much better. Apparently all three boys, Mike and his two brothers, have this same handicap in varying degrees and aspects. Less severely than Wolf, but this may only seem so because I didn’t know them as children, and the world, however inefficiently and harshly, had put its mark on the boys who couldn’t “get it” for 20 years before I made the scene. Mike and his brothers may very well have been as badly off as Wolf. My MIL looking back rather rosily will only admit that her boys were ‘a handful’. Engineer BIL is an anal retentive lunatic. He's been lucky to be able to channel his obsessive and compulsive behaviors into a career which encourages order, nit-picking, and rote rule following. Also engineers aren’t known for their sparkling personalities and bon vivant approach to life, so this also works in his favor. He simply has no social skills at all. He’s not unfeeling, it’s just he doesn’t get HOW to be social. He has no talent for small talk, has a wit so dry my ears shrivel up from dehydration, and he has zero patience with nonsense. Since I’m all about nonsense you can see where he and I might have trouble getting along. I like him, but his company is exhausting. Very uphill work for me and I’m sure he feels the same. And to tell tales out of school, Mike’s other brother, Truck driver BIL is a dick. Not only does he have the family curse of not “getting” other people, this BIL doesn’t CARE. He wants what he wants and is perfectly fine with being as unpleasant as possible until he gets it. Other people, including his wife, just don’t matter to him. Mike had shades of this too and it was a huge problem for us for many years. Still is sometimes, but after 22 years of me beating on his wall of indifference it’s pretty much knocked down into rubble. Whereas Truck driver BIL has not only kept his wall intact, he’s fortified it. Frankly, everyone except his wife and his mother have written him off as a lost cause. It’s a shame, but handicap or no, it’s HIS choice to be an asshole. All three of them are ferociously intelligent. All three are capable of great passion. All three have found mostly autonomous careers where their social deficiencies don’t hinder them too much. But it took a lot of time and put those who love them through all kinds of hell. I would spare Wolf this struggle if I can. I ache with the need for Wolf to “get it”. I don’t want Wolf to be in his 40’s before he has a circle of friends. I don’t want him to live the pugnacious, emotionally stunted life his dad and his brothers did (or still do). I don’t want him to struggle with school. Mike says with a rueful laugh that he was in the fourth grade before he figured out that he was supposed to sit still and pay attention. Before that he spent most of his classroom time sitting in the naughty corner or being lectured by the principal. God knows I’m not about conformity, I don’t want this so Wolf is like everyone else. But I have seen how much happier his father is now that he “gets it”. Both Mike and I agree that Wolf will live a healthier, more satisfying life if he can get past his hold-ups as early as possible. And I need the school’s help with this. I know there’s a lot of people who think special needs kids don’t belong in public schools. That it falls to the parents to do for their “damaged” offspring. That public school is only for the “normal” and that tax dollars and resources shouldn’t be wasted on those who cannot keep up. It was that way for many years. But since the opening of public education to the physically and mentally handicapped, so many of these kids have blossomed beyond anything that was previously expected of them. The schools have benefited as well. By being more flexible the schools are now offering a better education to ALL the kids. I don’t expect the school to pick up the whole tab, if private therapy and speech lessons are needed we’ll do so. I don’t think schools should be required to “cure” every ill a kid can have. But Wolf HAS a learning disability. And it’s just as crippling as dyslexia or some other kind of specific academic problem. Wolf is entitled to an education just as much as the next kid and I don’t see anything wrong with expecting the school to give my son what help they can. ~LA
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