eSpecially Ben

We've had a bit of a bumpy start, education-wise, but things are good now.  Actually my son was just honored at his mainstream school assembly as the 'Star of the Week' for his class, as he knew all his letters and letter sounds.  This is something I was not expecting.  Of course I know my son is super clever, but 2 weeks into the school year I anticipated tantrums and being called to come and bring him home, not awards!  But I feel this is proof that he is in the right place.  His needs are being met and he is content.  That's all I have been praying for and that's what we've got! Let me take you back.  You see, because my son has trouble with new people, places, routines, and the like I carefully planned our cross country house move 18 months before he was to start school.  My intention was to settle him in our new house, and a new pre-school with children who would be attending the local (very sweet, just 80 students total) school to prepare him for the smo

School has been nothing but a bad experience for us.  You have teachers that have no idea how to work with a child with autism, (although it's supposed to be an autism class).  Most aides that are in the class don't have much of a clue either and most have very minimal training in how to address the behaviors and teach.  We've experienced school for Tye in 3 different states, FL, NY and NC.  It's been awful in all those states.  In NY, they did offer more services, which I had to fight to get with a Special Ed lawyer's help.  He did get really good after school services, like ABA and a behavioral consultant plus additional ST and OT.  Other children in the same school district didn't receive the same level of services because school districts don't give anything without a fight.  The public school system in NY was very poor.  If there were openings in the private school setting the district would have sent him there, but of course there were no openings.

This month the writers for the eSpecially Parents series will focus on their child’s experience with schools and the educational system. I have written a lot about Ben’s experiences at school. For the most part we have been very happy with his teachers, staff and academics. In preparing to write this post, I thought about why we have had good experiences and what went wrong when we did not. Here are three areas that I think help to summarize why we continue to  be happy with the public school system. Expertise - I know that I am an expert on Ben because I have known him the longest and involved with every detail of his life, but I also value that the people working with Ben are most likely experts about how to best teach him. They are trained in educating children with needs such as Ben and have special techniques that work.  I begin with the assumption that they went into this field because they have a love for this particular profession and the work that they do. Rela