Eight is Great

How is it that someone in my house is turning....EIGHT?

At 11:10 a.m. on March 4, 2003

I became a mom.

Happy Birthday Merri!

My Girl

My girl has only suffered slight bullying.  But even slight bullying is unacceptable.  I have had a hard time counseling her on how to perfect her ability to ignore being made fun of or of being dismissed.  Being told that "today you are not my friend," or "today I am only "Jane's" friend, not yours."  It sucks. 

Kids are mean to eachother.  

In theory, these situations should provide me a place to utilize my wisdom. 

Instead I end up having a visceral reaction. 

I want to tell her that they are mean bitches and to tell them to screw.  But in reality, that serves NO purpose. 

We work hard to ensure that our children's self esteem provides a wonderful foundation.  However, inspite of our tending to them, it may not work.  Bullying can take kids down.  It can make you retreat into yourself.  It can turn you into a bully yourself.  We try to guide our children by the way we live and to ensure that we are emotionally available. 

We have not given popularity any importance.  We have emphasized kindness.  As a result she doesn't use popularity to measure her self worth.  She has worth because she is.  
There are no actions that she must perform in order for us, her parents, to provide love to her. 
  

I believe that while studying why it is that we don't share feelings, I may have stumbled upon the sociology of bullying. 

We are hardwired, from an evolutionary perspective, to protect our most vulnerable body part.  In order to do so we curl over, wear protective gear, etc. 

From a primal perspective, we must lash out before we are attacked. 

But this week, my girl, rose above.  When one of her friend's tripped and fell while getting in line to go from here to there, there was laughter. Merri did not laugh, she ran to her friend's aid.  She helped her up and asked about her welfare. 

Merri shared this story with me on Tuesday morning.  My heart swelled and tears stung my eyes, out of pride.

She is handling herself with grace and dignity of a wonderfully kind, empathetic and generous little girl young lady.

Popularity be damned. 
Kindness will prevail.

 

ADHD without the H, inattentive type or something

We, Jeremy and her teacher, all agree that there is something of concern with Mer.  So after my two hour conference with her teacher we decided that the school psychologist should be involved.  

But here is where my frustration begins.  Our child does not have any diagnos of a disability or any other issue that would cause her to need services.  She is a student in a school, in a small school.  She is experiencing issues that could be something. 

We met with her teacher and the school psychologist on Monday of this week, a long time after our decision to "evaluate" her.  The school psychologist apologized for not getting back to us, but as she said, "The referral didn't come through special ed so there was no deadline.  If the request/referral had come through special ed there would have been a 45 day deadline on it."  And we went on with our meeting. 

The meeting, in hindsight, contained no revelations, but rather confirmed what we already knew or thought. The meeting provided us with no guidance, no "next steps."  Instead I inquired, "So what do we do now?  Get a diagnosis?"  "Yes," she replied, "and then we meet again and you decide if you need a 504 or an IEP."  Um, huh?   Yes, I had done my homework so I knew what "504" meant and of course, with Jeremy being a teacher, I know what IEP means.

So on Tuesday I made phone calls.  On Wednesday I received phone calls.  One of them was most interesting.  It was from our psychologist with whom we have previously worked.  When I explained the situation to her and why we were in need of her services she said, "That is all they did in terms of testing?"  When I replied in the affirmative, she said, "A child could show symptoms of ADD for a myriad of reasons, before making a diagnosis she needs a full team evaluation."  I was shaking.  Finally, guidance for us. 

Within minutes I had composed an email outlining all the evaluations and tests that she advised us to receive from the school.  She now has, due to my formal written request, 45 days in which to complete the evaluation/testing.  Sadly, though, there has been a lapse of time that we won't get back and we are now pushing up against the last day of school. 


Tick tock.  Tick tock.

Post script:
This is what frustrates me:  The clinical evaluations of AD/HD must be comprehensive and multidimensional in nature, so as to capture its situational variability, its associated features, and its impact on home, school, and social functioning. This comes from the National Resource Center for AD/HD website.  I sure wish I found long before now...