Rough Waters

Apparently Nathan had a hard day at school today. They said they could tell he was getting more and more agitated and he finally broke down in absolute tears. Poor guy. Apparently the sound of the jingle bells they were playing with was hurting his ears and then some other things happened and it overwhelmed him.

I also had a chance to talk with Nathan's social worker for over half an hour today. It was very informative. I also received the notes from Nathan PT and OT evals. They now want him to get OT and PT once a week.

His social worker, I will refer to as SW, said Nathan needed a lot of visual prompts to complete tasks. They have picture cards that tell them what to do when they arrive at class such as hang up coat, open homework folder, put away backpack, and that sort of thing and apparently he became agitated when there was no picture card for what to do with his gloves! They told him to put them in his backpack but he was upset there was no card to prompt him.

They said when they ask him to do 2-3 tasks that he looses focus after the first tasks but if they give him visual cues he can follow through. Interesting. The SW said we could make cards for him to use at home and that way he can refer to his cards and we don't have to "nag" him to do things. If we tell him it's time to get ready to go he could refer to a set of cards that would show the steps he needs to take to get ready such as: socks, shoes, coat, etc. They said as smart as he is he has a hard time with common sense things.

The SW also said that Nathan would prefer to speak with her and the other teacher instead of the kids and he dominates the conversation, which is nothing new to us. We already knew that. They are getting him to interact more with his peers and are trying to get him to ask them questions and have a 2 sided conversation instead of just him talking.

Once again they killed about 10,000 trees and gave us another HUGE stack of paperwork!

Nathan definitely appreciates his alone time in his room after his school. I think he needs downtime to just do his thing. They said they push him pretty hard at school and try to get him out of his comfort zone of routines.

Again they are pushing us toward the "school" route and she even said she wasn't so sure we should start him on the 1st grade curriculum in January because he will just be so far ahead...not so sure I agree.

Lots to think about and pray about! Trusting the Lord to see us through as we know He is faithful and that it says in Jeremiah He has plans for us, to give us a hope and a future and plans to prosper and not harm us.

Rebekah