The plan is nearly complete and involved a lot of therapeutic intervention, home building, grade skipping, time taking, and attention to family. Possibly the most important factors in our ability to see light at the end of this is that we took the time and attended to our family.
After a series of charting exercises, and Social Thinking classes we are seeing a little guy who has loosened up a little and is able to take life nearly in stride. There are still things that get under his skin in a serious way, such as loud noises (particularly singing) and situations that are super unfair or where the rules change, but overall much better.
The 18 month plan in detail:
- Pull Hamslice out of school and homeschool for 2 months with intense therapy over the summer
- Change to public school for first grade, with therapy support as needed.
- Skip kindergarten and place him in first grade by doing a supreme paperwork shuffle that may not have been entirely legal. I came clean around Christmas, and they let me keep him in his grade.
- Prepare for second grade by buying a house in a better school district. This turned into a massive undertaking because rather than just move, Hambone wanted to do a full gut/renovation of a historic house in the school district
- Get Hamslice outside exercising, tripping over things, getting bug bites and playing in mud. As boys are supposed to.
- Move to the new house
We move next month (?) or soon thereafter. Hamslice made it through first grade easily academically, and behavior that still has him in the bottom third, but seems to be manageable. At least... his teacher knows how to work with him.
It seems like we may be able to keep him in school without drowning him in meds or therapy (which, after about 8 months starts sounding like farty old ladies giving mediocre advice) and maybe this whole deal is fading to the background.
We are optimistic. And definitely smarter for the experience, and looking forward to supporting our little guy through school and in life, no matter what it takes.
