Gigantic Stress . . .

We have a case conference Thursday. The phrase that strikes fear in the hearts of parents of any FASD child. The school is not happy with Dustin's behavior. We cannot change his behavior while he is there. I have went to school and Robert has went to school to shadow Dustin and when we are there his is fine. We are his external brain . . . we are his control mechanism. He lacks one for himself. The school hasn't developed that skill yet. They are overworked and under staffed. He needs his own 1:1 aide. I don't feel as though that will happen easily if at all. I am not up for a fight. It sucks to have to fight for my child's education.

I am one who always looks for and waits for the worst in every situation. Thursday may be fine, but it may be ugly. I look for the ugly. I pray for the fine. The problem is the aggression that he is showing at school. It isn';t truly aggression, it's poor impulse control and it's poor judgement. He attempts to hurt someone because he thinks it will intimidate them. Last week for instance he took a teacher's hand and squeezed it. The teacher has a wrist injury and as a brace on that arm. He looked at her as though he will twist her arm, he did not. He wanted to see if that would "scare" her away from disciplining him. This was relayed to me by the teacher. By the time the office got the information, he had "twisted the teachers arm and tried to hurt her"

I have no more answers for them. I am all out of suggestions. The law says that the school district must provide my child with a free and appropriate educational placement. If this one isn't working, find one that does. If one doesn't exist you have to make one. I don't know, I am scared. I think they will try to remove him from school. That is a bad thing.

I am reminded of my favorite line from Lloyd Dobler in the movie Say Anything. "I don't know, but I know that I don't know".