I lost it at bedtime with the hubby. I felt like I had been pelted with bee-bees all night and poked with toothpicks and I was IRRITATED. Poor hubby took the brunt of it. Thankfully he gets it and it will be my turn soon enough. . .
This morning I had a glint of what was actually going on. When I asked him to get back in bed so the kids could finish getting ready and he could be out of their way, he shouted, "I am an adult! I can get up when I want!" I said, "No you are not." He replied, "Ms M says I am a father now! I am an adult!"
It clicked.
His paraprofessional has been "selling" this baby thing. She has been pretending it is real. She is telling him he is a father and he has to care for the baby. Holy Lord! This is a concrete thinker. This child now believes he is an adult and is obsessed over this sack of flour. It is not working. He swears this is real. I cannot fathom the thought process and how this seems okay.
I am beyond frustrated. I understand most kids would be fine with this, but he is not. I understand the process and I think it is a positive thing, but not for kids like Dustin. We are making these special needs kids, kids with low IQs, obsessed with caring for babies. These are flour sacks, they are easy to care for. All you have to do is keep them dry and not drop them . . . their FLOUR for goodness sake! They don't cry, they don't need food, they don't need changed. Are we sending the wrong message? Kids with the mentally capacity of 4 and the hormones of a 16 year old. Well able to make a baby, but babies cannot be tossed on the bed and pretend fed once a night.
And babies CANNOT make gravy!
Glad you figured out where it is coming from.
ReplyDeleteHonestly, I don't know if there is any way to train people all the things not to do and say... short of living this life for a while. I mean, who else but one of us would have expected a kid to go home and seriously act out based on that?
So sorry for your struggles.
Caring for an egg, flour sack, doll, etc., is part of some curriculums and although I do like the idea in general (plus the hilarity that ensues in "regular" type classes) I do think this is one that should be reconsidered for some special ed type classes....granted...it's hard to know how each individual child will react but I would think it would be safe to assume that children that have a hard time conceptualizing things or differentiaging between real and fake would have an incredibly difficult time with this task.
ReplyDeleteHeck..my child,who is in a regular type class (but also possibly RAD and/or other pathological and/or conduct disorder type issues)had a hard time with this when it was done a couple of years ago in her class. It's so hard all around though...for us as the parents and for the teachers too.