Insult to injury

I remember the day I was told my oldest son was on the autism spectrum by the school diagnostician.  To be more specific, according to MY research and bringing it to his psychologists attention, it was figured out to be Aspergers, falling under the umbrella of autism and the severity of it wasn't bad, but it was autism.  It was heartbreaking.  What do I do now? ... After a lot of researching and getting to know my child and his disorder, I figured it out.

Take 2.  Looks like since I've been dealing with one who has autism, I guess I needed another child with some sort of developmental issues and a learning disability.  Now they want to "test" him to see if he needs special education intervention.  I had a couple of meetings with the school in the past few weeks.  I've explained that he is very creative and loves to makes things, I feel that he is very smart and intelligent and he is lacking in some areas, that I agree with.
I went to a follow up meeting on Thursday.  This whole meeting left a bad taste in my mouth.  The lady who was there doing most of the talking, she's not even a teacher/educator or on staff at my sons school, commenced to show me some numbers she had on a chart... 'your son is here on his verbal learning which is below average, but he is here on his nonverbal which is close to average, so this is why he looks smart at home' .... to which I raised my eyebrows at.  I was offended.  It was as if the rest of her comment would have been, the 'implied' rest of her comment, "and dumb at school".  I was livid inside.  A storm was surging. I let her know I was offended by her comment and why.  

I continued on to tell her and the principal and the teacher and the counselor in the room that I will not allow negative, life taking words to be spoken over my children.  My children belong to the Lord, and he has plans for both of them.  So I won't tolerate negative words to be said over them.  I don't want anything but affirming words and attaboys aimed at my kids.

I consented to him being tested when school starts back up.  They can't do anything else unless I give my approval.  I shall begin praying about this, working with him over the summer and we'll see what happens.  I am struggling with all this though. 

They are both smart.  I don't care what a chart of numbers says about my kids.  They're kids, they have short attention spans, they're goofy, they're mean at times, they don't like homework, hate to read, hate to brush their teeth, hate taking a bath, like frogs and like to color and draw.  They're children.  Let them be children.

#speakdifferent  #autism  #aspergers  #letthembechildren