Gillian Marchenko

March Home Staging, Jooniper Design, Author & Speaker

Where are you headed as a special needs parent for school?

 Where are you headed as a special needs parent?

I’m talking about school.

On Facebook yesterday, parents were posting pictures of kids lined up by the front door, or at the bus stop for the first day of school.

School doesn’t start for my kids for a couple of weeks, but today I somehow managed to take all four of my children to Kmart to buy backpacks and tennis shoes (and I must say, we barely made it out alive. I asked the check out person if they sold any cold drinks with an eyebrow raised, and she quickly replied that Kmart did sell cold drinks, but not the kind I probably wanted ;)).

I am ready for school to start, but I am nervous too. For special needs parents (well, any parents for that matter) a new school year brings a lot of emotion.

So I ask you: Where are you headed as a special needs parent?

I have one daughter with Down syndrome headed into a mainstream first grade classroom with a full-time aid, and another daughter with Down syndrome going back to a self-contained preschool classroom.

Polly’s still not fully potty trained, and I’m not crazy about Evangeline’s placement. For those of you who are farther along in the journey of parenting a child with special needs, does the beginning of a school year ever get easier?

As a special needs parent, I’m headed towards worry, but I want peace.

What about you? How old is your kid(s) and where is he/she/they headed this year for school?

And are you headed towards worry, or peace?

(Be sure to catch this Friday’s guest post by Paige Hamilton, a homeschooling mother of five! (GULP!) Can’t wait to hear what Paige has to share about fresh starts to new school years.)

(If you’d like to guest post for me, email me at gillianmarchenko@gmail.com.)

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6 comments found

  1. I’m trying so hard for that peace, but I seem to be living in the worry. My young guy has special needs along the line of spectrum disorders, processing disorders. . . lots of things with initials that seem to “define” them. And any time I even BEGIN to contemplate that “real” school might be better than the homeschooling we are doing, I am told that he lies in the very special realm of being able to fall between the cracks. Won’t need enough help, but in actuality needs a lot of help. Does that make sense? So I pursue the best for him, which is keeping him home (even though I sometimes really, really doubt this, LOL). His three siblings are homeschooled, so it’s not as if the lifestyle is unappealing, but I worry. Am I doing it right? Am I doing enough? Is he learning all the things he needs to learn in order to survive in life???
    And God keeps whispering–and yes, sometimes hitting me on the head–and saying, “I AM. And I AM enough.” Rest. Trust. Embrace what the journey holds for both of you.”
    So that’s where I am.
    Praying for you and all that the beginning of your school holds. It is a challenging task, this parenting. Both the holding AND the releasing, right?
    Looking forward to hearing from some others.
    Steph

    Reply

  2. I’m excited about this school year. After what seemed like a wasted year in a self contained classroom with no verbal children and surrounded by all lower finctionig children with a teacher that obviously hated her job, we felt like we lost a yr. Then a disappointing IEP meeting…but i didnt give up and provided them lots of info on post institutionalized kids, etc. We ended up finding a wonderful middle ground (why does that so rarely happen?). This yr she will be mainstreamed 40% of the day and the whole class will be moved to a new teacher (one I am a little familiar with as she has been one of the spec ed preschool teaher…things are being changed an addressed. I am excited about the oppurtunities and look forward to Marni’s progress blowing everyones mind…because in the right encironment she is nothing short of amazing but too often assumptions are made with having Ds and being mostly. On verbal. Its going to be a good year.

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  3. Well I just put her on the bus for day one. Last year was hard, very hard. This year, armed with new meds and so much more knowledge about her, I am praying for a good year. I spent the evening last night laying my worries on Jesus because it was getting hard to carry them. Oksana has cerebral palsy, microcephaly, cortical visual impairment, and we STRONGLY suspect she is on the spectrum and are having her evaluated in October. So last year Oksana spent 76% of her day in the regular classroom with pull outs for speech, OT, PT, and a small amount of time built in for the special ed room. This year, for a number of reasons, we are changing some things and we are significantly increasing her time in the special ed room. I was the one who pushed for that and our whole team agrees that she needs some change from last year in order to learn and succeed. We tried the least restrictive environment and that just wasn’t successful for her. So worry? Yes I worry…last year was hard, I’m not interested in a repeat…but I’m working toward peace.

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  4. I am headed toward worry. I am a homeschooling mom of 6. We just adopted our little boy with DS. He is 6. He came out of state foster care so they are requiring me to send him to public school for 6 months. His last school situation was horrid! They want to send him to first grade yet he is functioning on a 2 yr old level. What I want is to homeschool him. I dont know the first thing about sending my lovies to public school. I hate this! He needs time to bond with us not thrown into a new school with new teacher and new students after just getting new parents and 5 new siblings.

    Be blessed
    Ashlee

    Reply

  5. That first year of school for my daughter with DS was the hardest. For us, it did get better.

    We’ve had an incredibly supportive staff and the kids in her class adore her. She has an almost full time aid and is heading to grade 3 this year. There have been bumps but we feel like we are a team. Her gr 2 teacher has decided to write her Masters thesis on teaching children with DS to read. She got extra training this summer and they are giving her 1/2 hour a day with Becca this year to work on it with her. It’s beyond anything we hoped for!

    We heard so many horror stories and it was SO hard to let her go, but it has been a great experience. I hope you have the same!

    Reply

  6. My son who is 6 and has DS will be headed to a self-contained classroom. He will be repeating kindergarten. Love the class and teacher but NOT happy as to why he was placed there. We were refused a personal aid when he was in mainstream Kindergarten as well as refused other things that we felt our son needed to be successful in a mainstream class. He is really capable of being mainstreamed but is falling through the cracks in mainstream due to refusal of the public school system to give him the things he needs to be successful. I’m a bit upset but am thankful that he has a great self-contained teacher and am praying that he will have a better Kindergarten experience the second time around! 🙂

    Reply

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