Ethan has been doing well in school, which is a relief. The beginning of the year was rough. It was the same class he has been in, but his classmates were new. Ethan’s day pretty much depends on the day of others. If others are crying and upset, he will be too. He still has a hard time when other kiddos cry, but by the end of last year, he was doing better. The new kids must have triggered this reaction again. He was so anxious and always on high alert, even when he wasn’t crying, which was causing him problems with concentrating. Our aba provider went to observe one day and recommended that I pull him out of school because the anxieties she observed were pretty bad. This was hard. I honestly never thought he’d even be able to go to school because of his fears with kids, but the school was so great helping us work up his time there. He will go to kindergarten next year and I was so worried that we’d have to start all over again if we pulled him out. Instead, I wanted the school to help. They are legally obligated to meet the needs of your child and if they cannot, then they can pay for a private school or other place that could meet his needs. Some time passed and the other kids in his class started doing better, so he did as well. Now if someone gets upset, it’s not as startling to him and most times he won’t cry. They did get a new student in last week who is now adjusting, so Ethan’s been nervous and upset again at times, but I think he’s getting there. We also put in his iep that of a child is crying and upsetting Ethan for more than 5 minutes, they need to remove Ethan from the environment. There is a girl in his class that has meltdowns that last a while. It terrified him and you can bet he brought this behavior home and tried it on us. We ignored the behavior and luckily it was short lived. He’s such a visual learner so it only makes sense he would try. His first round of school pictures was heartbreaking. He was crying and red and blotchy. We just got his retakes and they were much better!
Ethan goes to school Mon-Thurs, times vary. Mon and Wednesday he goes 9-1230, then we have ABA therapy 1245-245. Tuesday’s and Thursday’s he goes 9-2, on Tuesday’s we head to OT/speech after from 230-330. Then on Fridays we have OT/speech 0830-0930, then aba therapy 0945-1145. Sometimes we pick up extra sessions on Thursday afternoons, but most times, we keep that open. He was going to OT/speech on Friday mornings before we had school, we just wanted to keep our therapists that we have on that day, so I never rearranged that time and we just keep him out of school of fridays.
Here are some recent pics of him in OT/Speech.
His therapists here are all wonderful.
We will be heading to Florida soon for our yearly visit. That’s always a great break for us. We love the warm weather and Ethan loves the water. He tends to come back refreshed and makes a lot of gains in therapy, so we love that!
We hope everyone has a wonderful holiday season!
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