“End of school year jitters”

It’s been a crazy week for our family! School year 20/21 has come to an end, which means final exams are upon us. Although Michael has been enrolled in a remote learning program, we were asked to bring him to school for the final exams. Being the oddballs that we are, we tried to make our trip fun for all, although both my husband and I were very anxious for our boy the entire time. We were singing and laughing while Michael would be telling us to “switch off” our “lovely “ singing voices. Then we pulled up to the familiar building and Booboo stated “school, go!”. It was the first time that he went inside the school building since last year! We could feel his cold, sweaty palms, faster breathing, and stress in general. Although he was happy to see his teachers and walk up and down the hallways, he was overwhelmed (asked for “toilet” at least 5 different times - mostly to escape). I knew it had to be done (sigh!). I could hear him through the door of the conference room asking for his grandparents. He was done! He wanted out! Every now and then his teacher would open the door to let me know Mikey was ok. Apparently, he did well on his math and reading tests (still waiting for results).

The biggest concern we have now is finding a new school for him, down in South Carolina. We visited a few public and charter schools in the area. Most of them have #SpecialEd classes for students with “#learningdisabilities”, which is great, but our Mikey just doesn’t fit in. As you know, he’s mostly #nonverbal (using his talker to communicate to some degree), and requires a one-to-one assistant to keep him safe and help him pay attention to the teacher.

We may need to consider one of the special education programs for homeschool. This way we’d still have daily routine and schoolwork, while at the same time we’d be there to teach him daily living skills, or be more flexible to travel if needed. I guess we’ll cross that bridge once we get there. Till then our crazy crew is going to continue celebrating each new day and grow stronger together.

#UlaTinsley aka #AutismMamaBear is a passionate autism advocate and a talk show host on Autism Mama Bear Talk. She’s been raising autism awareness on a local and national level since 2010 when her son was diagnosed with a regressive form of autism.