Back to School; 8th Grade
Like it or not, school is back in session. Connor really enjoyed his summer break and "tolerated" our Hawaii Trips trip. Tolerated meant he brought his laptop and still got to get some game time in between all the swimming and hiking. He won't exactly say it, but I know he had a great time with just the four of us alone for some dedicated family time. As for me, I loved it! Hawaii is magnificent!!
As the title says, we're back at school now and I must say that Connor approached the first day with a calm and confidence that was reassuring. He was greeted before school by two teachers, Ms Knapp & Ms Okiyama, that our family thinks very highly of and were instrumental to his successful return last year from the Homebound program. These are teachers who understand that their subject areas are important, but developing students and individuals are even more important – kudos to both of them!!
As described in Summer 2013, Connor completed his two-day neuropsychological evaluation. He stayed positive throughout these sessions and even reported a few of the "tests" were kind of fun. It will be several weeks yet before we sit down with the psychologists again to review their assessment report and I'll share the general findings then. The intention is to possibly change his 504 Accommodations if there is clearly defined guidance and/or recommendations from the review of their report.
As usual, we started the year off with some information to all his teachers and let them know we are more than happy to provide additional information and/or come in for a in-person discussion about Connor and TS. To aid with his memory and organization issues (much of the reasons for the neuropsychological eval) we are making a quick 504 enhancement to obtain a second set of all books to keep at the house. We still want to grow Connor to the point where he is always bringing home the necessary textbooks for each day, but this added insurance policy would have really helped us last year when we had a number of stressful evenings trying to borrow a book or simply pull together enough information from the web on affected assignments.
Overall, I'm cautiously optimistic that all the counseling, medication and time invested with role-playing situations will pay off this year and Connor will not slip into a deep anxiety & depression hole like he did just a year ago. He seems to be so much more mature and pragmatic about TS and my confidence builds each day. Truly, I could not be any prouder of the way his thinks about himself and is presenting himself to others. Good luck and your family is right here for you!!