School after RTC

Jennie recently wrote a post about her daughter's return to school after being in psychiatric residential treatment (RTC). The child's IEP had to be modified upon the child's return to public school. Wheile the child was in RTC school she succeeded without the modifications written into her IEP so upon her return they had to remove them. Of course RTC schools are incredily different from regular public schools, such as 6 to 1 ratios instead of 29 to 1 and teachers experienced in dealing with children with major psychiatric behavior issues.

My recommendation was that they remove the modifications, but ONLY if they follow the modifications that the RTC had! ..in a classroom with 6 kids and a trained behavior specialist. If they can't accomodate that, then they need to find other modifications. This is something we really had to fight for for Bear. We were lucky in that he already had a special public school program in place that had these accomodations based on his behavior issues in school before entering residential. I know that if these hadn't already been in place, then we wouldn't have gotten them based on his behavior upon returning from RTC because his behavior was so radically improved.

Jennie's concern was that her daughter, Sissy, has yet to demonstrate her behaviors in the gen ed classroom in a way that they have documented it as being an issue to her academics. The law says she can't qualify for Emotional/Behavioral Disability (EBD) just because she has the issues. The law says those issues have to impact her education and her behaviors in the classroom. Sissy was passing core curriculum before RTC. Plus she was triangulating the crap out of everyone so that I Jennie) was the only one that got her behaviors.

Jennie's "unspoken plan" then was to shorten Sissy's leash by making an education plan we know she'll fail at which will drive those behaviors into the classroom which can then be documented as negatively impacting her academics and then PRESTO! she qualifies for EBD IEP and a pscyh ed class. it's horrible, it's miserable, it's absolutely absurd but it's the only way to get Sissy to quit hiding her behaviors when with the "powers that be" It'll happen, and pretty quickly. And who knows, Sissy might surprise us all and rise to the occasion!

Jennie I know exactly what you are talking about!

We fought to keep the services that Bear had qualified for when he was out of control and needing RTC. The problem was his new meds, combined with a honeymoon period during which he controlled his behavior (now that he finally could), and the fact that he thrived in the structured, small group setting with low staff to student ratios, made it hard to justify the more restrictive environment and the extra services. It's such a catch 22! The kid is in the right environment so they do well, so the stupid law says we have to move him to the "least restrictive environment."

Bear is now completely in mainstream schooling (although he is still in "applied" classes which means 6 to 1 ratios - and that is mostly for academic reasons rather than behavioral). He has been mostly flying under the radar because the majority of his behavior issues are being caught at home. Suddenly he has begun failing classes, but I know that's not enough to get him back in the special school program.

So we are doing the same things Jennie is doing for Sissy - setting Bear up in a school situation that will force his behavior issues to the surface... at school! Like Jennie as well, I hope he surprises me and rises to the occasion. He's surprised me before.

Mack the Knife

So it isn't the biggest knife in the world, but it's not the little pen knife I was expecting (this is not a picture of it, but it's similar). We stopped by the former nanny's house to pick up the knife. I was shocked. I was expecting cork screws and a little blade that could barely be used to pick your nail. This flip blade pops out with a slight flick of the wrist. Her son says Bear has it because some "Mexicans were threatening him." He also thought that Bear had "jacked" it. He's had it for at least one week. We checked at Wal-Mart (a couple of weeks ago he went with me and disappeared several times), they don't carry it -so it wasn't stolen from there. So that's one less worry.

Bear was apparently also seen by the nanny and son with a very expensive Ipod with video capability. We saw him take the charger to school today. I contacted the school. We told them that we wanted to address the knife issue tonight, but when the Principal asked if he could conference with Bear on the other issues (and search him for contraband per my request) I agreed. He found nothing on Bear except some "knick knacky stuff" his MP3 and his CD player. The Ipod was a loaner and Bear and the boy who loaned it to him have been informed that this is not allowed at their school. Bear "knew he was in trouble", but we're not sure how. He wasn't thrilled about the search. Bear made some complaints about Hubby and the fence, but the Principal didn't pay much attention.

Yesterday our stupid dogs dug under the neighbor's fence, broke some boards on our gate, and got out. The kids caught them, but the dogs had to stay inside until the fence was repaired. When we got home yesterday, Bear was standing in the open garage with the lid of a can of spray paint next to him and some wood pieces. I confronted him on the spray paint (we have a little I should have gotten rid of). He said it wasn't spray paint it was weather treatment stuff for the wood he was using to repair the fence - this is of course designed for upholstery and fabric and isn't made anymore. *sigh* I told him to put it away and not to use it again.

Hubby tore down all the "repairs" Bear had made and fixed the gate correctly. Apparently this irritated Bear.

I confirmed with the Principal that he never told Bear that he would be going to take Baseball and weight lifting in the Spring (I had a feeling Bear had lied or exaggerated). He did say that several of the teachers see how "well" Bear is doing and have expressed (in front of Bear) that they think he would do well in regular school. I asked the Principal to please discuss this at the next staff meeting as this was NOT HELPFUL and NOT TRUE!

The teacher that "caught" Bear lying about the pumpkin patch gave me a little more details. Bear had told her dates and times that he would be working the pumpkin patch! When she showed up Friday night and he wasn't there, he told her we'd had to take Kitty to the emergency room with an asthma attack! She's "planning to talk with him about this over the next couple of days so we can begin to repair this part of our teacher/student relationship." Yea, good luck with that.



Last night Kitty had therapy - at the beginning of which she had a total meltdown and called me a fat jerk and said Scr@w you when I told her to straighten up. She then made some veiled references to burning down the house (when confronted she told us it wasn't a threat and explained how she wouldn't be able to do it because she had no matches, lighters and no way to get fire away from the gas stove - doesn't sound like she's thought about it at all! *insert sarcastic emotie here*). She ranted about how Grandma (and some other people) hated her guts. It felt totally out of the blue! The little EMDR tapper paddles were acting very strangely because they needed new batteries. Instead of alternating vibrations they were constant. Kitty played with them while we waited for the therapist to get new batteries. If they work well calming her down, I wonder if the opposite triggered this attack! The therapist pointed out some of Kitty's errors in thinking, but she ignored it. She went off on many tangents. Overall it was a very unsettling session.

When we got home from work, we realized that I had accidentally arranged to attend a mandatory parent meeting for the girl's school on the same night as therapy. So rather than discussing the knife with Bear, Hubby ran off to attend the meeting - it was actually very interesting and he came home with lots of new ideas - I'll research it and put it here later. Mom (Grandma)stayed with the kids while I took Kitty to therapy. Bear was "sick" so he just layed around. When the garbage disposal exploded, little Ponito helped Grandma clean it up. Grandma was a sweaty mess when I got home to find that Bob had ignored her 8pm FAIR Club bedtime.

I fussed at both girls and sent them to bed. I do not like being yelled at, and it triggered a bad mood for me. I probably will go back on a mood stabilizer. There was a lot of stress today (more for Hubby then for me), but I do not want to feel that irritable. Will call the doctor later.

Today I have a lunch with a bunch of Mommy Business Owners. I thought it sounded like a fun excuse to get together and chat! I wanted to invite a potential client or two, but most of them decided not to come. So it will just be a group of women I know and like. I was going to really make a big deal out of it, but as usual, life intervened. Oh well. The ladies won't mind!

Mary