Saturday, March 03, 2012

Oh Winter how I hate you

I do hate winters. My fingers and toes get so cold I loose the feeling in them, of course this also happens to my fingers if I take something out of the freezer too. Its caused from Raynauds syndrome which can go along with Lupus..
http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/raynauds-disease/DS00433 


Its a pain in the butt but ya know what there isn't anything to do about it but to keep some warm mitts handy and to try to find some warm socks. But I must say we have had a really good winter here on the East Coast of Canada. We have only had a little snow and one day so far that was -27 and I stayed inside all day. Hubby dropped of JJ to school so I didn't even have to keep my fingers crossed that my car would start..lol


This month has been terrible for JJ at school again! He was pushed by his bully on the play ground and hit his head on the ice, fell off the climbing wall in gym and hit his head and passed out in class and hit his head.. all in the same day! Needless to say he ended up with a concussion and was home from school for a week and then when he got back to school the next week it was no outside time or gym just to keep him safe. I had a big meeting with the principle, vice principle and teachers to see if I could give them some clues as to how to better extract information from JJ when things like this happen.   I say extract because thats what you have to do with a kid with ASD, its like drawing it out one clue at a time.  Aspie kids answer your questions with a direct honest answer. But if you don't ask the right questions you don't get the whole picture or the whole answer. Like when he fell off the climbing wall, he was crying and when his teacher asked him what happened he said "I fell off the wall" he didn't say "I fell off the wall and hit my head" so the teacher should of asked "did you hurt anything" and he would of told them.  When he was pushed in the yard, the same thing happened..he told the teacher that "so and so pushed me and I fell" the teacher didn't ask if he got hurt so he didn't tell her that he hit his head on the ice and had a really bad headache.  


The worse part is no one from the school called me, so I didn't know all this had taken place. When he got up the next morning which was Saturday, he said he was "dizzy again and felt sick to his stomach..just like in school yesterday".  Hold your horses, what do you mean like yesterday?  So I had to extract step by step what had happened at school Friday. That's when I got the whole story about how he had hit his head three times and that his eyes were blurry and he had a headache.  Off to the ER we go.


With his symptoms we got in within 15 minutes and not our usual 12 hour wait! He was diagnosed with a concussion and told to stay quiet for a week and then limited play the following week when he went back to school.  I wrote an email to the principle Saturday afternoon when we got back home and she replied promptly Monday when she got it. The meeting was set up for Wednesday and it went well, well as well as can be expected I guess.  I did let them know that once again I was disappointed that his bully is not being dealt with strongly enough and that I wasn't contacted by anyone about him getting injured on their watch. My theory is that they are just biding their time with this bully because he will be out of their school come June and not their problem anymore.


Now fast forward to the end of February, and he gets in trouble for slapping a girl across the face. This girl I think has a crush on him. He still thinks girls are gross and she continues to chase him, push him, get in his face. Getting in his face is the worse. Aspie kids like their space, getting too close is a no no. He has told her to leave him alone, every day he tells her that according to JJ. And yet she just continues to bug him hunting him down the minute they go outside.


Well Monday, she pushed him down in the play ground twice and took his hat, ran away and buried it in the snow. He did as I told him, he walked away from her. When they got in side the classroom she said something about him to some other kids and he got mad and slapped her. It was his final straw he said. 


The vice principle called and told me what had happened. I should of asked to speak to him, and gotten the whole story right then on the phone,because he didn't tell them what had happened out in the yard, only that he slapped her because she had said something about him to the other kids.  He of course got detention at school and I took his computer and phone time away from him as punishment here at home. When I asked the right questions I got the full story of how much she is bugging him/pushing him around etc.  After telling him again that "you can't hit anyone especially a girl" he says "so some girl can do what she wants to me and I can't do anything back"? How do you answer that to a kid who is a logical fanatic? Its so hard to make that logical.  I just had to tell him that hitting anyone is called assault and its against the law, and that goes for girls hitting boys too. He wanted to know when she would be arrested...


I am still saddened by the fact that my gr.son has learned to hit, push, slap...all at this school in the run of a year and a half.  He still asks to go back to his "old school" where he was safe.  How sad is that! 


He is off to middle school next school year, I am so keeping my fingers crossed that his bully doesn't track him down and that there will be enough different kids there that his bully will be put in his place. By that I mean that this boy thinks he is the cock of the walk because he has gone to this school from gr 1-5 and thinks he owns the school yard. He has a following of three other boys who do what ever he tells them to, his little posse.  At middle school he won't be the big shot, he will be a gr. 6 er just like all the rest of them entering middle  school.  I also am going to see if I can get JJ interested in something at school to keep him out of trouble. Maybe computer class or some sport.  The whole idea of middle school is scarring me.  The only thing he is worried about is having to take "health class".... lol  Oh how I wish that will be our only thing to worry about.