Put your rage on the page

Toward the end of the school year, Sacha had a particularly bad day at school, during which he accidentally clocked his teacher in the chin hard enough to send her to the doctor midday, after she forcibly brought him to the sink to make him wash his hands. 

In my completely unobjective opinion, the bitch had in coming, but that is a story for another day. For now, suffice it to say, it does not take a military tactician to point out that if you find yourself embroiled in a power struggle with a hyperactive, oppositional five year-old, you’d best step down, as experience has taught me that you will always come out on the losing end of that showdown.

Sacha was feeling pretty bad about himself, and I was feeling drained from soothing his addled nerves, and so, when we got to the pool, I let him go to the shuffleboard court on his own. I wanted a little time to myself, and instead of checking on him at my usual 5-minute intervals, I stretched it to 10 minutes. When I did check on him I watched him from the edge of the court — see ticking time bombs, sleeping dogs, etc., —  and from my vantage point, he seemed to be playing happily with a bunch of kids.

Twenty peaceful minutes later, a lifeguard brought my screaming child to me, explaining that he’d been interfering in people’s games. I apologized to the lifeguard, and attempted to comfort my extremely low-frustration tolerant son. I gave him the requisite talk about not disrupting people's games, but my heart wasn’t quite in it, because I knew it was really my fault.

I spent the rest of the afternoon limping around the pool with Sacha clinging to my leg screaming. I was in this position when a woman approached me. "Excuse me," she said, "is that your son?" I took this to be a rhetorical question, what with the clinging and screaming and the strong familial resemblance, but nonetheless, I answered, “Yes.”

“Could you please watch him on the shuffleboard court?” she asked.
“I know; I’m so sorry; the lifeguard told me. I was checking on him, but clearly I didn’t get close enough to see what was happening, and I read the situation wrong.”

“He really shouldn’t be left alone there,” she continued, “He was very disruptive.”
“I’m really sorry,” I said.
“He kept messing up my daughter's game. He kept moving the puck around, and changing the scoreboard. He made it impossible to for us to play.”

At this point, I started to lose my temper. My brain said, “Look, second bitch I have encountered today, you should put on your listening ears, because I have just said, ‘My bad.' Twice." I have taken responsibility for my son’s actions, and social convention dictates that no matter how pissed off at me you are, and perhaps rightly so, you should, at this point, graciously accept my apology and go on to resent me for the rest of your life, if you like.”

Instead, I repeated, with all the politeness I could muster, “I am terribly sorry, and as you see, my son also feels pretty awful too.”

With that, I hobbled off on my screaming peg leg. I think it is safe to say it was not the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

My property taxes at work

It is somewhat fashionable to complain about the shortcomings of one's children's school districts, and while I am generally happy with ours, I have certainly been guilty of this offense.

At this point, however, I can offer nothing but the highest praise for the Montclair Public Schools.

At age four, Sacha has left a small eddy of destruction at preschools throughout town. When he was three, we had to move him from his first school because they found him so exasperating that in a half-day preschool, where twelve children were supervised by three adults, they wanted us to hire, at our expense, his own personal aide. This seemed absurd, but we got the distinct impression that if we did not comply he would be expelled; it was not the auspicious beginning to his formal education that I had hoped for.

Since then, his experience has been far more positive, but there is no denying that there are things about his nature that we observe both at home and in school, that make him stand out.

He often strikes me as childhood distilled to its essence. There is little middle range in the way he experiences, and processes things, and so his reactions tend to be intense. His joy is infectious, but so is his anger. He is funny, charming, wildly imaginative and charismatic, but also loud, willful, impulsive, and rarely still.

To say he has a large personality is something of an understatement; David and I began to strongly suspect that Sacha has ADHD.

At the urging of his teachers at his current, wonderful preschool, at the end of last year I contacted the Board of Education to request that Sacha be evaluated. In less than 24 hours, I received a return phone call, and an initial meeting was scheduled for the following week. When we left that meeting, we had five additional meetings on the calendar at roughly one week intervals; four for testing, and a final meeting to discuss findings, as well as promises that arrangements would be made for Sacha to see a neurologist. Again, within 24 hours an appointment was scheduled with a pediatric specialist at St. Joseph's Children's Hospital.

We received a detailed written report far enough in advance of our final meeting to have time to review it. Because it is a catalog of weaknesses, not strengths, reading it required a strong stomach, and a sense of humor. A friend likened it to a home inspection, where the goal is to compile a record of areas of concern.

We had our meeting yesterday, and, as the Magic Eight ball is fond of saying, signs point to yes. Although ADHD is legally classified as a learning disability, and not cause for celebration, when we learned that Sacha does indeed qualify for services, I couldn't have been happier if you'd told me he'd been accepted at Harvard.

We left the meeting with that holy grail, the IEP, and beginning March 1, Sacha will spend his afternoons at the Developmental Learning Center, in a small classroom environment, where he will receive services intended to help him function at his peak in school. He will be bussed from his current preschool to the DLC, and home from there at the end of the day.

The entire process has been extremely smooth and efficient, and I have been impressed with every educator we have had contact with. I am grateful to the Montclair Public Schools for helping us to help our son acquire the skills that he will need to succeed.

I am also extremely happy that come March 1, Sacha will be on a path to get what he needs, and, as a happy consequence, that I will also gain three hours a day of child care. Win-win.