Griffin is doing so well and showing so much progress with the Intensive Home work, there is a new worker who is a male and Griffin absolutely adores him. James played with Griffin outside playing the drums in the parking lot and then throwing the football which Griffin really enjoyed. When it was time for James to leave Griffin started crying and James took the time and had great patience with him to help him transition to the separation until next Monday.

I really appreciate that James took so much time with him helping Griffin to learn new coping skills for stress and anxiety for tantrums/meltdowns and helping him to take his time on his homework. Griffin has only a couple of male figures in his life but they are at school which is not necessarily good because he doesn't really like school. Griffin's IEP is coming up in February and I know exactly what I am going to say and demand for Griffin that has not been taken into consideration the whole year. I will report back and let you know what that is closer to that time because there are individuals from the school who read this from time to time. I don't want them to know ahead of time because I am getting advocates to come to help support me since I know how overwhelming it can be in an IEP with all those staff talking so fast and moving from topic to topic and getting the mom to sign here and there without really explaining what's going on.

The last IEP was a disaster for me because I didn't have anyone to help interpret what was being said and things moved so fast and then it was over and I had no idea what had just happened now Griffin has been in a class for a year that pressures him to keep up with his peers which has caused him to get two- F's in reading and low grades in others areas as well. His (mainstream) teacher complained that he has to take so much time with Griffin and do so much extra work to help him that it is not fair to the rest of the class. Well, then why is he in that class? Why is he not in a special needs class? If he needs extra help then isn't it fair to him that he gets that one on one without interfering with the needs of the rest of the class?

All the time I brag about how intelligent Griffin is and that he is but it does take him awhile to process and then he does have special needs in the area of sensory motor skills and still has communication skills difficulties and of course social skills. In fact, he has been having a marked issues with bullies and it has caused anxiety. He talks about it almost everyday and it is always on his mind, his teacher and special needs teacher I don't think are taking it seriously because they say that it is just Griffin's misinterpretation of what the other kids are doing. That may be part of it but that still needs to be addressed and he needs to learn skills to cope with that. He is suffering and I think that if he were in a special needs classroom then he would be where other kids experience the same things and the teacher would have more sensitivity to his needs.

I hope to be posting more often now so please check by often and I will spend more time visiting your blogs because I miss knowing what you all are doing, I do consider you to be my special blogger friends.