Our family has had a rough couple of years. Yes we have made it through but the fight is far from over. Sometimes the fight seems endless and sometimes I have to be reminded why we are still fighting and in the same boat we were 2 years ago. Our youngest son Caiden was diagnosed with High Functioning Autism in 2015. He had behavior problems at school and his first grade teacher would insist over and over and over again that Caiden was ADHD and needed to be on medicine. Now Caiden was doing great with his grades. Heck he is above average in every area, but this teacher kept insisting that Caiden would refuse to do his work, shut down, yell, scream, throw things, and have to be removed from class. So what do parents do? We talked with Caiden, made a behavior plan at home and school, and nothing worked. We saw a behavior specialist and he wanted to put Caiden on medicine and we had only seen him one time. ABSOLUTELY NOT.... so we went for a second opinion. This other behavior specialist said we needed to have Caiden tested for Autism. So we did that and as he predicted Caiden was diagnosed with High Functiong Autism what used to be called Asperger Syndrome. I have done so much research in the last 12 months i think i would bleed Autism information if I were cut. But the cuts and bruises I have are inside and most everyone will never see that. See, our soon to be 8 year old son faces so many challeneges in the school system and til this day it has gotten worse not better. Our son has been restrained numerous times so many we lost count. He has been suspended and had to be picked up missing half days of school to the amount of 20 days in the last 13 months. And do you think the school has made any changes to benefit him???? ABSOLUTELY NOT.. We continue to fight for Caiden to prove he has a disability even though we have a professional diagnosis. The school says things like....
1. He is too smart.
2. His grades are above average so he doesn't qualify for an IEP.
3. He is being willifully disobedient.
4. He knows what he is doing is wrong.
5. He doesn't like the way the teacher was teaching so he had a meltdown.
6. We didn't know what to do for Autism in the school setting so we had to Google it.
7. We can't have Caiden come to school and abuse us.
8. Caiden is a very smart boy but...
No where in here are there options to help Caiden. The school has given him a behavior plan and tools to use when he gets upset, however, the staff forgot to give him the tools which resulted in 3 meltdowns. He has had 5 meltdowns in the last month. What kind of life is this for a special needs child? To me it seens like the school is waiting for our son to fall to pieces before they help him, because his disabilty has not affected his test scores. So the school would rather tramuatize a child not once, not twice, not three times, but over and over and over again instead of giving him an IEP and doing real things that will help him be successful in school. I have prayed for God to protect our baby boy at school because I feel helpless knowing that he may get restrained and be crying out for me to help and I can't help because I am at work. We have not given up and we won't give up fighting for our son to be given the same chances every other child has. We won't give up fighting for Caiden to be seen as a child with a disability instead of a child who is disobedient. We won't stop fighting for his rights. The greatest question is why do the schools want to make every child fit into a mold when each child is different and deserves to be treated and taught differently if necessary
