May 19, 2010 - BURNOUT

It's been a while since I've last written. I had a lot going on where my daughter is concerned at the time and I definately burned out. Since my last post, my family had to deal with the death of a loved one. It was interesting watching my daughter react to the situation. Because Aspies typically lack empathy, its often difficult to gauge how she's feeling in stressful situations. She'll often take on a very flat affectation that shows nothing. This time was no different, other than she kept her distance from the rosary and funeral services. She wouldn't attend either. She told me that she can't be around that much sadness all at one time. This led to a discussion about life's difficulties and how sometimes we all want to hide from difficult situations, but need to rise above the resistence and work through it. I think it registered because today one of her friends at school got word that her grandfather had passed away. My daughter gave her condolences and volutarily hugged her! I was very impressed with this appropriate reaction to the situation, and felt some positive reinforcement that our talks don't go unheard.

In addition to this we've been working on getting her through the last few weeks of school. Her attendance has been horrible so our last IEP meeting was disastrous because all the team had to say was that I wasn't getting her to school and therefore, they were essentially exempt from implementing accomodations. Then the program specialist told me that the district isn't capable of making teachers implement accomodations, that's the job of the principal. Well our principal is about as capable of that as a freakin' kindergartner. My repsonse to this is to just implement the accomodations myself. I go to the teacher, tell them what I expect and it's been working. The tough part is getting my daughter on board. I can make all of the accomodations available to her, but if she won't do the work - it's all for nothing.

On the medical side of things, we've been seeing a neurologist and have a sleep study scheduled for next week. After that an MRI and then we'll see what happens. Sleep continues to be an issue for my daughter and I have a strong feeling that that's the root to a lot of her problems concentrating and getting to school.

Anyway - I'm still feeling pretty emotionally depleted and hope to be able to pick up writing on this blog more regularly and more interestingly soon - please continue to follow and bear with me for a bit longer.

Remember - DIFFERENT IS BEAUTIFUL!!