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Trying to Become One with the Crack in the Wall

Last week Hubby and I meet with a therapist for Aspie Teen here in our own town (what a concept!).  We were both happy and impressed with our appointment, which did not include Aspie Teen, just Hubby and I.  Aspie Teen will meet with them in late August, and I am hopeful for the first time that maybe we can get him some help (for school mostly).

The Teen indicated that he wanted to try to go back to regular school this year, which made me cringe.  I don’t believe he is ready either socially, emotionally and definitely not academically to cope with beginning High School.  However, I don’t want to rob him of the opportunity of giving it a try so I agreed to register him here at the local high school.

Aspie Teen and High School Registration

Registration did not go well!  First, we stopped by the table located right within the doors to grab a bus schedule and the Teen looked he was going to come unglued.  He has been harassed, abused, and scared by the school bus rides, and I don’t blame him for never wanting to get on one again! My concern was the near panicked reaction.

I tried to calm him by telling him that just because I getting the bus schedule does not mean he will have to ride, but we need the schedule because after all, I am due to have a baby in another four weeks!  If I cannot drive him for a few days or so, he will need an alternate way to get to school.  My explanation did not calm his nerves.  The adults sitting at the bus table didn’t help either.HS Just ahead

Disclaimer:  Hubby says that they weren’t trying to be insensitive or rude but were trying to lighten the mood, but I wanted to punch someone in their nose!

They actually said, “Hey we need to find this one a good bus, because he is a afraid to ride!”  And to  me, the said this out loud in earshot of other registering students—not cool.  No matter how much Hubby says they were being playful and didn’t mean anything by it, I didn’t like it.  And—it put Aspie Teen’s defenses up.

Next we went to Guidance because Aspie Teen homeschooled in the 8th grade and was not transferring from the a middle school and it seemed no one knew what to do (yup—another big surprise, huh?)  We were handed a load of paperwork to fill out and sent to a table to sit.  I tried to get the Teen to sit down at the table with me, but instead he hid behind the wall.  A small indented lip in the wall, where I swear he was trying to become one with the crack in the corner of it.  He could not have possible gotten any further into that corner!

He looked like he was going to be begin shaking, and he wanted to disappear.  He told me later that there were too many people there, but—there weren’t many at all, not for how late in the day we were there and certainly not nearly as many as would be entering into the school each morning.  THIS IS SOOOO NOT A GOOD IDEA!

To be continued….

Jeannie Davide-Rivera

Jeannie is an award-winning author, the Answers.com Autism Category Expert, contributes to Autism Parenting Magazine, and the Thinking Person's Guide to Autism. She lives in New York with her husband and four sons, on the autism spectrum.

2 Comments:

  1. AspieWriter, I can so identify with the experience your son had. Not as you, and not as your son, but from my own son’s point of view. When we got there, there were hundreds of students talking, yelling, laughing. Commotion everywhere. If I, and “neurotypical” thought there was a lot of noise, what must it be like for a teen on the spectrum? Probably exactly like you shared it! I’ll be hopeful for your son, that it will be as smooth a transition as possible.

    • Thanks Steve, it certain was loud and chaotic, but no where near what it would be like on a school day. We were there late in the afternoon and there really weren’t that many people present (not like I would imagine it was earlier in the day).

      Aspie Teen opted to participate in the virtual online public high school, and I do think that it is going to be better for him. The schools here do not offer any real programs that are going to help him, unless I just want him to attend but not earn a diploma, which is not an option!

      The Teen is not doing well academically but has a dream of being a chef and going to culinary college, and I cannot crush it by letting him attend a program that will not award a “real diploma”, talk about killing his motivation.

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