Thursday, May 2, 2013

Exceptional?

We had Alan's transition meeting yesterday since he is starting high school in the fall.

Overall it was a great meeting.  His current teachers obviously love him, the high school teacher was very positive about his recent communication break through (switching to "Go Talk Now" on the iPad) and DH and I were praised as "exceptional" parents.

So what is my gripe?  If we are "exceptional", then I think most parents are missing the boat.

The sort of things that got us praised were silly things -- the funny Christmas card with all his goofy climbing pictures, keeping after the doctor until we got a good medicine mix that would control his OCD and programming and using the communication iPad.  The last item the speech therapist went on and on about for what seemed like 10 minutes.

That was supposed to be the condition of getting a communication iPad from the school -- that we work with him at home as well.  After all, that is the goal, right?  Not just to have him communicate at school but at home as well.  So why is that unusual?  Shouldn't all parents make the time to take pictures of food choices and his favorite videos and restaurants?

I only spent an hour or so programming it and I really thought I should have spent more time on it.  But the SLP kept gushing about how much I did.  That just seemed a little sad to me.

1 comment:

  1. Oh my Julie, I completely get this! I am always amazed when doctors or therapists or teachers say that we are doing so much more. Excuse me, doesn't everyone push you about their kid?

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