...well, bully for you...

(From March 19, 2019)

We are, in my personal opinion, the sum of our experiences:

ever-growing, ever-changing.

Marked by the passage of each day and what it brings into our orbit.

We bend and fracture with the punches.

We grow scar tissue over deep hurts; that "different tissue" that closes the wound but can never quite be what it replaced.

Some of us soften and blossom.

Others of us harden and refine. 

Our intellectual functions adjust to the tasks presented...worrying over the problems specific to our experiences...gradually becoming habitual users of the same processes over time.

Our physical bodies attune to repetitive needs in much the same way.

Even our emotional cores, our inner spirits, are gradually rewritten as we experience all those ups and downs.

My son is, right now, the product of his first 16 years. He is buoyed by the confidence created at home, and battered by the distrust created at school. He is shut down, shut out, from the social-emotional experience of school life (and, often, community life if school peers are present) by a learned "battening down the hatches" auto-response. He tells me how much energy he expends daily, in the rigorous process of shutting everything out. He arrives home, exhausted, just in time for those temporary walls of his to burst. He is crushed under the weight of those walls every afternoon.

I rebuild my son every day, after school. I let him crush my hand as we walk up the driveway, releasing all that inner turmoil into my very bones. I sit with him as he falls apart and catch, in my hands, the words that he'll need back. I listen to the ones unspoken and hear the cry of his defeat. And then I help him rebuild. It takes all night and all morning.

And then, he goes back to school. 

It's different now..

now that he's in high school...now that he's 16.

"Selectively Solitary-or-Safely So"

He's different now.

More guarded.

Less open.

Purposely numb.

Missing out just because he can't take the risk.

His efforts to protect himself, because everyone else (including me) failed to protect him, have cut him off from who he was.

I am different now, too...

I pull no punches now. I set aside "kindness" and stand at the offensive ready.

Gone are the days when I played only defense..only re-action. I have learned what to expect and grown accordingly.

This post:6 years old today. 

Part of the why...

(From March 19, 2013) 

So to clarify, calmly now that I've had some time, I received a call from school yesterday letting me know that another student had pushed my son and that he had fallen, hard. He did go to the nurse, and was checked out by her, and she felt that he could continue on with the school day. Once the individual who called was done sharing that information, it was time for the standard "cover our rears" speech. 

Generally it sounds very basically the same each and every time an incident like this occurs.

I am informed that my son is fine, and that the incident will be investigated.

I am informed that the other student has never displayed this sort of behavior before.

I am informed that while they will look into the incident, that they don't feel that anyone intended to harm my son.

So, four years in to this now, I'm used to hearing this same scenario or variations on the same.

And quite frankly I'm sick to death of it.

I knew even during that phone call that my child was going to come home to me at the end of today with some physical mark: either a bruise or a cut or scrape or a black and blue mark. And yet, despite the fact that he did not have that mark on him when he left for school that day, the administration does not feel that returning him in "damaged" condition is worth their time or concern.

So when things like this happen as they seem to do at least once a week, I play the waiting game.

I wait until my child gets off school bus and until he says something that triggers the conversation.

Yesterday was no different. Right off the hop, as soon as he got off the bus, he said he was sick and tired of being treated badly by the student who had hurt him that day. After listening to his side of what actually transpired, I left voicemail messages for several of the administrators at the school. And then waited. And waited. When I finally did get a return phone call I was treated with a good deal of oppositional defiance. Right from the start of the phone call, the principal attempted to first talk me out of my concerns, and when that didn't work, inform me that they were unfounded and melodramatic. She took great offense to my word choice when I describes my son as being a victim. Her only explanation was that all children in that age range put their hands on one another. Additionally, she did not like being told that my son is afraid to attend her school. In fact, she argued with me on that very same point, stating loudly that every time she sees him he is smiling and happy to be there. During the course of the conversation, which took over an hour away from my being attentive to my child, she continued to negate what I was saying and to talk over me and through me, interrupting me at every turn. It doesn't help lend credence to her cause, when she can't formulate a straight sentence without using at least one word inappropriately in each. I kept thinking to myself that this was quite literally the equivalent of banging my head against brick wall. Attempting to reason with someone who is not your intellectual equal is beyond frustrating. Particularly when that person thinks that they are in a defensive position. At any rate I stayed firm in what I was saying, which I know to be the truth.

My son has been at the school for four years.

He has been bullied relentlessly during those four years.

He is afraid to go to school.

We wake up hours before most other schoolchildren do, in order to spend valuable time addressing his fears and concerns, and providing appropriate therapy choices to help him combat them.

Every single day, every single morning that he has to go to school, I have to persuade him to do so.

He is afraid to go there.

He is afraid to get on the bus.

He's afraid of unpredictable classmates who wish to harm him.

Trying to reason with a now 10-year-old and explain to him that school ought to be a safe place for him becomes increasingly difficult with each new incident.

I could not believe the audacity of the administrator in her aggressive approach to handling my concerns. It was almost as though she felt that the appropriate way to manage me was to bully me and berate me until I gave in. Bully the parent of a bullied child. Are you kidding me?!? Thankfully I am rather talented at compartmentalizing (hey, thanks, crappy life-experiences!), and not letting my emotions get the best of me. So rather then letting her know how angry I was increasingly becoming, I maintained my composure. 

Which forced her to switch tactics.

Her next choice was to blame my son's autism.

Because clearly, when someone is physically harmed there's this area of gray that can be interpreted differently by an autistic brain...Right? (WRONG!)

 Again I'm dumbfounded by the idiocy of that sort of thinking. We're not discussing a verbal squabble on the schoolyard in which my son may have taken something personally that was never intended to be cruel. What we're discussing is physical assault. Correct me if I'm wrong, but there's no gray area there. This isn't a matter of my autistic son reading the situation inappropriately. It's physical assault, plain and simple! 

When the administrator once again realized that the course she had taken was the wrong one and that she was making no headway, she changed her tactics once again. This time claiming that the other child never engages with anyone. That his own special needs render him almost completely nonverbal, and that therefore he couldn't possibly have been teasing my son and my son's friend. And that he is adverse to touch, and therefore could not possibly have purposefully harmed my child.

And here, my friends, we deal with an out right lie.

This same child rides on the bus which a friend of mine drives. She informed me that he is quite verbal, and teases everyone all the time. Additionally she let me know that he is not nearly as vegetative as the principal would have implied. In fact, he's gone after my son and my son's friends routinely on the bus. 

Long story short, by the end of the phone conversation, the principal did come to some degree of her senses, and apologize for the tone she had taken with me. I held fast with what I was saying and reiterated that whether or not she was in fact sorry or even chose to believe what I'm saying, she needed to be informed of the fact that my son is afraid to be in her school. And for that, I hold her accountable. 

At the turnaround point in the conversation, she then played a different hand altogether. It was apparently trying to brainstorm with me, about what might make the situation better. She stated time and again over the next 15 or so minutes that she didn't know what to do and that if I had any suggestions she would greatly appreciate that.

Now, while I am well inclined in my daily life to be a bit of a brainstormer and to research possible solutions, it's hardly my responsibility to make her job easier. I did make a few suggestions (because I can hardly resist doing so) but I reiterated that it is her responsibility to investigate these incidents to the fullest extent of her capabilities, and based off of her findings then come up with solutions that actually work. 

And the administration wonders why I'm so frustrated?!?