Tuesday, October 18, 2011

WRENCHES

Just when we think everything is going smoothly, someone throws a monkey-wrench into the mix.

He came home the night before Commencement and said that he wasn’t going to commence because he couldn’t get his math assignment finished.  His tracking sheet said, “Poor quality on homework.  Dishonest about it.  Phase One until work is done.”

These were my thoughts:  Was the teacher serious?  Demoting him to Phase One, the night before he was supposed to graduate?  What was the motive?  She had obvious dislike for my son and now that she had the opportunity to have him leave her class for good, she black-balled him?  Did she just have to have a parting shot?  Crazy!

He told me that what she interpreted as dishonest was his telling her that he did all of the homework that he could, but did not do his math because he didn’t understand it.  I guess she decided that he was lying about it.

I knew what the math assignment was because I had tried to figure out how to teach him how to do it, too.  It was factoring trinomials, a time consuming, lengthy step by step assignment where you have to try all of the different factors of a problem until you find the right ones in the right order.  It was very frustrating.  He said that even after the teacher showed him how to do it and after I showed him how to do it, he just didn’t understand, so he stopped trying. 

He had no idea that she would jeopardize his commencement for it.  

He knew that if he could possibly do the assignment that night, everything would most likely be back on, but he was so disappointed that he refused to even try.

He went from being excited about commencing to spiraling into a very bad, bad mood.

Luckily, he talked to his sponsor who said that he should just do his best to get the assignment done and get it over with.

And then, he wanted to work on it.  It was only 10:00 p.m.  No big deal.  But I worked on it with him that night until we were both too tired and then again the next morning.  I think I did more of the work than he did, but at least most of it was done. 

He was still in a bad mood when he left that morning.  I’m sure he thought that the teacher would still find something wrong with the assignment.

I got a call from his therapist that afternoon.  She said that the Commencement and Family Communication were still on.  Apparently, the assignment was completed well enough for the teacher--Or maybe the therapist just over-rode whatever the teacher’s agenda was. I knew she was tired of the back and forth drama between my son and the teacher.

And then I had about 30 minutes to buy and deliver the ice cream Drum Sticks that he wanted to share with everyone at the end of his last group therapy.  The treats are always a big part of the Commencement. 

Of course I was happy to do it.

Then, when I dropped the treats off, they said that if I just waited a few minutes, he could leave early.

I panicked. 

I had 2 more hours of freedom and they wanted me to cut it short!

So, I said no.  I wanted him to stay for the rest of the day.

I don’t know what they thought about that.

I felt guilty.

But, I enjoyed those 2 hours.

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