The Middle
I last left off finding out our diagnosis and approval for our first IEP individualized Education Plan.Every Parent of a special education kiddo will tell you achieving one of these is a battle to receive and more of a battle to get appropriate supports put into these Plans.One Piece of advice I can offer is do everything through written correspondence letters or emails that are time stamped and keep copies.Truth is I ve learned if it’s not written down it didn’t happen This is any conversation for educational support services form teachers to guidance counselors,principals,The school psychologist,The educational support administrator in charge of IEP Development.
Keep Thorough records of everything.Moving on to the start of 7th Grade having to be in a middle/High school more people lots of class switching.Having to memorize a locker combination is a lot to start with now throw in puberty hormones emotional dysregulation socializing on a level your not prepared for not really a surprise my kiddo started to become depressed.We addressed this moving to the second half of 7th grade then COVID hit and the shut down.Turning 13 in lockdown only added to the depression with no friends to hang out with not get the school work or getting to attend the first junior high dance. Summer Rolled in the big craze to entertain in the shut down was tik tok.My kiddo liked to cosplay characters.But,a characteristic of Autism is hyper-fixating on special interests could be a person,celebrity,comic,story a song ,musical artist,ac ity or country etc.Sometimes what coincides is being to talkative to friendly to trusting online and giving information out or photos that shouldn’t be for safety or bullying.
We had an incident where phone privileges including tik tok had to be taken away for the just mentioned reasons.That led to waking up for work to a missing child who ran away in the middle of the night the horror and shear panic of not being able to find my child was unbearable luckily a random stranger brought my child home grateful they were unharmed but the fact they were so trusting of a total stranger was scary.This is where our mental health took a turn.Trigger warning: they were self harming and said they had considered jumping out the window.I took them to the Psychiatric hospital is was there they said they wanted to be a boy.So I’m nw in the midst of a Autistic child with ADHD and depression and anxiety but,self harm suicidal and at this current time in our story a transgender male.any one of these is difficult but,when your thrown all of it at one It’s a lot for a parent.I am going to end there next time I’ll take a deeper dive into the mental health side of our journey.Thank you for reading
