EC – Emotionally Conflicted

Prior to EC, the classification had been…

ED – Emotionally Disturbed

An improvement, I guess.

I know this because some of the paperwork we signed still had the ED label on it.

Emotionally Conflicted. Emotionally Disturbed.

Those are hard words to overcome.

I almost didn’t.

Part of me wished I hadn’t overcome them. But then I know what came from the placement.

If we had not placed Teddy in the classroom would what I consider to be the positive results still have happened?

Were the results worth the cost?

Were there long-term repercussions for Teddy, that affect him even today, because of this placement?

How significant are the events of six months in your child’s life?

Maybe there are questions you don’t ever get to know the answer to.

*   *   *

If you are going through hell, keep going. Winston Churchill 

It was August 1999. Teddy was about to have his 8^th birthday and we were faced with two schooling options.

1. Continue homeschooling. For both Teddy and I this wasn’t really an option. I was a wreck and he had regressed. Big time for both, honestly.
2. Return Teddy to a new school and place him in a self-contained EC classroom.

I don’t know of any decision I made prior to, or since, that was as gut-wrenching as this one.

Over the course of several months, leading up to this point, we’d had several IEP meetings. They were the worst meetings I had ever had with the schools.

Have you ever noticed when things get bad, they seem to get REALLY bad?

We were at REALLY bad.

Louisa, our psychologist who diagnosed Teddy in 1995, and reevaluated him in 1997, and again in 1999, made the five-hour drive to attend Teddy’s IEP. She said it was the most horrible IEP meeting she had EVER been to. The school system’s inability to grasp the challenges of Aspergers had taken on new heights, or is that, new lows.

But, we kept going.

After a few more meetings, and with the start of school just weeks away, Neal and I sat down with the IEP team and agreed to send Teddy to the EC Classroom.

I know what it feels like to have your heart break because I felt it break that day.

Emotionally Conflicted. Emotionally Disturbed.

The words grew and grew and grew in my head, and in my heart, until they physically hurt.

There was shame.

There was disappointment.

There was fear.

My baby.

MY. BABY.

Emotionally Disturbed.

I had not done enough to keep him from this moment.

I had failed.

How do you NOT feel that way the moment you have just signed the paperwork agreeing to such a placement?

I know what catatonic feels like because I went catatonic that day.

Shutting down was the only way to stop the hurt.

So why did I do this? Why did I agree to place my baby in this room?

Those are good questions. And believe me, I thought about them prior to, during, and for quite a while after the decision was made.

Optimism and promises are why.

They assured me that “within six weeks” they were going to start mainstreaming Ted into a regular education 3^rd grade class.

Teddy skipped 2^nd grade. One advantage of homeschooling was that from January 26 to mid May, working about three hours a day, Ted was able to complete the remainder of the first grade curriculum as well as the entire 2^nd grade curriculum. The flexibility we had really was great.

I was also told that at the start of school there was only one other child IEPed into the class. So with a ratio of two kids to one, Teddy would receive extreme hands on instruction on techniques to help him deal better with the challenge of coping during a day of school.

That’s not so bad. Right?

I had to look past the words, the label, of my son’s class. I had to believe. I had to have faith that this was okay. I had to not discriminate.

I know what emotionally conflicted feels like because I became emotionally conflicted that day.

But, we kept going.

Next: Days in the life of a public school Emotionally Conflicted classroom.

Thanks for being here to listen. This is the really hard stuff.