Fuming Over Report Card

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Does your son have a 504 or an IEP? We learned the hard way that these are not discussed outside the IEP team without your express written direction, due to confidentiality law (well, and laziness on the part of our team, who neglected to tell us that the PE portion of the 504 wasn't being handled because we didn't sign off on it.)

If he has one or the other, make sure appropriate accommodations for Art and Gym are written into it; this way, the report card will have to at least state something like "making adequate progress with 504 or IEP plan." Most of the meets/does not meet requirements at this age are basically checking boxes, so if they don't know to give your child special consideration, it's an either they do or they don't kind of a thing.

But they should remain children while they are children.



Also, would you grade a blind person on dart throwing? I wouldn't grade a child who has motor planning problems on how well they do sports. If someone is physically not capable of participating at that level, then accommodations should be made so that they are still working on increasing their health and sports abilities, and not have to feel like a failure every day for not being able to do something their body can't do.

I have horrible coordination and cannot catch or throw a ball or play a sport. Nobody ever wants me on their team. Never did. But I was forced to try. I got a little better than I was before with my PE teacher yelling at me all the time. Yes, it sucked. Yes it was embarrassing. But I did get a bit better.

I know that I can't do things as well as others. Certain things anyway. I knew it then. It's much better to acknowledge it and just be made to try this way or that way than it is to sit in a room by yourself and write reports on sports for all of PE, which is what I did for a year.

Believe it or not, he probably feels more like the other kids when he's fussed at by the teacher for something he knows he didn't do right than if she overlooks it because of an IEP.

Frances

That's an excellent point. Still seems like it could be more middle-of-the-road coaching, similar to the business principle of "catching your people doing something right." I guess what I'm advocating is positive coaching, but some PE teachers just don't have this in them and seem very ill-suited for their jobs.

I, on the other hand, failed PE in high school and am still terribly uncoordinated and not very physically fit. All I got out of PE was bad self-esteem.

My son is being treated kindly by the PE teachers, he's able to sit out whenever he wants and they never yell at him. He is slowly but surely improving.

Many of us had AS and didn't get the treatment our kids are getting, but survived and made it to adulthood relatively unscathed. However, I had to essentially re-parent myself in my late 20s and lost a lot of ground. I didn't really have a good plan and did a good bit of floundering as an adult - it wasn't until I became a parent and vowed that things would be better for my kid that I realized there was a better way. Our kids don't have to learn under circumstances that are the least effective and least efficient for them - we can ask for accommodations and adaptations for their learning style.

I agree with the above poster that we wouldn't treat people with other kinds of handicaps this way, even if they were able to adapt to typical standards, it wouldn't be the best way to educate them. While I think we can have high standards and expectations for our kids, that doesn't have to mean their path for getting there has to be either at the same pace as typical kids or the same methodology.

I think not changing expectations helped me more than it hurt me. Sure, I was dissapointed and upset and had hurt feelings sometimes, but other times I was surprised at what I really could do. I learned to twirl a baton. On fire - the baton, not me - in slick bottom uncomfortable shoes on wet ground, in a uniform where the pants were riding up my behind, with a head full of hairspray. I learned to dribble a baskeball and pass good enough to make our girls team. Not that great, but better than some. I did not learn to do a lot of things. The list is too long to put down here. But I learned those things, among others. I also learned that I could play the piano in the chapel full of the whole school. I could give my testimony in front of the school even if I did have to start over several times.

Setting expectations lower just to keep kids like I was from being upset is a diservice. If they truly cant because of a more profound disability than I had, then yes, change it for them. Otherwise, don't treat them, or me because I do have AS, as incompetent or second class and expect less from me. I can do it. It may take me longer to learn it but once I learn it, trust me it will be PERFECT.

One year I didn't have to take the PE part of PE. I went to health instead on chapel days like the other girls but the rest of the time I sat in the room alone and wrote reports explaining different sports for my grade while the other kids participated. My mother had got tired of me coming home injured from things we did in PE and decided I was too fragile and uncoordinated to do it, so that's their 70s version of an IEP. It was the worst time of the school day. I didn't care so much if I got hurt, as long as I got to do what the other kids did. My mother always called me sickly and fragile and played up any health problems I had, so I never got to do anything. When I would some way or other find my way at a friends house whose parents werent scared to not treat me like glass I was in heaven! I didn't care that they laughed at how I threw the ball, I was out there in the yard with them playing an trying to throw it. Even I could laugh at how I did it, although I was uncomfortable and scared they would hate me for how I did it, but they didn't.

It was being around those friends a lot that taught me that it's ok to be clumsy. It's ok even to laugh about it. I can laugh about it. I remember this one time over there, we were going to ride bikes to the store about 4 or 5 blocks away. I was maybe 12 then. By then, my clumsiness had become a running joke. At first I thought they were teasing me, or as we now call it bullying. They were not. They did the same to other girls, about different things. THe one girls obsession with flavored lip gloss so she looked like she had vasoline on her lips. Another girls constant snacking. Another girls always singing along with the wrong lyrics - I hate that btw - etc. That was just my rademark quirk. Count on Holly to look like she's kissed a baby's bottom cause of her lips, count on Elisha to have chips or mug an ice cream man, count on Kim to always say the wrong thing but not mean it ugly, count on Julie to always wear a new concert baseball shirt the day after and carry an unlit cigarette like she's cool, count on Frances to drop whatever she's carrying or trip over air. I was part of things. We were all singled out, all the girls, for things we did. Not just those with "disabilities" One of the coolest girls in my class, who I freaking HATED was a girl who had MD. She wore the braces and had a lot of physical problems and couldn't do a lot, but all the kids loved her. And it wasn't because she smiled through the suffering crap and was a nice person either. She was a real b****. She could find anyones weak spot and jump on it immediately. She did that for sport. She was an honorary cheerleader just because they liked her. So it wasn't a defacto disability thing. Back then nobody knew what AS was anyway, and autistic children weren't sent to regular schools because it was thought that they couldn't learn. Back to the bike though.

My aha moment about how people are and how we all fit in came when we were going to ride bikes to the store. Nevermind that it was several blocks away and I wasn't allowed out of the yard. Nevermind that I had never even seen a bike before and was cautioned against ever trying one. I felt like I could do it because they did it. I was afraid. My first reaction was "Are you kidding? Are you trying to watch me get ran over in the street or something?" My friends said it was easy - it's not - and I could learn - I did - so, wanting to be like the other kids, I tried it. I fell off a lot. I still have a scar from it on my leg. I still kept on. I finally got it right coming back. I was so proud. I thought maybe I am a regular kid after all! And I was.

I suppose my point is that AS kids ARE regular kids and we CAN do things so not letting us do them or treating us different because of it is more painful than the failures.

Sorry for the rant. It's a topic close to my heart.

Frances

Finding the right line between pushing too hard and not pushing enough is the real challenge of parenting a kid on the spectrum.

That being said, please consider that I had the opposite experience of you: I was clearly struggling in a time before anyone even knew about dyslexia, let alone aspergers, and everyone had expectations of me that I could not meet. As a result, I did not learn the things I needed to learn in school; some things I was able to re-learn as an adult, some things I'm still learning, but I'm considerably behind my peers and my capacities. I am not disagreeing that it's possible for the opposite to happen - I'm just saying that there is room for both possibilities.

As parents, we have to carefully consider our children as individuals - and this is why our school systems really need to do a better job listening to us, as they are generalists who help most kids, and we are specialists in OUR kids.

I guess I was lucky I didn't get crap in PE. I was in special ed full time when I was six and seven and then when I was in regular ed from age eight and up. I don't know what grade I got in PE but if I remember correctly I think my gym teacher said for my IEP that I seem to do fine in PE. PE got harder when I got to middle school because I sucked at sports and it was all sports. In elementary school, you play games like tag or hitting a balloon over the net using a tennis racket to your partner, playing crab soccer, or floor hockey, or clean out the backyard, or traffic jam. All these silly games where kids can all goof up and be make mistakes and not be good at it. Participating is all it mattered. PE was my favorite class then too because of all these fun games. But I started to not like it when I got to middle school and high school I hated it. Kids did not participate well because they didn't care for the class. They goof off and do bad deliberately like in softball they hit a ball and run very slow than fast and what I mean by slow is walking than running. It always gave me anxiety and I was forced to participate or I get an F. Plus I was never good in warm ups but me participating by doing them was all it mattered and I never git a bad grade for that. maybe because I had an IEP. Here is another thing I remember in PE, if you misbehaved in PE, you were made to sit out in the next PE class. Obviously that wouldn't be a good punishment for a kid who hates PE because that be like a reward for him.


But I was diagnosed with dyspraxia as a kid and it was mild to moderate but I still did PE and I still could tie my shoes and ride a bike and button buttons. I even had to so occupational therapy for poor coordination.

Agreed. But who gets to decide when childhood ends? Wait too long, and circumstances will force the child to assume responsibility for their own grades during the turmoil of adolescence.


Agreed. But those issues must be addressed before the child is expected to conform - otherwise, a failing grade may result ... and the parents come off as "just making excuses" for their child's failure.

I think childhood ends at about the time they can obviously take care of themselves. Now, that doesn't mean they do take care of themselves. But they could. When they can wash their own clothes, or cook a meal, or clean the house without a parent hovering to tell them step by step instructions. When they can call their own dentist to change the appointment, when they can drive, when they can talk to the pest control guy who shows up for his monthly stuff and they can say "Come look, we have ants!" When they know enough to run a household, and their own selves. Thats when childhood ends.

Mine are out of childhood.

The thing is, they sometimes want that childhood and parents should be happy to provide it when needed.

Mine all have different things they want to have as adults and as children. So, I provde each one with their own things.

An example is when they are sick. When they are sick they are 5 again. They want Mom there with soft foods and drinks with bendy straws. My 18yo still likes coloring books and crayons and she will actually cry when she doesn't feel good. They all like to get in my bed and be brought things and have a tv put back there, etc for them.

Yet those same kids, when faced with one of their friends who is drunk - this happened a few weekends ago - will not run behind either me or their dad but will go outside and stand up to them and yell and point and wave cell phones around with threats of the cops until the guy leaves.

When the parent is sick and they get themselves up for school and catch the bus on time. When they wash their clothes cause Mom has the flu, when they cook supper and clean up the house and even think to sweep because Mom is in the bed with some illness, that's when they are grown.

Thats when childhood's gone.

Or when they start understanding Family Guy.

Frances

Some lessons are worthless when delivered before a child is developmentally ready, and grading is one of them. You don't learn it any better just by learning it earlier.

My son got the hang of playing to the teacher's perception before hitting high school, and I'd say that was quite timely enough. First thing he does with each new teacher is ask for the rubric.

All introducing it earlier would have done was let him believe he was stupid, when he is far from. He had too many adjustments to learn in elementary. Which he has since done. Very young kids need to learn at their own pace without judgement.

I feel my son is too young to be told he is not good at art or gym. At his age, it should be about effort and attitude. Isn't the media always going on about how we need to encourage our children to be physically active? How do you do that when his very first experience with gym class results in disappointment? Same for art - how can anyone say which small child is artistic and which isn't? Ridiculous.

Yippy, I agree 100%. At 6, especially if this is his very first experience with these activities, it should be about encouraging ALL of the kids in as many ways as possible. There is no need to rush them into learning the hard lessons such as sometimes even when you try really hard, you will still not succeed at some things. Let's give them a chance to feel successful before we throw them into the school of hard knocks. One thing we've learned with our son is he already has too much of a defeatest attitude about doing new things, he doesn't need THAT to be reinforced. He NEEDS to be encouraged at every turn, success breeds success with our kiddo because he actually is capable of doing a lot of things but he often falls into the "I can't do it" attitude before he even tries. If that is reinforced by the adults around him he is far more likely to under-achieve than he is to reach his full potential.

AsDW a mom was saying, in CA, report cards for little ones don't have grades, rather how far they are along with meeting the year end goal for each standard.

Typically on the first reporting period, the kids are just starting, so are just "making progress" or something like that. At least here, all of the federal requirements have made report cards a big hassle for teachers, because there are a ton of criteria.

What I would be most concerned with is; is this a typical grade for an early reporting period, and why. It may be that the pe teacher needs your child to hop on one foot for 10 yards by the end of the year and so far he can't hop at all. Same with art, it may be that he's supposed to color inside the lines or something and he can't. Of course, these are random guesses.

I think understanding what goes I to the grading will be key here. If there are certain grade level standards that your child needs to meet, if they are for more than efforrt, you will need to decide if those standards need to be modified.

I agree that to automatically exclude a child who isn't a natural athlete isn't good, but on the other hand just showing up and participating is huge for many of our kids.

I know that for my son, the PE teacher hadn't been made aware of his IEP, and he had unrealistic expectations. Further because he had gained a tremendous amount of weight due to meds, the teacher wasn't particularly kind about DS's limitations. It was a nightmare. In addition he got a bad grade because he wouldn't re copy the 2 page dodgeball rules.

Not to mention the humilation of being forced to do activities you simply cannot do, so that all the other kids can laugh at how stupid you look. like I remember one instance I think in middle school where we were supposed to do pull ups and I can't do a pull up to save my life so not only did the teacher make me try it one time but 3......and yes everyone got a laugh out of that except for me.

Well take the stretches required for P.E........my body is not flexible so no matter how much I was yelled at or humiliated it did not make me any more able to do the stretches correctly. I feel i should have been graded on the fact I still did my best at these stretches but there are some things my body simply cannot do.

So while I kinda agree a bit of challenge is important, pushing someone to do things they can't do and then humilating them because they can't is not very helpful for anyone.