Want to move miserable, not sure what to do. LONG... help!

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leopardgal
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18 Jun 2015, 10:57 am

Hi, I am new posting to this forum. I would really appreciate anyone’s opinion.
Scenario #1 : My DD is 8, we moved to our area 3 years ago for schools and family. My DD was doing well in kinder, made friends with twin girls that are NT. Their mom seemed great, and we went out to lunch a few times when I wasn’t working. My DD for the first time was not placed with any of these children for her 2nd grade year(which thank God is over). She was with them in 1st grade and had a good teacher. But this year The teacher was old school and ignorant, and my daughter shut down this year in class, and didn’t make any new friends, and this teacher really amped up my DD anxiety. I have discovered(via convos my DD has had with the twins over the past year), that the twins mom has made comments about my parenting so to speak (oh my mom won’t let us buy clothes from that store, she says its inappropriate, oh you have so many toys my mom says). This mom has not made one attempt to arrange playdates with the girls outside of school. I had done several, but the last one was almost a year ago. I requested for this upcoming year for my DD to be placed with the twins for her social development(I know their mom sucks but they are still engaging with my daughter at school,), with a new better teacher I hope and my DD can hopefully have these girls to bridge the gap for her to be more open with other girls – her 1st grade year was really good and the support program director apologized at our IEP, for she felt that the “system” really let our daughter down with this horrible teacher….. So we all agreed as a team lets try this set up this year to see how it goes.
Scenario #2: There is a boy from my daughters support class, that has been socially inappropriate with my DD, yelling, screaming, saying mean things to my daughter when she has tried to play with other children this year in her class/recess time and the twins…... I don’t want to say this, but his behaviors during recess and aftercare(I was hoping my DD would make friends there, but he has interfered with this process, and the teachers have gotten involved), have “scared off” the other kids, and my daughter felt pressured to give into him. She finally broke down to me about this 2 months ago, and I had to get the school involved. Basically it has been social suicide for my daughter this year……. And this boy isn’t going anywhere. This was brought up at the IEP as well, and since it was witnessed by teachers this was indeed happening they are working with this boy. I am hoping that improves but I just sometimes wish I could give my daughter a fresh start…. This leads to this now…

We live in my daughter’s base school(we rent though), and I honestly feel like we need to start over somewhere else when our DD is “done” with the support program – which most likely is going to happen at the end of next year from my daughter’s school progress. WE have found a nice beach community not far from my family, we both can still hold our jobs. The school district is much smaller and a more community feel in the neighborhoods(kids riding bikes, playing in the streets, we have NONE of that here, its very rural). My daughter loves the ocean, and we miss it(we moved from a beach town from across the country). We don’t have roots yet, and from dealing with the “relationships” my daughter has made so far it has been beyond disappointing….. I don’t feel happy here and am very frustrated with everything. I feel awful saying all this but I have worked so hard for my DD to progress socially and academically, and the social part is all screwed up. Academically she is doing fantastic, and has the skills to make friends at her own pace(she is in regular camp and made a friend on her own). I feel like her foundation is terrific, but she deserves better. Any thoughts? I feel stuck and just pained overall. I have talked to my DD about moving and she says she is "fine" with going someplace new, and she is ok to leave her school/friends behind. We have gone there to look at homes, see where the school is etc. etc. for day trips to the beach.

Also to add I called the autism support director at this school district already. I have read about the schools and have heard some positive things and they have parental involvement at the district for special needs - don't have that where we are now.
I guess my problem is this: worried we will move and it still sucks, but at least we have the ocean and a home we will love. If all else fails I quit working and my DD does K12 in a place that she will like.

My DD comment last week "Mom can we move cause here no one wants to be my friend because XX follows me around and they are afraid of him"..... 8O 8O



btbnnyr
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18 Jun 2015, 11:13 am

Moving seems like a good idea.
Is there a reason for your daughter to continue in this school's programs?
It seems like it might be good to move asap.


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leopardgal
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18 Jun 2015, 11:44 am

Financially we don't have the means to do so this summer it is looking like I am afraid. I just discovered this area a month ago and its torture. We have been in survival mode for quite some time with this area and the school situation, we really just broke down as a couple and realized how disappointed we are. I just wish I could scrape up enough to move but I can't find anything affordable there to rent that will allow our pets as well.

I felt so awful having to speak up about the boy situation with my daughter, but I was really appalled that they haven't done anything to help him for his sake and for him to make friends and all that, it made me wonder how "great" of a district is it honestly..... seriously having my doubts about it.



zette
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18 Jun 2015, 1:21 pm

In your post I don't really hear any downsides to moving. It doesn't sound like the current support program is all that wonderful given what your daughter went through last year. The only thing I would suggest is to look for support groups and parents in the new area to get the full scoop on schools you are considering -- sometimes two schools in the same district can be very different in how they treat the sped kids.



leopardgal
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23 Jun 2015, 1:56 pm

Well I reached out to a parent in the new area we are considering, she is head of a district based parent support program that was developed due to parents being dissatisfied with the school district, they have made a lot of changes however now I am more confused than ever. She didn't want to discourage me, but I am feeling now overall torn for she heard our current area was really good - but extremely academically challenging(so I am not sure if that is the best learning environment for my daughter, I think it is a lot of pressure, we for sure witnessed it this year with this teacher). Her child's experiences/needs are different of course so its really difficult to say. Unfortunately she doesn't know of any parents that have girls that are high functioning, so I am going to have to of course dig deep to find resources for my daughter to help her as she matures. My library is growing, thank goodness she can read fluently pretty much now:)

The positives overall that she informed me that the one elementary school's entire staff is trained for the special needs students(obviously our current school is not due to the mismanaging of our daughter and that other student), and the community is very strong and laid back/non competitive(we are dealing with major Joneses problems here which isn't helping us any).

I know that parents have had issues with our district as well, but it is very large so I can't really compare the two(honestly I am not sure what about because we all have our individual battles to fight for our kids), the upside for sure is the neighborhood/community is much more to our liking. Such a big decision, I just want to win the lottery right now and just hire someone to teach my daughter at home;)