Hello Everyone,

I am new this forum and hope to find some guidance. My son is a funny, smart, lovable kiddo. He has SPD (with signs of mild OCD when upset). When he was young, he would not roll over...he did it only once, no matter how much "tummy time" we made him do. Then, he would not crawl, he had a funny sort of monkey thing he did and got around quickly which is about the time our ped suggest therapy. He was diagnosed with low tone. Not long into therapy, we saw amazing improvements and was walking in no time. As a toddler, we would have daycare and other retired teachers (family friends) comment on how smart he was... Of course, we were happy to hear since we were concerned about the physical side. In Pre-K, a wonderful teacher talked to me about SPD (which I had suspected by that point). Change was VERY difficult. She changed the way she introduced the next phase during the day, so he could adapt easier. In Kindergarten, the teacher discussed SPD with us after I brought it up and she agreed. He had a few instances of sitting under a table in the room when he was upset. She too, changed her approach with him. Both Pre-K and Kinder were a "private school" - one of those where you can go to daycare through Kinder. They were more hands on in their approach. Now, he has started 1st grade in a public school.

Over the years, I have seen some "issues" softened and some fade. We know how to handle things better and to support him and the meltdowns are much less often. I am concerned how to address it at the new school. I do not want him labeled, but he has been in trouble 4 times in two weeks. Mostly for excitability and he forgets to raise his hand. He had one meltdown already and I understand why and think we can make it smoother for him (on this one thing anyway). Along the way, every teacher, incl Kinder, describes how he reasons on a different level than the other kids. He is and always has been extremely verbal, remembers everything and gets bored with some of the mundane academic things (but I need to know he understands them). His new teacher and I had a conference call this week and she explained that he has a ton of ideas and really needs to reason everything out, but it seemed that both were more of a negative than a positive since it must disrupt class to some degree.

My main goal with coming to the forum is to get some ideas on how to handle school. I feel almost like they are cattle and he is in the herd now and must move along and conform. I do not think he will do that...and I am not sure I want him to...

Any helpful thoughts appreciated and sorry so long!!

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Dern, I just realized I should have put this in the school thread. sigh.

Honestly, if I were you I'd get his IQ tested and a full cognitive test to see what level he is at in all the different areas. Since he's pretty different from other kids, maybe look into gifted programs where they can support his brain more? Often times gifted kids can have learning disabilities attached with it, so it helps to get a full map of things. That way too you can look into getting him into a more specialized program. You have to also look at from the prospective of a teacher, they need to teach for the masses of the bell curve so it's harder, especially with class sizes, to get more individual attention on either side of the extremes. This will lead to more behavioral issues in kids who need to be challenged more, so it's not really a good environment for them. Your school should have the resources to do that, either at the elementary or at the high school in your district. My high school had a psychologist who was able to test me. (I only found out in college how weird my brain was when I had to take that test because for the life of me I can't learn a foreign language, since how I learned my native one isn't how other people learned it. My brain memorized everything so I don't see parts where other people can see parts. (It doesn't have a name, wish it did then explaining it would make a lot more sense.) My ranking for that part was low, but on every other test I scored really high on, so where a lot of people have learning disabilities on the higher end, mine is on the lower end. It's all part of being strange I guess. lol) If I had known earlier though, I would have had more help and also let's face it, anyone who is a little different tends to get bullied a lot. So it helps if you're a different person around other people who are different too. I went to a private college and there I was more average, but still the effects of my childhood like that made it hard to get close to people. I'm better now, now there's a lot more awareness, however, it still happens. So make sure that you watch for those signs because sometimes kids hide it thinking it's their fault. I hope this helps.

Edit: Also, sorry fort the late reply, with young kid things I tend to want time to think more so that I give the best reply I can give.