Yes, I realize that I haven’t written about our lives much lately, except for telling you about all the wonderful books I’ve been reading! I will try to do better, but you may have to nudge me if I wait too long again. 
I will say that April is a horrible month filled with mood swings and temper tantrums and IEP meetings. And contrary to what you might be thinking after reading that sentence, not all of the mood swings and temper tantrums are mine!!
At this point, we have had many conversations about how everyone is responsible for their own behavior no matter how they feel or what other people do or say to them (how dare the teacher read a sentence ending with an exclamation point without using the proper amount of emphasis!), and that there is no excuse for hitting, kicking or throwing anything (pencils, shoes, chairs, etc) at another person.
We have also started a new behavior plan at school, with more tangible rewards that can be earned within a day or less and a stronger visual component to show how he is doing. It is likely that we will be starting a medication trial soon, although I want to give the behavior plan time to be solidly in place first and I would like to get objective feedback from school without them knowing exactly when we start the meds.
Considering medication is a big step for me. It is scary to consider possible side effects, both short term and longer term that may yet be unkown, plus I keep wondering if there’s something else we could do that would help. I have even considered moving him to a more restrictive environment at school for part of the day. Although that may be helpful or necessary at some point, we do see the mood swings no matter what environment he is in, even when he is completely in control of what he is doing.
I’m not trying to defend my decision, simply sharing some of the thought processes that have gone into it. Right now we are looking at a two-week trial to be followed up by a discussion with the psychiatric NP to decide where to go from there.
With only five more weeks of school, I am starting to really look forward to summer. Michael will be going to the same babysitter he had last year for several weeks, who is a wonderful woman who also teaches high school life skills during the school year. He will also go to a Summer Therapeutic Activities Program (STAP) for five weeks, the same one he has attended for the last few years.
I am going to try yet again to get him into the Children’s Institute at the National Autism Conference in State College. They generally give preference to children who have not been there before, but since it has been five years since he went, I am hoping he might get in. I asked about it last year when I was there, and they encouraged me to apply again this year. Unfortunately, the registration info isn’t up yet, although the save the date flyer said April 30th. 
Michael also really wants to get Hersheypark passes this summer. We didn’t get them last year, but he has grown enough to be a Twizzler, which means he can ride all 11 of the roller coasters now. (I will only get on 7 of them, but that’s beside the point!) We are trying to decide whether to get three passes so the whole family can go or just get two and take turns accompanying him to the park.
Hmm, I just had a thought – maybe I’ll get two for now and add the third later if we decide we need it. (See, that’s another reason I should blog more often, it helps me think through stuff and come up with great ideas!)
Well, enough rambling for now. How about you, are you looking forward to summer or dreading it?
I'm a mom with Asperger's raising an amazing son with autism, which means I'm basically the case manager/advocate/cheerleader/chauffeur. The rest of the time, you can usually find me with my nose in a book!
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( Gee, I remember Hershey’s park. We went ONCE when I was a kid.)
I know how difficult it was for me to come to the realization that all the decent behavior plans in the world were NOT working with Ricki’s aggressiveness, and to accept the fact that we would have to try medication, despite potential side effects. But for us, as least, the results have been very good for ALL of us.
I completely agree with the title of this post. Spring to me means the “spring forward” time change, which we were just kinda getting over but now it’s sooo light sooo early in the morning. Yeah, I’m getting lots of 5:30 wakeup calls. Also, allergies, general irritability, IEP’s, fall placement decisions, classroom observations, never getting my calls returned from school administrators because they are equally buried with same, weather extremes, end of school year stuff, figuring out summer activities/scheduling, it’s sometimes hot but the pools aren’t open yet (drives my kid NUTS)….man, I didn’t even realize until I wrote this just how hard Spring is!!
Spring is such a hard time. It seems my son’s worst time is the weeks leading up the end of the school year. Lots of tantrums here too. I too am looking forward to summer, but am a little afraid of life with all four kids underfoot.
I hope things are better. It sounds like you have a fun summer planned.
I feel like I could have written this post! My, oh my, oh my. I can’t tell you how ready I am for this school year to be over.
Hang in there!!