There was a point somewhere (I think 1st grade) where she got the idea that WE were the ones responsible for placing her in that grade level, so she thought we were the problem, and had lost trust in us. This partially explained the severity of her emotional problems that year, because at that point, she felt completely isolated. We had quite a job to do convincing her where the battle-lines had been drawn in those meetings.
Last year DD got to a point where she was hardly speaking to me because she was so angry. I came to find out that at least 3 people on the school's team (who she identified by name) had told her "Well, blame your mother - she's the one making us do this" whenever there was something DD didn't like. A fourth said the same but said "your parents" so DH got at least a little bit of the blame. In our last IEP meeting of the year, before the district decided to inform us that they were recommending Out of District placement, I called them out on this. I didn't mention names but said "At least 3 people in this room thought it was appropriate to say this to DD". Since the words were the same and being said by so many people it was obvious it was an intentional decision and part of a directive coming out of some meeting or other. When I said this to them 2 people looked intently at the floor, never making eye contact with me for the rest of the meeting, and a third said "Well I assume you are talking about me..." Odd how these reactions matched perfectly to those DD had attributed the remarks to. It took months of pretty blunt conversations and the help of DD's psych to get past that one...
I asked the psych about bringing DD to a meeting so she could see for herself and psych was clear that she was too young. Now that a few months have passed and she is happy in her new school we have been a bit more open about just how hard we fought on her behalf last year. Just today I had to apologize yet again for the awful school she was in for kindergarten. As HK said some wounds are very deep and have a very profound effect. It's not easy when their strengths lay in the comprehension area and they are intuitive and sensitive to boot.
