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I met with the Special Ed Director of DS11 private school. I am having many “lightbulb” and/or “duh” moments. While I haven't perfected my tone, I have learned to take emotion-anger-anxiety-passion out of my voice.

Giving me a sense of calm I was able to redirect most of the meeting, acting like a nice political TV pundit, no matter how frustrating or painful it was. The school likes to add a lot of “filler” to eat up meeting time. I ended up saving time with “thank you, but we can save time by moving on from reading the IEP teacher goals.” The Director is great at answering the same question five different evasive ways. Answers to “how long did you speak to the neuropsych evaluator” ranged from a “long conversation,” “nice conversation” and “in-depth conversation” to “I listened to her recommendations” to “ I didn't time it.” When I pressed that I didn't know what all that meant and “was that 5 or 45 minutes?” The answers were “somewhere in between” and finally “20 minutes.” It felt like I was pinning Jello to the wall. I continued with “I know you only have 10 minutes left and I have 10 more questions” when the answers became generalized, off-topic and long.

I really had to control myself on false statements such as “DS11 four diagnoses are not new” and “DS11 needs to improve his comprehension and his writing.  We will continue to support him as usual and look forward to his continued progress and a successful year.” The language disorder is the same. Dyslexia and dysgraphia are new. Emotional was removed from adjustment disorder anxiety with depressed mood. DS11 can now sit in his seat and not faceplant in frustration. I didn't seemingly bang my head on “well you suspected dyslexia.”

Not surprisingly, I received a lot of denial and opposition from the negative labels that DS11 was feeling and internalizing. Answer's ranged from “that's not the feeling I get from DS11 at all” to “oh no, DS11 knows we are here to support and help him” to I explained (instead of blamed) “this is the way DS11 feels.”

While I have excluded a lot of the mid-meeting, I ended the meeting with that it was nothing personal, but that I didn't feel that the school's environment was right for DS11. I expected them to still work with me despite my continued request that Family Court allow me to move him to a different school, such as a DOE paid $65,000 private 2e school (help!) “DS11 was on grade level in 1st grade and he has continued to deteriorate under your tutelage. DS11 has not advance passed 3rd grade reading level. Family court has ruled twice that the school must have the same communication with me as ex-DH. I don't want to see you pulled into Family Court.” I tried my best to give a calming smile. The Director questioned if I was getting “medical help for DS11” for when I stated that “DS11's impairments are medical disabilities.” I flatly responded that special education is “medical help.” Even the IRS allows medical deductions for Special Education tuition.

I wasn't baited to lose my composure or get snarky during the meeting. It all seems so basic and I really need to thank my Family Court Judge for that. I do not always agree with the Judge's responses and decisions, but I do admire the way she intelligently responds without bite, snark and/or emotion.

So... here I am. I am waiting for the next Family Court date and the written (final) neuropsych results and recommendation that are supposedly in the mail. I do need to follow up with what if anything that the school, OT, counselor and speech therapist plan on doing to change course. I guess that I wasn't that great for redirecting the meeting. It's very therapeutic to write all this down.

Off topic question... The T-Mobile iPhone 6s offer is a great deal for me. I'm thinking that it would be a great incentive and gadget for DS11, such as listening to audio books while he follows the Kindle book and other impairment accommodations, especially when commuting to and fro school. Does anyone use a smartphone to accommodate their DS or DD? Please share.

ETA: remove repetition, because I stink at proofreading.