I could not find an appropriate educational setting for my son with sensory issues and motor dyspraxia because there is no law in our state requiring it and our school will only do the bare minimum of what it is required to do. This, I was told by a homeschool mom who had pulled her son from public school, was the cold, hard facts of public school education--at least where we live. Because my son was not below grade level in anything in kindergarten, the school was not required to provide OT or any kind of accommodations, so if I couldn't afford private school, and I couldn't, I had no choice but to homeschool. Someone in the state gifted coordinator's office told me it wasn't fair but I was doing the right thing by homeschooling and to remember that my son is worth it. She suggested writing to legislators, but my letters to legislators and the superintendent of public schools in our state were not answered. It was a waste of time. I finally realized that most of the kids in our state are probably not getting an appropriate education, judging by recent ACT scores that showed only one-fifth of them are scoring high enough to get into our state colleges. So we were probably lucky that things worked out the way they did. I would have kept him in a bad school if he hadn't had the handwriting and sensory issues.

But still, even now, I occasionally feel sad that school didn't work out for him. I have a picture of him, happy and smiling on his first day of kindergarten. He didn't go to preschool and he was looking forward to going to school with other kids and learning. He did have fun with some of it, like the puppet theatre where he could act out scenes with the puppets and use different voices and make the other kids laugh. The other kids seemed to like him, except for a couple of older and bigger bullies that he had to watch out for on the playground. I volunteered at the school and I would sometimes peek in the room and he looked happy whenever he wasn't sitting at a desk coloring in the lines. He told me it wasn't very educational but it was fun and it was only a half day.

With his sensory issues, more than a half day would have been too much, even in first grade, second grade,...even now. He learns very well when he can work for a while and then get up and move around.

As his developmental pediatrician once said "he isn't really special needs, but then he is." I didn't know what to do when her advice didn't seem to work with my child, especially her advice to make him watch cartoons instead of letting him watch all the educational shows he likes. But the OT did seem to get him and he liked her. Her sons were only a few years older. She got his jokes and he felt like he could be himself around her and it was great, but our insurance only paid for 6 OT sessions, one hour every other week. She said she was doing sensory integration therapy but they couldn't call it that because our insurance didn't pay for sensory integration therapy. She showed me how to help him with him with visual motor integration, vestibular and proprioceptive issues and then I was left to make him do things he didn't want to do. Academics was never the problem. Anything motor related was. We have always had to work around it and it is still hard for me to explain to other people how such a smart kid can have trouble doing things that most other kids find easy. He was self conscious about his handwriting and drawing abilities around other cub scouts, so he has been working on this and he sometimes jokes about it saying he is great at abstract art and stick figures. My son just laughed it off when a local artist visited his cub scout group last year and showed samples of his work (rural scenes--lots of cows, barns, etc.) and then said he didn't like abstract art. My son thought this guy fit in well with all the "must color in the lines" people in our town.