I need some advice. DD has been having some emotional outbursts at school (tears, inconsolable sobbing). She'll pull it together, and then melt down again at home at bedtime. She is 8 and PG and I suspect has some OE-ness. Having very occasional extreme meltdowns at home is normal for us. Having it happen at school is new.
Her classroom teacher at the suggestion from out DYS FC put her on a learning contract system to help her pay more attention at school and get more of her work done. For the most part this has been a huge success - she is getting her work done, staying focused, better behaved... But when she doesn't get a "star" for the class period she get really teary.
It seems like the whole thing has gotten to be too much pressure. And the teacher and I agree that she can "graduate" from the chart system Monday becuase "she has been doing such a good job."
- So here is one of my concerns. We have been waiting for a year to have her receive sensory integration OT at a private facility. She completed the evaluation a few weeks ago. We are now waiting for the report to come back. Since then I have found out that the actual treatment is on longer covered by our insurance. And would cost over 100 a week. If the sensory integration would help soothe her emotions, I would consider it. But the cost is very high and I'm not sure if the effects are long lasting.
- She has started to talk about paying more attention at school means that the work is now WAY too easy even though it is differentiated. Getting even more challenging work would pull her out of groups with her two best friends and she is worry about "alienating" them. Ouch. From some other things she has said, she seems to suddenly be a lot more concerned about what her peers think of her which is a huge change. She actually wrote her teacher and principal a letter about this issue. They seemed supportive of what she had to say, but of course nothing has changed.
I wonder if the behavior chart is driving this new awareness, or if she is growing up, or there is another underlying thing I don't know about. It has been an exhausting few weeks.
The school is still pushing that she is autistic, even though the ped and neuropsych ruled that out. The school wants us to go see a new neuropsych for guidance. I looked him up and he has no experience with gifted at all. Since its a private school, I am wondering if they are trying to get us to leave which would suck because she loves her school and friends so much. I do plan to meet with Dr. Amend this summer - I'm just waiting on that OT report to come back so that there can be a method behind this.
If you made it to the end of my rant, thank you. It really does help to have a safe place to speak out about what is going on.
