OHG, I had a similar reaction when a slip came home asking for kids to sign up for a short term school group on dealing with death. I thought it would be nice in a way for kids to help other kids with this issue, but right now with things pretty on the edge anyway for ds as far as thinking about death to begin with, much better to decline.
Do you think your gs9 would benefit from social skills groups, or is he doing ok in that regard? Part of me thinks all this social skills training is something people used to do by sending kids to etiquette classes, and other things like that, so maybe it's not so modern a concept.
The school counselor seems ok, but I wouldn't say 'phenomenal'.
Actually I attended a 'child study' meeting today to find out which of the dr's recommendations they could help with and in what ways.
I had held some hope for a formal assessment of speech, but after listening to ds chat with some other kids she said she couldn't detect any errors in articulation. I explained he doesn't say 'sh' but rather 's' and that it does bother him. For now they are going to give us some exercises. I am torn between the fact that the speech issue is pretty minor in fact, and the fact that it seems to really bother him. I guess I will give the exercises a try for now.
Nothing much else will be coming from the school for a while, there won't be any social skills groups pulled together this year ' they are testing and then it's the end of the year', good thing we can *barely* afford to go off on our own on the skills group. In the fall they might do one, however, so that might be good for the second round, if need be, or the counselor even thought going to both an outside and school based group might be good.
The psychologist was really nice and impressed with the write up (she knows the doctor) and very impressed with both ds' aptitude and even scoring, as well as suitably impressed with the lows for achievement and academic fluency. She was totally on board that this achievement gap is coming from depression and anxiety and thought the multi-prong approach is a good one.
The v.principal and teacher were there also, all in all a good information exchange although not a big move forward for anything in particular. I did get to find out that ds is reading at a 6(N?) according to some kind of QRI assessment...guess I need to find out what that is
Sorry for the long post!
Ack! Make that even longer, just to comment on the kids lunch that the counselor hosted, she said today in the meeting that it seemed to go well. The threesome was really getting along, especially during the eating phase of lunch. After eating she said ds took out a pokemon book, she suggested he just keep chatting so they did that instead. I asked if she thought he was nervous and she said no, just interested in the book. (go figure!)
I said in the past it sometimes seemed like ds wants friends he can turn on and off like a faucet and someone suggested this might be linked towards some interesting thing they are doing (or not doing). As soon as the interesting thing is done, ds goes off on his own 'games in his head', as he put it to the counselor.
I asked ds just now what he was intending to do with the book, if he was nervous or just interested in the book. He said he was trying to show it to them, so that sounded pretty good, something got lost in translation, however, at least from the counselor's perspective....so off we go to the social skills group
I asked the counselor to please check on ds from time to time to make sure he continues to do well with them, so she will do that at least.
