IEP Meeting Continued Part 3 - To Send To Kindergarten or Not To Send To Kindergarten

Originally written January 25, 2008

The longest story in history continues….

If you are interested, here is part 3 of the IEP meeting.

Anyway…

So there I was sitting in the meeting listening to a Kindergarten teacher and Nina talking to my son on various things. He was counting, writing, playing Leapster, answering their questions, whatever when  I heard “Mom is concerned about Kindergarten. She is not sure if she is going to hold him back a year or not.” The other says, “hold him back? He is so ready. He is so smart. He is actually ready for 1st grade.”

Part of me was beaming with pride and the other part was horrified. Did they not hear what I have been saying for the past 2 years?

I have NEVER doubted how intelligent my son is. I am the first person to state that he amazes me with what he knows. Hell he even had his own blog when he had time to write.

My son knew his letters, numbers up to 20, shapes and colors before he was 22 months old. He knew how to spell house, blue, cat, dog and various other words before he was 3 and he taught himself how to write his letters the summer of his fourth birthday and Spy Kids, Xbox and a few other words over the past few months.

I am well aware of how smart he is. So I turned and said, “please don’t misunderstand why I am thinking of holding him back”. I know how smart and ahead of his peers he is. The reason I am considering holding him back is because he is not socially aware. He does not know when someone is picking on him, mad at him, hurt by him, directing a question at him in a crowd or even if someone is about to beat the crap out of him.” I saw it happen with my girlfriend’s son, he was really angry with my son and my son thought it was fun and games. He walked into the room to see my son laughing and my friend’s kid hitting him with fists. My son had no idea there was a problem with this. He thought it was fun and they were playing. Eventually a kid in school would notice this and he would become a punching bag with the other kids jumping on the band-wagon”.

[Excuse me as my son tells me to take him to time-out. What the F?] OK I am back...

Anywhoo where was I…”although I see him getting better and becoming more assertive I am not ready to throw him to the sharks”.

The kindergarten teacher leans back in her chair and says with a smile, “well, I don’t know about us being sharks. We are more like dolphins.”

“I meant the students, sorry.” I tell her.

Before the meeting Nina had offered up the option of a self contained class. It is a smaller class with kids needing extra help with various things, mostly speech.

I actually have a friend whose daughter is in this class and she speaks very highly of it.

So as I had mentioned in my last post, I have a decision to make on how I proceed. I can hold him back in Pre-K to give him an extra year to catch up or not. I can start him in regular K which everyone says he is ready for or I can do the self contained class but wait there is something else..I can do the self contained class with the regular kindergarten class.

Nina mentioned that she would work with us to keep him as mainstream as possible and while she hasn’t done this often she wants me to consider if I plan sending him to the self contained class that I also bus him over half a day to stay with his peers in the regular kindergarten class. He would do gym, art, whatever with them. They call it “the specials”.

If you know me, you know that I will not be putting him on a bus. So this means I would be shuttling back and forth 5 days a week along with my daughter who will be going to pre-school 2 days a week in September.

If this is the course I chose I will do whatever it takes for the better of my son, now I just have to decide.

I am going to go through the registration process and eventually after I weigh all options and sit down with everyone to see what will best benefit my son I will come to a conclusion.

ahhh….now that I have that off my chest. I can move on with the potty training of my Goddess.
Tomorrow is another day!