Today I was trying to talk to Jared about our plans to go see Wall-E (best movie ever - the Godfather sleeps with Luca Brasi), and he kept interrupting to ask when we were leaving. I wanted to explain that we were waiting to see when my special lady would arrive and would then go to whatever the next showing was, but Jared just could not stop interrupting. So, in my frustration, I did something dumb: I spoke Jared-ese.
Jared has his own way of talking sometimes and it’s important to model good speech patterns for him. So I often say things back to him with little corrections: “She bringed it.” “She brought it.” You get the point. But his other habit is that he has little routines for how he discusses things that disappoint him. And it’s an even worse idea to encourage that. But I was frustrated, and just couldn’t help myself. So as he’s interrupting to say, “When are we going to the movie?” I started quickly asking, “Can’t I talk about the plan? Is the plan cancelled? Is the plan over? Is the plan ruined? Do you want to ruin the plan? Are we done with the plan? Why can’t we have the plan?”
And he totally caved. “What’s the plan?”
That’s just going to make it more tempting next time. Bad, bad daddy.
So while things have been pretty shitty for me, I realized that I’m making things shitty for the rest of you by not sharing what’s going on with Jared. Here’s a small update, as we slowly creep back to a more normal posting schedule:
Jared decided back in December that he wanted to go see the Bee Movie, and he was really determined to go, so I took him. And surprise of surprises, he was really good! So I also took him to Alvin and the Chipmunks and the Water Horse. Then a few weeks ago, he announced that he wanted to go to see Veggie Tales: The Pirates that Don’t Do Anything, and I had a bad feeling. I thought I remembered that their shows were of a religious nature, and, as you all know, I’m concerned about bringing too many abstractions into Jared’s life. But the commercials didn’t seem religious, so we went.
Luckily, it wasn’t religious. There were some undercurrents, but not very different than the typical “do the right thing” message of most children’s programming. When we went shopping for Jared’s birthday, he stood and stared at a trio of Veggie Tales movies, and really seemed to want them. Now, with the situation being the way it is, I had to take Jared and Sierra out with me, and then dodge and weave around to get his presents while he was looking the other way, and I didn’t have a chance to really check out these movies. Big mistake.
One is about temptation. Okay, fine. One is about The Wizard of Oz (on the surface). And the last is a pretty straight-forward retelling of Exodus with vegetables. Fine. But Jared’s favorite part of any DVD is the bonus material, and Jared found all of the easter eggs on his own pretty quickly. He watched all the behind the scenes shorts, and sat through all the previews.
So I was a little tweaked, but not exactly surprised when this exchange came up:
Jared: I can’t get bologna on my own.
Me: Sure you can, Jared. It’s not the world’s healthiest snack, but it’s a lot better than some of the junk out there. You’re allowed to have some bologna, just not too much.
Jared: No. I can only do it with God.
Sigh. I tried to convince him that the message the show was giving him wasn’t about getting snacks, but I didn’t make a lot of headway. And this was the sort of thing I was concerned with: Jared getting messages about religion that he really can’t understand at this point in his life. I mean, Jared is a reading whiz and a math genius, but metaphor and allegory are pretty much beyond him.
Or so I thought.
Tonight I read Jared one of my favorite children’s books. Usually he reads to me at bedtime as part of his homework, but on long weekends, I love getting a chance to read to him. It’s a whole production: voices, hand gestures, lunging around the bed for dramatic effect. I’m sure you can imagine. So I get done reading Where the Wild Things Are, and Jared looks at me and says, “Oh, it’s a prodigal son story.”
Don’t I feel silly.
I received another note from Jared’s service coordinator:
I wanted to let you know that from today on, Jared will be in Mrs. XXX’s (1st grade) class every day for math. I am in this class with him. This decision was made so that he could be in a team-taught classroom. He will still be in Mrs. YYY’s class for all other subjects. If you have any questions or concerns, please let me know.
Here’s my response, mostly placed here so that I don’t lose it:
I’m afraid I don’t understand what you mean in your letter. I’m certainly not an educator, so I don’t know what the advantages of a “team-taught classroom” are for Jared. What I do know is that while Jared deals with change better than many autistics, changes like this are usually accompanies by a certain amount of anxiety and stress for him. Considering that his assistant has been changed, does changing his math teacher, his math classroom, his method of instruction and his access to the break-time de-stressors in Mrs. YYY’s class make sense? Also what advantage do we hope to gain by using a team, considering that Jared has such a hard time dealing with more than one person at a time? And the biggest piece of information missing from your letter is why this change needs to take place. Is Jared doing poorly in math? I he doing so well that he needs more advanced lessons? Why is this change worth making him anxious all day? Please understand, I want to support you and the other members of his team, but I feel like your short note was a little too short. If you’d like to expand, you can reach me at…
They’re trying to turn me into one of those crazy parents who fights with the school about everything, they really are. I don’t want to be that guy that turns the IEP meeting into a shouting match. I don’t want to be the father that makes the teachers afraid that he’s lawyering up. I want to be the friendly, jovial parent that the teachers like almost as much as they like his son. But as Jared gets older, that might not be in the cards.