Day that made a Way

I was scheduled to attend a parent teacher conference with my son’s teachers, and I was not looking forward to it. I knew there was an issue, but wasn’t prepared for what was to come. I sat across the table from three teachers and the school counselor. That was intimidating enough, but as I sat at a little table, in a little chair, I felt almost invisible. I know the teachers meant well, but their dealings with my 6 year old son were minimal compared to my investment in him.  As a former teacher, I understand the heart work that goes into each child in your classroom, but my own son, well, he is more than a part of my heart, he is my whole heart. With this heaviness already on my heart, it made it more difficult to be there alone. You see, this was the one time my husband could not attend a conference with me, and it was definitely a time I could have used his strength. So, there I sat across the table from my son’s teachers alone.

His main teacher explained the issues he was having with certain subjects and he could not keep up with the other kids. This worried me, but as a former teacher I thought that this was work I could do. I would simply have to spend more time helping him in the subject areas that he is falling behind in. No problem. But there was more. She started to explain that he was having behavioral and  social issues as well. After listening to the teachers explaining the struggles my son was having in school, I became concerned and numb. 

As I sat and listened I  knew what was coming next, but all I could think was, this is not just some boy, this is my son. He may need extra help, but he is only 6! I woke from my personal thought processing to hear that he may need to see a doctor for a diagnosis of ADD/ADHD. There it was: my fear! I wasn’t afraid because of the actual diagnosis. I was afraid of the stigma that could arise due to the label of that diagnosis. I could sense in that room opinions of my son were not favorable. I sensed frustration and discouragement. I believe it was because he was different than the large number of students crammed into his classroom. This is what I feared. I feared  that a label like ADD/ADHD would cause others to view him as different and to, therefore, treat differently. It was at this point in the meeting that I dropped my shoulders and my head, and I sat there with my face in my hands fighting back tears.

I was hurt, afraid, overwhelmed and lost, but my thoughts were all about getting out of there and trying to make a difference for my son. Determination to help my son in whatever way he needed filled me. This was my focus and I just didn’t know exactly what would come next. It was my faith that helped me pick my head up and begin to ask questions. I left that meeting knowing the next steps, and those steps led to filling out a questionnaire that would later lead to a diagnosis of ADD. This was the only test that would confirm that our son had ADD.  The doctor confirmed and followed with the question, “so which medicine would you like to put your son on.” That quick and that unscientific diagnosis lead to the decision of medicating our boy. We were not there yet, so we left with no idea of where to go next.

This lead us to seek God out more and through our faith we knew that we needed to wait, research, pray, and pray some more. So, we did. Throughout my prayer time, I felt God leading us to home schooling our son, but this was something I never thought I could do, and to be honest I had I had know idea how to go about it. I said out loud, in prayer to God, that if this is what He was leading us to do, than we would need His help. I also knew that my husband would never agree to it, so I prayed some more.

At this point we were not completely comfortable with any decision, and we didn’t know what to do, but we went ahead and started the IEP process. This was the plan that would allow the school to make special accommodations for our son. At this point this was the plan we were going with, but God had different plans and it all happened in one day.

We headed to the school to drop our son off along with the diagnosis paper work from the doctor to get the IEP  started. In a moment everything changed. As we took our confident and joyful son into his school only to see his body language change. He was scared and clinging to us. This seemed odd and not like him at all. We were welcomed in by his teacher only to see him shrink back even more. There we stood as his teacher explained that she and our son had words the very day before. He was asked to fill his journal page, but he didn’t.  She told us that she sternly told him that he had to fill the entire page. At that moment he filled his page with a green crayon. His teacher believed he was being disrespectful and she completely overlooked his diagnosis of ADD.  This concerned us because they should have already made accommodations for him, and yelling at him to do something he could not do was not helpful. This was the moment where we made a drastic change and we did it together.

What was so difficult and heavy was becoming very clear. This was the day that would make a way! My husband and I left our son at school that day, but only for a little while. We couldn’t even speak. We looked at one another with aching hearts and knew that God was leading us to take a different approach with our son. Almost in unison we said, ” let’s get our boy and take him home.”  That was it, we drove over to the school board and pulled our son out of school with a plan of faith to home school. Picking our son up a few hours after dropping him was one of the scariest and most joyous days of our lives, for all of us. This journey began that day and has been one that we could only walk in faith. 

Walking this journey out hand in hand, with faith, never looking back!

Stay tuned here at faithunlocked for inspiration and encouragement from a Mom who knows.

Blessings,

Anne