Autism. To crisis point... and back
This post continues on from the previous one.
After such a terrible start yesterday, I was delighted (and slightly annoyed*) to learn that Bright Eyes settled into school very well and even had a good day.
Twenty minutes into my crying jag, the school rang to say that he was doing fine. AP also rang up at lunch time to ask the teacher if she thought we should get him early. She said he'd had a good morning, but she'd see what transpired in the afternoon as it was going to be sport, which is not one of his favourite things to do. But there was no call, so we picked him up at 3.15.
(This morning when I talked to her, she said that Bright Eyes had had a great time of interaction with three little boys from his class later in the day. She was very gracious to let them 'go further' than she would normally allow in terms of noise and boisterousness as they played 'making silly faces' and 'falling baby' at the back of the classroom. The reason? She could see Bright Eyes' smiling and glowing and participating in a real way with the games. We really are blessed with her as his teacher.)
And then today was another good day. I sent across our donut maker and ingredients for GF-CF donuts. Bright Eyes and K, his aide cooked together with another little boy from the class, and the rest of the children happily ate the results.
Apparently, looking forward to the cooking helped motivate Bright Eyes to do all his classwork and writing without any fuss.
And I don't know how it happened, but he even participated in cross-country training. JJ, my daughter said, "He did two laps, Mum," and was swiftly corrected. "No, I did five!"
So, amazingly, the crisis seems to be averted. Personally, I'm putting it down to the dozens of people who were specifically praying for him today and yesterday. If that was you, many thanks.
*the annoyance comes from the fact that the amount I seem to suffer in getting him to school appears to be unrelated to the outcome of the day. If degrees of refusal equated to levels of misery throughout the day, I'd have more of an idea of what to do, but they don't, so I just keep on trying and hoping every morning that today isn't going to be a shocker.