As a Mother of a son with both ADHD and Asperger’s, I take a deep breath as I write this. First, it is challenging. There are nights when I bury my head in my pillow due to the battles of the day. Second, the battles are totally worth it.
I have needed to advocate for him since Pre-School. He would get into some sort of trouble everyday. He attended a Catholic Private school and the behaviors which were expected never matched what he was able to achieve. After working a full-day, I would have to prepare myself for ‘the talk’. It normally consisted of ‘your son was terrible today because…’
There were more days than not when I felt like a failure as a Mom. My son’s behavior wasn’t intentional. It could however become disruptive. He was also the smartest kid in his class for most of his academic career, so that was another layer of difficulty for his teachers. He skipped the 3rd grade and continued to excel academically in each of his classes.
So how do you advocate? My formula is simple, show up…a lot :-).
Meetings, phone calls and emails are essential. I also used text messages.
When my son would inform me of an issue at school, I would initially send an email simply asking for more information. At times his perception of a situation would not match the reality. However, there were times when his rights were violated. If the emails did not resolve the issue, then I would request a meeting with the teacher. If there…
