My daughter is a
high functioning Autistic in Special Ed. Because she's in Special Ed,
parent/teacher conferences are done a bit differently. Instead of just showing
up with all the other parents and getting 15 minutes with one teacher, her dad
and I are invited to an hour-long session with a whole panel of her educational
caregivers.
It actually went
better than expected.
Her father doesn't
believe in mental illness. He especially doesn't believe that any child of his
could be deficient or mentally ill. He's too perfect for that and he fully
expects his child to be perfect and academically sound without continued mental
health support.
Fortunately, for my
daughter, her father and I share joint legal custody and the school only needs
one parent to sign off on what types of services she receives. So, last year at
this same meeting, I got her set up with an in-school therapist that she meets
with every other day.
I think that because
of the marked improvement in her grades since starting therapy, he's finally
starting to come around. I asked for continued mental health support for her,
and much to my surprise, he actually agreed with me.
So, aside from her
still being at a very age-inappropriate reading level, she's a rock star and
she's excelling at everything else.
Her panel of experts
even agreed with me that she's pretty much an
emotional mechanics savant, despite her disability. Most autistic
children miss social/emotional queues (which she still does), but also, most
autistic children are completely baffled by emotions in general. My daughter is
the opposite.
The only other
problem that was address is how she never reaches out for academic help if she
needs it. She insists on self-teaching and then gets frustrated when she
doesn't get anywhere. Her fear of failure is pretty huge.
I know she gets that
from how hard her father is on her. How he expects perfection. It's becoming a
major issue and it's really crippling her ability to learn. I'm hoping that he
finally sees what an asshole he's been and how it's effected her learning
for the worst.
Other than that,
everyone agreed with me that she seems bright, happy, well adjusted, and shows
the appropriate amount of snark for a teenager.
I'm really proud of
her.
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