We Made a Plan and How We're Going to Move Forward!!!!!

It's been two months since we got the final results of our middle child's Psycho-educational Assessment, since then it's a roller coaster ride. The last post I made was all about how we knew the answers and how that was going to drive the road forward. I have not posted here on the blog in two months not because I didn't want too, but because I knew that writing out our plan and what we see as the way forward would mean coming to realize that as a family we now two children with a learning challenge. Also making the plan took up a lot of mental and emotional space. I just wasn't ready to write it out. But here I am 2 months later and I am here ready to move forward.

So let me catch you up.

Over the past two months things have been busy getting our supports in place. Once we got the diagnosis and confirmation that he was Dyslexic and the ADHD medication sorted out we had a number of things. Firstly I wanted to find a good tutor to support his reading. Secondly I needed to inform the school. The final piece was getting an Individual Placement Review Committee (IPRC) meeting and our sons Individual Education Plan (IEP) updated to reflect this new assessment. Of all those things finding the tutor was the toughest.

As we'd decided that for our family keeping our son in his current school was important it meant I had to find a tutor who could do the support in French. Living in Toronto that's not always easy. Luckily for us we'd done this once before, so I had some idea as to where to go. However even knowing where to go couldn't guarantee that the tutor could work with him. Thankfully we were able to find time twice a week with the same tutoring agency we'd used with our first son. This was good for two reasons, firstly we knew her and she knew us. Secondly, we could get in rather quickly and a time of day that worked for my schedule and our sons.

Once we got all the logistics sorted out we had to get our son on board and give him some information that would help him thrive and understand why all this was happening. I can tell you this was the hard part. Our middle child is not excited about learning. No that's not fair... He loves to learn about bugs, Beyblades, video games and telling jokes. However, learning to read and working hard at it was not something he took well. He didn't like the idea of having to do tutoring twice a week. He didn't like the idea of having to take a medication every morning before going to school. As a family we didn't like the fighting, crying and screaming that would occur before we'd even reached 7 A.M

Even through the struggle we wont stop fighting!!!

There were certainly moments when we wondered if it would all be worth it one day.... I for one wondered if it was fair to put him through all this. As a child with learning difference I don't remember doing tutoring or taking medication, but I remember school being difficult and not always fun.

But as I write this I can tell you that all the struggles we've had in the last two months have payed off. We've seen and heard about some great gains our son has made. For my own sake and yours I am going to list them because if you are where we were two months ago, feeling guilt, feeling scared, overwhelmed, unsure what to do, or just stuck know that it can all be worth it!

So as of today here are the gains we've made:

- The ADHD medication has made the most change. The teachers constantly tell us how well he can focus now in class. How he's participating more, starting and FINISHING his school work. He's also learned to swallow his pill, which had been the biggest morning battle!

- Tutoring is paying off too. Yes it's expensive... Yes it's hard to get him there right after school twice a week... Yes it's hard for me to sit there and watch him struggle to do some of the work... BUT!!!! In the last two months he's moved up 5 reading levels... Yup that's right he's worked hard and moved from level 5 reading (kindergarten level) to level 10 (early grade 1) in just two months.

- He's starting to learn to not give up so easily on things he finds hard. That's been the biggest change. With his tutor he work hard to keep trying. She's found some wonderful ways to keep him motivated during their lessons which has helped.

- We've learning his "currency" (what he's willing to work for). When we do his tutoring homework four times a week we've discovered that making it into a game and using candy as the "currency" just makes things easier. For every work he reads on his cards correctly (for example) he gets a candy.... If he gets wrong we as his parent get it! He loves to try and get more candy then us.

So what does it all mean moving forward? It means we keep going. It means we keep loving our son. It means we keep advocating for what he needs. It means we keep going with the strategies that are going to help him continue to make the positive strides forward. It means I am learning to let go of the guilt that I am the reason he has this learning difference.