We have an arrangement with the local school system. They agreed to keep an eye on Number One Son in exchange for us giving him his meds before school in the morning. Trust me that we have the upper hand in this relationship. They\u2019re very much attuned to his peculiarities. <\/p>\n
Part of \u201ckeeping an eye on him\u201d is telegraphing change \u2013 when you\u2019re dealing with hard-core ADHD on top of high-functioning autism, one of the best ways to help him maintain equilibrium is to let him know what\u2019s going to be happening in advance. This is usually only a matter of the 2-minute warning: \u201cHey, we\u2019re going to switch from Art to Math in few minutes,\u201d instead of \u201cdrop the colored pencils and take out your workbooks.\u201d Normally these messages are conveyed to the classroom at large, because nearly everyone benefits from a little foreknowledge, however brief.<\/p>\n
In his case, though, this is extended \u2013 just to him \u2013 to include \u201cHey, we\u2019re going to have a fire drill in a few minutes, it\u2019s going to be a really loud noise, but we\u2019ll go outside as a class – just like last time.\u201d And in this fashion, they maintain classroom equilibrium even under stimuli that might otherwise put Mr. ADHD\/HFA into high-gear. <\/p>\n
This works great when the school knows it\u2019s coming. A few days ago, in the middle of lunch \u2013 fresh chaos all its own \u2013 some 2nd grader got a head-start on high school. They decided they *really* didn\u2019t want to take that quiz, and that if they pulled the fire alarm, they might not have to. (Come on, you always wanted to do that \u2013 and some of you tried it.) CLANGCLANGCLANG.<\/p>\n
The report from one of the saints who \u201ckeeps an eye out\u201d is that Number One Son kept his cool, followed the class as they were all stewarded out the door by the adults, and waited in line with his class outside. As soon as he saw her, he raised his hand politely, even outside. She says she walked over to him and said, \u201cYes, C__?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat the HELL is going on?\u201d <\/p>\n
She reports that she failed to keep a straight face. <\/p>\n
Appropriateness Score: Situation 1, Age 0. Crazy \u2013 it means not sweating the details. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
When you\u2019re dealing with hard-core ADHD on top of high-functioning autism, one of the best ways to help him maintain equilibrium is to let him know what\u2019s going to be happening in advance. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[5],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/324"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=324"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/324\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":326,"href":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/324\/revisions\/326"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=324"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=324"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=324"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}