Deciphering his Log

Bradley has a communication log that travels back and forth between school and home.  It’s a composition book, and his teacher and I write to each other.  So far this year I’ve learned a lot about how Bradley isn’t quite listening in class and protesting changing from one preferred task to an unpreferred.  He now knows that eventually teachers and staff go away and he gets a whole new bunch of teachers and staff.  Right now, he is waiting for that to happen with his Occupational Therapist.  He loves her, he does - he hugs her and smiles and will work for her, but if he didn’t have to work so hard, well that would make him happier.  Speech, he’s good with her and still enjoys individual and group lessons.  She starts making him do too many things that he doesn’t want to do and well, he’ll be waiting for her to be switched out too.  Hey, you keep changing out teachers and aides and well, you get what you get.  And his teacher knew this and she’ll tell me, you told us he was going to test us and well, he is.

I hear good stuff too.  When he transitions well, when he follows directions, when he works well - especially when he decides to work for his Occupational Therapist.  Let’s face it, that’s just good news.  But usually, I get the rough parts of his day so we can try to brainstorm on how to fix the issues, how to help him adjust better to school...all this and then some of the good too.  It’s so hard because there isn’t enough time to do anything but give me a small snapshot, between class and medical needs, and everything else there just isn’t time to sit and write me a small book about Bradley’s day.

Lately, it seems that his book is always full of behavior issues and all those things that we have tried to remove with his therapies the last few years.  So of course, I started getting nervous that all the work we put in was going to be all for nothing and right back into therapies.  Who knows, we might be headed back there, but at least not at this moment it would seem.  When I went to Bradley’s assessment for technology I spoke to his teacher about his behavior.  I asked if we needed to start bringing in the behaviorist that she told me she had at the ready.  She just smiled and told me that he was doing fine and starting to get the hang of things in the classroom.  Weird since I’d been hearing that he was scratching and bit someone and then threw his toy at someone when getting off the bus because he didn’t want it anymore.  But apparently, he is not as much trouble as his book was leading me to believe.

With that in mind, I wonder if I can take today’s book message for truth to not.  Apparently, he had a great day.  Is that a true great day, or a sort of great day, or a day better because he’s been better than usual?  Good grief!  I kind of read his book each day and wonder how much is being left out.  How much of the good stuff and how much of the rough stuff is actually a true picture of his day.  Do they have to dig through his day looking for a needle in a haystack in order to find a good bit of news to share about his day?  Or same way for the bad bits?  Not likely, Bradley isn’t good at compliance.  He tries to be, he wants to, but he just can’t always get himself to listen and comply when he’s told too.

We can only hope that as Bradley’s communication skills increase; his understanding of why, how, and when to listen and follow directions will improve too.  For right now, we’re just going to be happy that according to the book, Bradley had a great day.  And though it wasn’t clear, he might be taking steps towards potty training too...but until I have confirmation on mostly dry diapers I won’t be getting too excited.  If he doesn’t have fluid output at school then we have more than behavior problems for sure.  Friday is the big Jog-a-thon for the elementary school, Bradley’s class will be out on a smaller circle track and I’ll go to help out with him, the kids, whatever is needed when our classes join other classes in an open field with plenty of reason and incentives to run.  Somewhere in there, I hope to talk briefly with his teacher to find out if we are having any positive potty training happening or if my guy is not producing enough fluid.  Here’s hoping for the positive side of things and nothing needing medical intervention.

The tidbits of the good and bad from his days are tough to interpret indeed.  Something tells me his communication book is going to be full by the end of his year.  Or maybe at the end of the first trimester with how much is being written.  Yikes!!!