the new year

It seems like yesterday we were dropping our son off at the group home. In a little more than 10 days, he will be moving home. I am so excited, as is the rest of the family. He has made so many positive strides in the last 6 months that I can't believe sometimes that he is the same kid. Kudos to the staff at the care facility that took him in, took the time to get to know him and through him, got to know our family. The work that they do is fantastic. I would be remiss if I thought that there would be no bumps in the road. But bumps in the road is what leads to a good life. A life well lived. Now, when he comes home, he will be returning to public school. How his life is will depend in a large part on how they treat him, and how he responds to what happens in the district. Of course, our response to events in his life will determine a large portion of his success. We have a new rule in our house. You can't speak bad about the school in our house. Why? negativity feeds on itself. by promoting the bad things, we bring nothing positive to the table about having to spend time each day at the school. If all the kids hear and say is negative, why would they be excited to go there? and shouldn't school be a good place to go? This doesn't mean that we are going to rest on our laurels. We are still going to be vigilant. We are still going to be outspoken about what goes on in our district, but we also will be mindful of how we speak in front of the kids. They know that there are issues in the school system, but they also need to know that school and education is a negative thing. They need to learn through us that there is an appropriate way of dealing with things. It is my hope that this lesson will not fall on deaf ears and blind eyes. School and education are an integral part of the american dream. It is out duty as parents to help the kids be excited about learning. That said, if the school does something that is contrary to the education plan for any of our kids, I will be screaming loud and hard about it. If necessary, my wife and I are both fully capable of home-schooling our children at any point in their scholastic life. We choose not to at this point because the kids need social skills. They need to interact with other people their age. More later,Happy New Year everybody.

The joys of....

Got to see our son yesterday for a bit.  For those of you that don't know, he is in a residential facility in the city about an hour and a half from our home.  We played Pictionary using random words that we drew out of a bag.  It was so much fun.

I had to explain to him why I was using a walker instead of my canes.  He was concerned about me.  When it came time for us to leave, he held my walker steady so it wouldn't move and tried to help me get up out of the couch.  I have bad knees, so this is a challenge.

I do so hope that he can come home with the level of success that he has attained in there.  He will hopefully be home by Christmas.  We have two home visits on the radar between now and then so we will see.  I am a realist, I know that he can't be perfect, and quite frankly I don't expect that.  If he could be even half as good as he is now, that would be a huge improvement over last school year.

I asked him if he was willing to try going back to school in our home town, where we had so many issues with the school, and he said yes.  I promise that I won't let them mess him up like they did last year. He doesn't deserve that.