{"id":2329,"date":"2009-09-29T13:09:00","date_gmt":"2009-09-29T17:09:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.kissmyknits.com\/?p=2329"},"modified":"2009-09-29T13:09:00","modified_gmt":"2009-09-29T17:09:00","slug":"and-i-thought-things-were-going-so-well","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kissmyknits.com\/?p=2329","title":{"rendered":"And I thought things were going so well."},"content":{"rendered":"


\nEm started acting classes yesterday at Children’s Theater<\/a> at Imaginon<\/a>. I’ve put a lot of options in front of her for classes and activities, and drama was the only thing she was excited about. She really wants to be on stage or screen, and after the karaoke triumph of ’07<\/a> I am not going to tell her that she can’t. As I said to my husband a few weeks ago, I need to stop thinking about what she can’t do, because every time I think she can’t do something, she does it. Logically, I should assume that she can, and work from there.<\/p>\n

She told me before going in to class that she was kind of scared, which isn’t surprising considering how many people were there. She handled herself well, although she was glancing back at me as they were led to class. I hung out in the waiting area for the entire hour, just in case something happened. Many classes let out at once, so it was too chaotic to get a chance to talk to the teacher. Em said she had an “okay” time, which means she had an okay time. She’s very honest. She does want to go back.<\/p>\n

So this morning I got a call from a woman at Children’s Theater. The teacher had spoken with her, concerned that Em wasn’t very engaged. She also sometimes shouted that she didn’t want to participate, and that “Kayla doesn’t want me here.” He asked Kayla, who is another student, and she seemed baffled. She said she hadn’t said anything to Em. The woman on the phone asked if perhaps this wasn’t a good fit for Emily. It sounded like she was getting at “because she’s miserable and we think she shouldn’t be here.”<\/p>\n

At this point, I said, “Well, you know she’s autistic, right?” The woman was stunned into silence. No. No, they did not. They had no idea. The woman was very apologetic.<\/p>\n

I distinctly remember putting “mild autism” on the form under the “stuff we should know about your kid” section. I didn’t go into detail, because it hasn’t been an issue at any of her other summer camps. Sure, sometimes she doesn’t participate, but so what? I wrestled with myself – do I bring this up with the sign-in staff on the big day? I decided not to. They seemed like a very well-oiled machine, so I decided to have some trust in their staff, and to relax and not to run the point into the ground before she even started. At the birthday party a couple of weeks ago, they accepted her as just a kid. How would that experience have been different if I had gone around and told everybody that she was autistic? She’s first and foremost a kid, and surely, surely<\/i> Children’s Theater has experience dealing with autistic kids. The woman on the phone assured me that they do, but I guess that didn’t help since they didn’t realize they were dealing with an autistic kid.<\/p>\n

They’re passing this info along to the teacher. I asked, and he has no experience with autistic kids. I told them that we can give this another try, but if he’s not comfortable with the situation, or if Em isn’t comfortable with the situation, or if the other kids are getting short shrift, then we’ll need to either find another teacher or get an assistant in there. His bio on the Children’s Theater site was long on theater experience and short on teaching, so I’m not that confident of how this is going to turn out. I’m also going to speak with the staff again and find out whose job it is to pass along the forms and information, and why this information never made it to the people who mattered.<\/p>\n

Some people whom I respect have told me I need to relax and let up, but I don’t think they have an understanding of everything involved. This kind of proves why I can’t do that. I cannot assume that other people are going to do their jobs correctly, or look beyond the surface to understand what’s going on with my funny, beautiful, different child.<\/p>\n

It’s so frustrating. I feel like I can’t let up for a damn second.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[87],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kissmyknits.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2329"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kissmyknits.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kissmyknits.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kissmyknits.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kissmyknits.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2329"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.kissmyknits.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2329\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kissmyknits.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2329"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kissmyknits.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2329"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kissmyknits.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2329"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}