u/_prim_reaper_

I’m trying to see how crazy 5% of all 6th graders being in self-contained is?

My son is in the 3rd grade with level II autism, and I dread sending him to school in a few weeks because there’s no place he fits.

He’s extremely verbal—he’s had really inconsistent IQ scores, from low average to average with some areas above average, but he once scored really low before he was fully verbal. He passes his math benchmarks, usually doesn’t pass reading benchmarks, but he’s an excellent decoder and has basic comprehension—he reads at a 2nd grade level. He can write in sentences; excellent spelling. He has great retention and memory.

He has good safety and life skills. He knows when someone is lying to him or trying to deceive him.

No severe behavior, never aggressive or violent. Needs some redirection. No BIP (behavior intervention plan). Never eloped.

I’m an educator myself, and I read teachers talk online, and I know gen ed teachers don’t want him. He’s half day self-contained, half-day gen ed, and his behavior is better in gen ed, but despite how they act to my face, I work with teachers, and I know a lot of them feel like kids like my son shouldn’t even be in a school.

I don’t know for sure; but he seems to be the highest functioning kiddo in his autism unit class. We’re those parents who’ve always asked for more gen ed time and gotten it, maybe we were wrong for that?

He’ll have to work someday and contend with the world, and I don’t know that the autism unit is the best way to prepare him for that.

I read places like this sub, and it feels like if parents push for gen ed, they’re seen as in denial of their child’s disability, but in my district, self-contained classes are overfilled and teachers in them are either brand new to the profession or completely overwhelmed. Self-contained where I live is giving up on his education, but gen ed isn’t a perfect fit either.

During the summer, I truly feel so hopeful about his future. We work on all kinds of cool skills. Then, school rolls around, and I just hate every single option.

Does anyone have this point in scheduling where you’ve still got to keep working on stuff but anything you do breaks 3 other things that you have to fix?

I’m at that point where I’m having bad dreams about Skyward. I’m a veteran counselor, but every year it feels like I’ve done a terrible job, and teachers are going to come at me.

We’ve got some classes of 23 and some of 18, and there’s not much I can do there, but I have a few teachers who think it’s just laziness on my part or something.

I didn’t even have to switch jobs—someone left, and I was next in line for the office with a window.

Y’all—I have a plant. I could get a monstera?

I have a couch and would like to recover the cushions in a brown canvas and a chair I’d like to recover with a tan or brown blanket stripe. What’s a good source for these?

My upholstery dude told me to go buy fabrics for the project, and other than Hobby Lobby, we don’t have any local fabric stores, so it’ll need to be online.

I am a damn middle school counselor, which granted, I love my job, and I’m currently off for summer; however, my husband is working, so it’s just me and my level II autistic 9 year old.

My kid is amazing, and he’s made such huge growth (he’s conversational!), but he wears me out. He loves to swim, and he’s getting really good, so we’re at the pool approximately 3 hours a day, in rural Texas, aka HOT! Oh, and, it’s a 20 minute drive from my house.

I feel like job or no job, my life is so exhausting. I get breaks, but if my son is at school, I’m at work in a 84% child poverty school in rural Texas—it’s not easy work. I’m tough, but I deal with some trauma from things I’ve seen at work. And, when my son is at school, a part of brain is always waiting for his school to call and tell me he’s screwed up badly.

When he’s home, he’s a ball of energy, and even with meds, he’s a handful. I think I’m a decent mom, but I probably allow too much screen time to get a break. My husband does 50/50, and I have a housekeeper, but it’s still so much. My parents are very helpful, but they’re getting older, and their care will also fall to me soon.

Also, I’ve been going to the gym 4 times a week, strength training and stair master for a year, and I’ve lost no weight. I’m 5’9”, 165 lbs, so just a little overweight, but I don’t feel like I’m looking my best.

Also, I have OCD (in recovery), and I’ve never asked for an inch of extra help for it other than going to ERP many years ago, which was very helpful. Even in recovery, it messes up my sleep, makes me more tired.

I hurt my shoulder, and I just want to give up on the gym entirely. I try so hard at everything, and I don’t get much reward. My job is so hard, and I know I help, but it’s not always rewarding. Parents and teachers often use me to vent to or blame me for issues that are systemic and not within my control—I get cussed at occasionally, even. I try hard everyday with my son, and he MIGHT be allowed to do all gen ed next year, whereas other moms are phoning it in with kids who are excelling in school.

I was very, very smart in school, scored extremely well on the PSAT / SAT, and I could have picked a very easy life. I’m happy with my life, it’s a life of great meaning, but damn, it’s so hard, and there’s no one in my life who is open to my complaints. In many ways, I appreciate that because feeling sorry for myself doesn’t help, but I just need someone else to recognize that despite all my advantages (middle class, decent job, my health, mental health recovery, decent husband), which I stay very grateful for, it’s super hard sometimes. It could be 1000000% worse, but it’s hard.

My favorites:

- Modes of Thought in Anterran Literature
- John From Back Home
- FABRIC
- The White Vault (Season 1)
- Video Palace
- Old Gods of Appalachia
- Gospels of the Flood

Mid:
- The Sulphuric Secrets (good, just didn’t love the narration)
- Station 151
- Tower 4
- The Edge of Sleep
- The Harbingers

Didn’t Enjoy:

- Magnus Archives
- Alice Isn’t Dead
- The Bright Sessions

Couldn’t get into:

- The Silt Verses
- Dirt
- Unwell

I’m staying with my husband on a Friday night, and would love to walk somewhere to get breakfast / lunch.

My level II son and I were at the pool yesterday, and after he had jumped off the diving board with googles on approximately 390 times, the lifeguard told me he could not jump in with googles because it’s a safety hazard. He hates changes to rules, and he hates getting chlorine in his eyes.

I was like, “hey man, he’s autistic, he cannot stand water in his eyes. Could he not just do it for the rest of today?” Absolutely not—she was a champion diver—whatever—this diving board is only like 3 feet high.

So—I go very gently explain this to my son, and he was just like, “mama—I will just shut my eyes very, very tight,” and he did it no problem! He complained, but he didn’t let it ruin his time at the pool—a big win for us!

I don’t know the area, so this might be an absurd question. I’m a strong swimmer, but this would only be my 2nd time paddle boarding.

Level III parents: please only read the following content if you’re prepared to roll your eyes at me really hard:

Does anyone feel like there’s nothing out there for level II kids? In my area, there are specialized activities for kids who have much more significant needs than my child and regular activities that have a huge list of rules and expectations that might not work for my kid.

I feel like I’m stuck getting private lessons for anything my kid wants to try, when the whole point would be for him to bond with other kids?!

My son is 9 and conversational. He’s mostly academically on level, but he needs a loooot of patience that I don’t feel like everyone has. He could be in regular activities and sports, but when we do something like that, I have to gripe at him 5,000 times to get him to meet regular expectations, which isn’t fun for either of us. It also changes the point from “have fun, meet friends,” to “learn to behave in yet another environment with yet another set of rules.”

He looks “normal,” and he can talk, so it’s like the expectations jump to he has to do everything a neurotypical can do in the same way.

Anyways, I’m 99% a very happy autism mom—he’s great. I guess I’m asking, level II parents, what is your kid involved in, and how kid y’all make that work?

I feel drained and unsuccessful every time I deal with friendship conflict. I often feel I’m making it worse and many of the modalities I learned in counseling school (MI, brief solution-focused) aren’t helpful.

How are you helpful here? Do you see students individually? Together?

I’m talking about conflicts bad enough they’re ending in the office or distracting from school work, typically with large groups of girls.