I have great irony in my life. Yesterday was a terrific day for LuLu. She did awesome at her school work. We’ve been tackling reading fables and answering questions about the morals and lessons learned. One of her areas of weakness is dissecting a story and being able to retell it, as well as making any inferences about it. This unit on fables is hitting these areas hard. We did a Venn diagram of the fable, and answered several questions causing her to digest information and give her opinion. It was tough!

In math, she sped through two lessons and we’re only about a week away from actually progressing onto the next math level!

During her OT/Interactive Metronome session (the last one is this Thurs), she did 2000 repetitions like a pro (with little complaining). Her frustration level and attention span have both greatly improved.

So, it was ironic to receive an email from our attorney with an attached motion from the school to involuntarily dismiss our case because we didn’t prove our case, neither showing why their proposed placement was not appropriate nor (according to them) providing credible witnesses who understood LuLu’s educational needs. Whatever. I’m supposed to review and comment back to my attorney. And I will as soon as I quit laughing and crying – ludicrous, ridiculous and unbelievable doesn’t even begin to cover it.

But, I’m not letting any of the legal wranglings detract from the improvements we’re seeing. The interesting thing is that someone in the school system is reading this blog (yea! I need readers!). I know it, because they questioned me about it in court. Apparently, sometime back in July (actually it was an August blog for the school system employee who is tracking such things – here’s the link), I reported that LuLu’s behaviors had “tanked” and attributed it to The Listening Program. It’s true…the Listening Program had caused an increase in her emotionality and her behaviors had worsened. So we slowed down the program and things got better. Guess what…we’re doing The Listening Program at full speed now in round two…and she’s handling it fine. We will likely do a third round as well! It is helping her – so did the Interactive Metronome.

So their argument has become that I believe that any and all academic tasks frustrate her; therefore, I want her to stay at home to do no academic tasks. Further evidence of this is a note I sent to our advocate and psychiatrist in early April that I didn’t have academic lesson plans for her and wasn’t really focusing on that, but instead was focusing on reducing anxiety (as the psychiatrist had suggested, since she was in a full-blown, self-injurious panic) and on other therapies. So there it is -- the proof that I’m keeping LuLu home and not teaching her a thing! That’s right…LuLu and I are both lying around eating those bon bons!

Anyway, whether or not we’ve met our burden of proof is the judge’s decision and whether or not he allows them this motion is his decision as well. (Of course we have to respond, so it’s back to the fun and games!)

But the bottom line is that the proof is in the pudding…LuLu is doing very well in her de-stressed, structured, safe environment. I wasn’t 100% sure that homeschooling her was the right thing for us when we started in February (there's a quote for the school system to latch on to). I was backed into a corner where the only options were leaving her in a school where the personnel had “had enough” and “done everything” they could to control LuLu (their words) or sending her to a placement that I had repeatedly told them would be highly anxiety-producing for my child and trigger her disorders to the max. Leaving door number 3 -- taking her home and de-stressing her. There was no other choice but to protect her from further trauma. Educating traumatized children is something our school system (and many throughout the country) have no clue how to do. But abusing traumatized children…well, that can’t continue to go on!

So here we are, making lemonade out of what we’ve been handed. Is she “cured”? Heck no! Is she doing better emotionally and academically? You bet! So the school’s attorneys can wax on poetically about how restrictive our schooling efforts are here at home and how I’m really not challenging her or teaching her a thing. Meanwhile, I have to get back to helping her build that volcano for her science project, or do that unit on the Mountain States for social studies, or maybe we should do those worksheets on prefixes and suffixes next. I’m feeling that Tom Petty song coming on again…