Q.  What’s awesome about your kid being suspended from school?

A.  You don’t have to dread that inevitable phone call from the principal, asking you to pick her up again.  Yes!

Princess Zurg continues to struggle in school, and we in turn continue to struggle with Princess Zurg.  I am beginning to fear that PZ’s first grade teacher was right when she said there was a narrow window of opportunity for children to learn the skills necessary for school success.  Honestly, I want to puke as I type that.  Well, not “puke” so much as “punch someone in the face,” but you know, tomayto, tomahto.  Anyway, I have never liked the idea of people having expiration dates stamped on them.  Undoubtedly, in general there is such a thing as a “Best Before” date, as the brain develops and eventually starts pruning away those parts that aren’t used (neuroscience, schmeuroscience).  That’s why early intervention is so critical.  On the other hand, when you’re talking about a person’s temperament, how late is too late?  And when you’re talking about Princess Zurg, how much is temperament to blame, and how much can be laid at the feet of her disability?  If we may speak of disability as having feet.  You see the stress I’m under, how it affects the language arts.  You must be patient with me, or read no further.

It was easier when she was in kindergarten, in first grade, and even second grade, to keep things in perspective.  There’s always hope that a five-year-old can get her act together eventually.  What happens in the primary grades usually stays in the primary grades–except when it doesn’t.  When you carry it with you to third grade and fourth grade and beyond, that’s when the future starts looking grim.  Yes, she’s only nine years old now.  But in less than eight months she’ll be in fifth grade, and a year later she’ll be in middle school.  We are hurtling toward the apocalypse, we have not been saved, and we can’t seem to find a church that suits us.  I will drop that metaphor before it herniates, but you get the idea.  I’m scared.

In September things seemed so promising.  Her medication was making a real difference–and I still think it is.  It just isn’t a big enough difference, not where it counts.  The number of aggressive behavior incidents has not dwindled to “zero”–not by a long shot.  And it’s been almost six months, give or take a couple weeks’ vacation.  It’s time for another IEP meeting, time to advocate for my daughter’s interests again, and I’ve got nothing.  No brilliant ideas.  No half-baked ideas.  No gut instincts.  Just nothing. 

What’s going to happen is that our “team” is going to recommend the day-treatment program they first brought up in September.  (You know, the one in freaking Tigard?  You might remember.)  I’ve been trying to find the paperwork on it.  I’m afraid I may have recycled it in a fit of maternal protectiveness–or rather, a fit of self-protectiveness.  I didn’t want to believe I’d ever have use for it.  So I’m trying to do some research about it on the internet.  The web site says it’s a “constructive all-day outpatient alternative to residential care, providing education for children (ages 7-11) experiencing serious psychiatric difficulties.”  Wow, that’s hard-core, isn’t it?  But then, so is hitting and kicking people and making endless rationalizations for your bad behavior.  That’s not autism.  It’s sociopathy.

My husband and I have joked about having her committed, but the sad thing is, a generation ago that’s exactly what would have happened to people with Asperger’s Syndrome.  They’re too functional to be disabled, so they must be sociopaths.  What do you do with children who won’t respond to discipline, besides give them more discipline (which they continue not to respond to)?  It’s all well and good for me, an adult, to experiment with psychotropic drug therapies (you know, the legal ones), but when you’re dealing with a pre-adolescent child whose brain is still developing (rapidly), said experimentation is decidedly unappealing.  In other words, I’m willing to medicate my daughter if medication is what she requires, but this repeated trial-and-error stuff makes me nervous.  On the other hand, we can’t really wait for puberty to run its course, either.  Or maybe we can.  The point is, I don’t know. 

I’m anxious to take action, but at the same time, I hate to be rushed.