Social Deficits...

It seems that this is going to be the year of the social issues for Ash. In past years she has struggled with school but at least she always had her sunny disposition to fall back on. She may have missed some social cues, but was able to generally manage and keep everyone happy with her giggly personality and silly-ness.

I fear that people aren't going to see that so much anymore. I have had issues with her being surly to Junior and I. Yelling at Dawn when she was/is getting pissed off. But you could always put it down to regular kid stuff. But now she is sassing the lunch supervisor at school (LS) as well as her best friend's Mom (Ruby).

Last week she came home complaining that her LS took her toy away at lunch. I told her that she SHOULD have her toy taken away because she's not supposed to bring them to lunch, and she probably wasn't eating. She rolled her eyes at me and that was it. Then a few days later, on Friday, I was speaking to her teacher and she asked me if I knew that Ash was having "issues" at lunch. Crap. She told me what she knew, it wasn't much but it was enough. So Ash and I had a big talk about "tone of voice" and saying mean things to adults, or about adults. She insists that was she said wasn't bad because "all" she said/yelled (to the LS's daughter) "tell your Mom that she is EVIL!!!". Well, when she says "I'm Evil" or "You're Evil" at home, it's not a big deal. I have told her not to call people that, but apparently it didn't work. Worse than that I find out that LS is a Jehovah's Witness, and extremely devout, so calling her evil is a HUGE mistake. Not something that Ash could have known, but certainly more humiliating for me. Anyhow, I made her write a letter of apology and apologize again to LS. I went in on Monday to talk with the head of the lunch supervision program and she told me the whole story, and that Ash had been talked to by both the Head LS and the LS. I was able to tell her that Ash has some learning disabilities and that she is socially un-aware at times. Which seemed to cool her off a bit. And then she told me that totally un-associated with the incident with LS she was wanting to move Ash to a new classroom. So I agreed because maybe that will be a fresh start for Ash. I thought that things were dealt with. I also asked her to let me know if there are any further issues so that I can help deal with it.

Then tonight she had Brownie cookie sales. Ash's best friend is in Brownies with her, and her Mom (Ruby) is a Sparks leader. So we agreed that I would take Dawn out on cookie sales for the Sparks group and she would take Ash out for Brownies. Ash has always been polite and a good kid, well apparently not tonight. She was jacked-up before leaving and I was a little worried, I even said so to Ruby just as a heads-up, but more because I wasn't too sure about her ability to focus. So when I went to pick her up Ruby says to me "she was quite a pill tonight". Oh great. She said that Ash yelled at her because she wanted to hold a big box along with the little one, but was struggling with it so Ruby asked if she could hold it instead. Then she snapped at her for something else (I can't remember). Ruby told her that she wasn't allowed to speak to her that way and that Ash straightened-up really quick.

We had another big talk with Ash tonight about how we speak to adults. This time Junior was there and was really pissed. The thing with him is that he gets mad and yells and threatens to take away privileges or toys, but he doesn't really talk about why we are mad. I know that he struggles to understand how to deal with Ash, and Hell I do too, I just wish we could figure out a better way to do it. I spoke with her about why we are angry and that this is NOT OK. And exactly what we think is not OK. She was sorry, she was willing to apologize, and even said that she just lost control and spoke her mind. How do you get a 7 year old to have better self-control though?

I'm sad, I'm angry, I'm embarrassed. What more can I say?

I Love her.

We have our first meeting with the Education Consultant for the Children's Hospital Developmental Clinic next week. This will be a meeting between Junior and I along with Ash's teacher and resource teacher and the EC. This will be to get the issues out there and then the EC will observe Ash in the classroom. Then in December we will have a whole gamut of tests so we can know exactly what is going on. The week after we get all of the test results and will have a diagnosis in hand. Maybe this will shed some light on what we can do, where to turn. There are days when I feel like I need some counselling on how to cope with her, then we go for weeks where everything is great. I'm just hoping that someone will be able to hold my hand for a while, I'm tired of fighting alone.