School abuse of Special Needs and what you need to do, Autism.

Well, that's another story that has come across my Facebook feed. Only it was a live video from a school board press release in Florida. Normally, I would just ignore it but it was at a school board and it peeked my interest. A few comments I could see scrolling through were, is this about my friends son? And then the news center posted that it was concerning abuse allegations. So I clicked the link. It doesn't tell you until you click the story headline that the abuse was a child with autism. I had to read the article to find that out what exactly happened. The allegations against the teacher is that she sprayed the child with a spray bottle like a dog when the child did something wrong. But it's not just that. She had also pushed the child down with her foot and she also kneed him in the chin.

So there it is, a nonverbal child with autism was being abused by a teacher. What are the signs as a parent you should be looking for? Coming from experience of a parent whose child was abused in the classroom who had little speech, let me break it down for you. What to look for and what to do.

You know your child. You know every aspect of your child. If their mood is changing at home. That's a sign that something isn't right. This is your first sign. It starts small but the behavior will escalate. If your child is normally a loving sweet child, that will change. Normally, your child will become aggressive. An almost complete 360 of what you are used to. You will start to notice a regression. Sometimes a regression will happen and it will happen pretty quickly. But it starts out small. Little things, but you need to keep an eye out for changes. As my child was abused it started as a small regression. We started loosing speech and what sign language she had, she started loosing that as well.

Most children if they come home wet or "sweaty" looking, smell for different scents. Have your child change and smell the clothing. If it's "sweat" of the day, you know how your child smells when they've been running or playing. If it doesn't have a smell you can guarantee it's water that's been splashed or sprayed on them. If it's in the seat area, well you know what pee smells like. If your child is potty trained and doesn't normally pee themselves. That's the biggest red flag you can get.

Look for bruises or marks on your child. Check them the moment they get home. Check your child again when you give them a bath or before bed. And check them again in the morning before you get them dressed for school. The reason you have to keep checking is because bruising will appear in gradual stages. Sometimes a bruise won't appear until the next day. But red marks will appear and stay for several hours at a time. But will be gone by the next day. Look for scratches. Sometimes when someone man handles your child, they will end up scratching them.

If you are being contacted by the school for behavior that is not typical of your child and it ends up in an emergency room visit. That's your other red flag. Let the doctors know it happened at school. If the school report and what the nurse said and the teacher said do not match up at the least little bit, let the hospital know. Let them also know that you want to file a police report. If possible have to hospital contact the sheriff's department to file the police report.

If you have great rapport with your pediatrician like I do, contact them immediately. You pediatrician will help walk you through not only trying to get your child out of the school to one that is safer but they will make sure that everything is documented properly and getting that police report will be a breeze, as the dates and times will already be charted in your child's file. If you are already seeing a regression or a small regression, head to the pediatrician. If you have a doctor that you don't trust, you really need to get on the ball and get a new pediatrician. I didn't see the regression happening, but I did go to the pediatrician and she went through Doodle's file and told me that Doodle was regressing. Because she's been charting everything from the time Doodle was born. Our pediatrician even made notes about the services we were receiving for speech and OT and charted her progress. When Doodle got into the first bad school because we were zoned for it, it was our pediatrician that wrote letters to get Doodle out of the school and notated incidences of previous abuse from that school and how Doodle was regressing. Of course that letter didn't work but she was willing to fight for us. And that's what mattered. FYI, Doodle was in that first bad school for less then 6 months before a tornado wiped the school off the map. For me I'm either going to fight or stand back and let God fight the battles for me.

Go to your local sheriffs department to file a report against the school, if you have any of the above signs that something isn't right. Let them know what's going on. File a report of abuse and make sure that you have all of your times and dates of the incidences. I would make sure that I have at least 3 incidences as the third strike rule is my favorite rule to go with. As you want to make sure your child is being abused. But if your child has hand prints on them or bruising or scratches go ahead and file immediately.

Apparently, in this story the school was notified of the incident's and they did their own investigation. Which resulted in the school board and school trying to cover it up. That's a rookie move. Three people have been placed on leave, but because the sheriff's department was contacted all three have been arrested.  I never let a school know what's going on when it comes to blindsiding them. In the past I've always made sure the school was the last to find out. As I am one of those underhanded parents, you never know what I'm going to do. Hence the reason why I'm a level up mom. I get people fired for infractions against my kid or myself. Read through my past blogs. I'm proud to get para educators, bus drivers and teachers fired. Heck if we would have spent another year in the second bad school the principal was already on my target list. I don't play.

As I call it, leveling up gives me the biggest thrill. Cause I'm the parent they have to give everything to. When it comes to an IEP, I'm a stickler that it be followed to a T.  You never hear from me cause I'm always researching. But that moment I strike, they are blindsided, and don't know what to do with themselves. Of course it never hurts to always remember that your IEP is a corner to corner contract between you, the school and the State that you live in and even if you write in crayon on that IEP, it can't be broken.

With more school systems going to having special needs children in regular education classrooms we will see an increase of teachers abusing our children. Regular education teachers aren't trained to handle our children. They aren't trained to teach our children. What they are allowing is our children to fall through the cracks and breaking IEP's. Because our children have a right to a free and public education. Which is what is being denied.

Document, conquer and divide!

See you guys on the flip side.

Our emergency room visit because my child "ran into a pole".

How to make you mad Autism

Well, that can't be good. Fall is this Friday. The day this blog will be posting. This week is just flying by and Doodle is fast asleep in her bed. Monday and Tuesday have been a flip flop, 30 minutes before the bus showed up. Monday she didn't want to get ready for school. Just sat there like a lump on a log. When she was ready we went outside to wait. The moment the bus showed up I thought I was raising little Miss Sunshine. She was all smiles and told the bus Good Morning. Got on the bus and acknowledged every single child.

Tuesday not so much. Happy to get ready for school but the moment that the bus showed up she was not a happy camper.  Here it is already Wednesday and I didn't even check her book bag when she came home. I spent the day cleaning up the bedroom. Because spoons are missing and the bedroom lost about a foot of room because the bed was moved too far away from the wall.

I had to make today laundry day because I didn't have enough time to do it on Monday. And Tuesday, well I didn't feel well so laundry just didn't get done. Wednesday was my laundry day. I washed all of our dirty laundry. Found lots of missing socks and washed all of our bedding. I pretty much stayed off social media. I finished my dead fairy, though not the way that I wanted too. But it's finished. I cleaned so much of the bedroom but I didn't get to dust all the shelves and other things. But I got the floor cleaned and the ceiling fan cleaned and the white noise fans cleaned. So there was that. When Doodle got off the bus and saw the room was in disarray because I was still folding and putting away laundry and pillows were all over her bed, she was pretty mad. Refused to be in the room until it was finished.

She seems fine now but she was pretty mad for a couple of hours. And at one point she asked, "Momma, where did my bed go?" I'm magic! Best magician in town.

Thursday was just a pinterest day and today a Friday, well it's a cupcake day. I've been trying to get to treats all week. I've switched to taking some B2 vitamins cause I just have no energy. And I'm noticing that it's helping with keeping me awake. Doodle is at this stage where she's pretty chill. No eloping anymore. So there is no chasing her down.

I still have tons of projects that need to be done and taken care of. Hoping to spend a good bit of the weekend baking. Cause, why not? Doodle loves cakes and other sweets. Great way to get her to obey. Good girls get treats. What do you say? Say, Thank you. Yeah, that type of reinforcement.

See you guys on the flip side.

Almost forgot about today, Autism

It's been a long week. Yes, you didn't hear from me on Wednesday. Like I said, it's been a long week. Doodle's behavior has been off and I've heard from the school nurse 3 times this week. I might have to take her to get a frosted coffee, cause we are almost on BFF terms at this point.

So some of the notes coming home shows that Doodle is being a bit defiant. She's loosing points in some of her classes. Refusing to participate. Slapping a student. Behavior preventing her from doing math class. I couldn't figure out what on earth was going on. Until the very last call from the school RN. Doodle got kicked by one of the kids in class. And this is what happened. There is a child that is lower functioning in the classroom. He was trying to take his seat and just kicked Doodle. I asked if they knew why the kid had kicked her and that's when I found out it was another child with autism and he was lower functioning then Doodle.

And that made me think about the other school 3 years ago. In that school (with the bad teacher) there was a lower functioning child with autism. And Doodle mimicked all of this kids mannerisms. The severe stemming, flapping and slapping himself. Things Doodle has never really done. Well, she's done it just so fast that if you blink you would miss it. And it was extremely rare she would do these stems. But the boy in that class had a problem. He liked to hit people. The whole class that year was wild. All the kids hit one another. Of course Doodle did take it to the extreme and went after the adults that were hitting and man handling her. But the worst incident was one day Doodle had just had enough and beat the snot out of the kid.

So I text her teacher and told her about that incident and made her aware that Doodle does have a temper like her daddy and she will go after the kid. Just so she was aware of the situation that can transpire possibly in the future. So now I know why Doodle is off on her behavior. It does make sense. I just have to keep her focused and keep her on task.

Once we get this all done and settled everything should go back to normal.

Now that this is out of the way on keeping you aware of what's going on with Doodle it's time we discuss the blog. For right now I'm just going to post once a week until further notice. My work schedule is increasing greatly especially with the magazine and all the crafts and foods that have to be done. That's a lot of cooking and a lot of pictures that are taking place. So as of right now I will be posting on Friday's only. Friday's will be better for me as I can jot down what I want to discuss regarding our lives throughout the week and I can focus more time on all the work that I have to do.

Sorry it has to be this way. I'm hoping it's for a short time. This magazine has been a dream of mine for so long and it's time it got off on at least a fair track.

See you guys on the flip side next Friday.

Really that type of Monday Autism

So this morning Doodle was running around the front yard as we waited for the bus to show up. She was looking at the iPad and not paying attention. And that's why she fell. She cried out that she hurt her leg but I felt that it was her ankle. She wasn't screaming bloody murder. Just crying. When she gets hurt really bad she cries and nothing can calm her down. Like hours worth of a meltdown. That's the way that she acts when she's really hurt and we need to head to the emergency room.

But she didn't cry like that. Just a little whimper and kept saying she hurt her leg. So before the bus pulled up I asked her to get up so I could see. She put full weight on her leg with no issues. And just hobbled to the porch.

By the time the bus showed up she hobbled to the bus. According to the school when they called an hour and a half later, she was crying and wouldn't let the nurse check her leg. She was in so much pain and couldn't walk. So the school gave her a wheelchair to be able to get to the first aid office. Well, that just added fuel to the fire.

I get to the school and I'm able to touch her leg and all Doodle wants is to go home. You know, where the iPad is. That she thinks is waiting on her to come play it. I think she is officially addicted to the iPad and it's time to put a limit on it. I was able to check her ankle again and applied a bit of pressure cause her shoe was off along with her sock. And she was chilling in a wheelchair still. She wasn't upset, she wasn't crying, she was happy and all smiles.

So what's a parent to do? My kid, even though she has autism is a drama llama. So overly dramatic. I know she's not really hurt. She just wants more attention and to go home to play on the iPad. I told Doodle that if she went home now she would lose the iPad for the entire day and wouldn't get it back until tomorrow. That if she wanted the iPad at home she would have to stay at school and work. Her Principal told her that she needed to get back to class cause there was a lot of work that she had to do today, Doodle chose to stay at school and work on the school iPad.

That's what I thought. And the school was short staffed of nurses today. There were only 3 today. Normally our school has 6. We have nurses that are LPN's and RN's. They take care of trac's and kids who are pickers. Those are the ones who pick holes in their skin like Doodle did 3 years ago. Every child at the school has some form of sever disability. And they need expert care.

And with that note, I'm out cause though I was thrown off track today I still have to worry about pictures and content for the magazine. It's gonna be a long day tomorrow. And all I really need is for Publix to open back up.

See you guys on the flip side!

Low Functioning Autism

Thursday we were off schedule. And as you know the old saying. When you've met one person with Autism, you've met one person with autism. Cause they are not all the same. Though a child can be high functioning, they can also have low functioning tendencies.

Well, on Thursday we were off schedule because I had to pick up Doodle's best friend from her school. Her mother forgot she had a project that had to be completed after school, so it took awhile to find her. During this time, Doodle was freaking out. Screeching, slapping herself and refused to speak words. Only wanted to speak in gibberish, baby talk. Now when Doodle was a baby she spoke a strange baby language and it was back to that type of baby language.

So that's what my afternoon and evening was like. It took so long for Doodle to even go to sleep with melatonin in her system. Last time that happened, Doodle regressed. So I've reached out to the school. I'm to write down my concerns and they are going to come up with a game plan to help me to be able to stop this behavior and get Doodle back on track. Things I can help her with at home.

I would have more of a discussion here today but it's Friday and I've been helping a friend out just about all day and have yet to get any of my work done. And I have my weekend work and Open House to deal with tomorrow and for that I'm not prepared. So it's a short one.

See you on the flip side.

Special Tuesday Blog. It's Freddie for a Day, Autism

This is a special day for me. Today is the day that is celebrating the day that Freddy Mercury was born as Farrokh Bulsara better known as the Queen front man Freddie Mercury. We celebrate his life, his voice and his message of Love.

Back when Doodle had really no speech she would at least try to sing Queen songs. It started with I want to break free. She was obsessed with the video. And she played this video a lot! Once she got into the really good school where she learned to read, write and do math, her speech was finally coming in. And with that her choice in songs changed. The next song was somebody to love. But if you really break down the song and listen to the words to could hear what she was trying to say. Can anybody find me? When I really heard that sentence it moved me. But this was as her speech was starting to come in. She may not have had 20 words at 6 at the time but this really meant a lot to hear.

The next song she began to sing was Break Throu. Yes I know that's not spelled correctly but that's the title of the song and how it's written. And boy did she break through. Her speech was amazing and it was only 6 months worth of time that she went from no speech to a good portion of speech. There was a time I never thought that she would be able to speak. Seriously, I didn't think that she would be able to read or write or do math. And now she's a little math genius. It's rare that a child on the spectrum would ever be able to have the art thing and the math thing. I'm still hoping that she might still want to be a doctor. Prayers up for that one.

So we love Freddie Mercury in our home. Heck, love him so much he's on the back of my vehicle. When she couldn't speak she was able to sing. He helped to give her a voice that I never thought she would be able to have.

And even though I have skipped a post on Monday, you get the surprise blog post for today. A Tuesday, which is a day off of schedule that's still okay. I hope you guys had a relaxed Monday.

So in honor of FFAD I submit to you a picture of Doodle dressed up as Freddie Mercury and our new Freddie Mercury shirts to celebrate today.

See you on the flip side.

Blah kind of day, Autism

This morning Doodle decided that she would be dragging today. Didn't want to get out of bed and didn't want to get ready for school. And yes she resorted to screaming. So there was that. But it's because she went to bed kind of late. It took several hours before her melatonin kicked in.

So needless to say she was tire. But that's okay because the bus showed up early this morning. Yay, for having no time for meltdowns. But she was having a hard time buckling her seat belt because she was tired this morning. That's okay. If she needs to nap at school she has that option. So it's all good. I doubt she will nap but if need be she can. Tonight she will be going to bed a little earlier.

I have a huge project I'm dreading for next week and there is a possibility that I might skip a day. I don't want to but like I said the project is pretty massive. Maybe I will just post some pictures and call it a day on that post. But there is a possibility that I will be partaking in Labor Day and you just won't hear from me that day.

So what's my day look like? It's the first so there are bills that have to be paid. Supplies to be gathered for the project. Going to see a friend today and get her house in order. The magazine layout is coming along pretty well. I'm pleased with how it's turning out. Now the articles need to be written and the pictures need to be taken. I still have so many things that need to be done so I will be releasing the magazine in October.

Timelines are a fickle thing to deal with. And hey, Monday is a holiday! I'm not gonna brace for it cause we need to make sure that we roll with the punches. An extra day for Doodle to hunt in the yard for bugs and frogs. Okay, that so much is not what I am looking forward to so I think I might be able to get her to build a froggy habitat that way she can leave them alone for awhile. Fingers crossed that it works.

What started out as writing this morning has turned into night and I am now full to my eye balls with work. So there isn't much to say today.

See you guys on the flip side.