During my time off, I made my way to the girls’ school twice to meet with O’s teachers. The first meeting was, well, sad. I kind of went over a couple of posts back.
So we’re now over a week into the new class situation and…Olivia is thriving.
Before we settled into exactly what her new schedule would look like, I was invited back to the school to meet with Dr. C., the teacher who would be undertaking Olivia’s transition.
This woman has a PhD in special education and curriculum. She’s amazing.
In just over a week, she’s managed to get Olivia to talk to her, to sit at her desk and do her work with minimal supervision and while she’s not actually speaking to her peers yet, Liv will smile at them and wave when they say hi. She’s been doing this for a couple of years but not consistently. Apparently, it’s been more consistent in the past week than ever before.
The weeks before this change, each day I’d open Liv’s agenda with dread, worried about what her teacher might have written this time about her behavior/lack of motivation/how much homework she’d brought home.
Last week, there was nothing but praise in her agenda. Each day there was something about, “Olivia worked very hard today! Great job.” And “Olivia used her words very well today.”
Her homework for the week comes home as a packet on Monday and we have specific work to do each day and then send the entire packet back to school on Friday.
Best news of all…yesterday, after my first day back to work, I sat down with Liv to help her with her homework (by help, I usually mean cajole, beg, insist, force) and while I sat there, she wrote her spelling words twice with very little prompting from me. Then, she turned the page and stared on the math homework. She answered probably 10 out of the 12 problems by herself. I had to help with a couple because the question was weird to her. But this is the first time EVER that she’s been able to self-motivate to get her homework done. Do you know how great this feels? I just…I can’t even describe it. She did her homework mostly by herself! She did the work. She did the writing. She answered the questions. She KNEW the answers without much help from me.
I’ve always known she’s smart. She’s got so much knowledge locked up in that brain of hers and something about Dr. C has helped Liv unlock her brain and let out a little of what she knows.
I am in debt to this woman after just a week of working with my girl. She’s found the key to Liv’s brain and I will forever be grateful.
A mom, a dad and two daughters. We're living ordinary lives with a twist of 5p- (Cri du Chat) for spice. But we're about so much more than our younger daughter's genetic diagnosis.
1 comment:
Yay! This is the best thing I could have read today. She is so amazing and to have someone open up even more of that has to be a relief to both of you.
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