Tyler's first IEP.....

What?

Wait a minute.

Haven't there been like....a bazillion IEPs already?

Yes.

This is the FIRST IEP that TYLER attended. He was there for the whole enchilada...all 2.5 hours of it. He was a trooper. It helped that we had paperclips, a slinky, a digital picture frame scrolling dozens of photos, my phone with "Angry Birds" and an iPad with a bigger screen and MORE "Angry Birds".

It was a little distracting having him there. Not much could be heard over his howling stims during the video games. I was just glad to see him happy.

The verdict.....first year of high school. It is a great classroom and his teacher likes to see progress. He isn't afraid to innovate and seemed genuinely happy with our problem solving at the IEP table. We came up with some really great solutions and suggestions. Serious props to the OT at the table. She is a gem.

It helped to give the teacher some more background info on our autism journey. Ty clearly shows the potential to learn but the truth is he is sorely lacking in the motivational category. The thousands of hours of home ABA work made an impact. We got some mad skills out of Ty but they weren't sustainable. Unless every person in his life is doing the same thing.....his skill level melts like the frozen custard we dug into last night.

We are limited in what we can control and demanding too much is stressful....demanding too little isn't helpful...so the trick is to find a balance between the two.

Wait a minute...that sounds just like what it is to parent a typical child. It is except you cannot ask Ty for feedback and cooperation. It is a massive guessing game of watching for clues and signals of distress and trying to determine what is a genuine problem and what are crocodile tears.

Case in point. Ty has given up on writing. He hates it. It takes an act of God to get him to scribble and he loves pretending that his fingers are broken and uncontrollable. He resists pressing the buttons on a calculator!

But he didn't have a problem playing "Angry Birds"....touching and playing with all of his fidgets, etc. You get the point. We spent a lot of time trying to outsmart out evil genius and raise the bar. A token system is going in. A timer is being added to meal times....we have plans.

It was a great IEP and it REALLY helped that I went to the gym first and worked out my aggression first! (note to self....do that every day now).

Today was the first time that we talked about what is going to happen after High School. We talked about whether he would walk and get his diploma. We talked about including him into ceramics...art and choir classes. All of these delightful things. We walked out to the cars and Ty got agitated once he figured out he wasn't getting into my car. He was seriously bummed. But he had to go to his house. I saw him through the window on my way down the road and he was content again.

I really wish i knew what he was thinking.