Childrens lives and adult angst

Oh, to be a child again, with little concern but the perception of too much homework, not enough play time and having to get up early for swimming. As I often tell my three...Don't wish to grow up too quick or try and be older than you are; you are only a child for a little while but being grown up lasts a LOOOONG time.

The eldest two have commenced Milo cricket and whilst it is good, Mr 7 always groans about attending yet has a brilliant time throwing himself bodily on the ball. Miss 10 with all her softball skill, shows up some of the boys her age, but batting with the bat to the ground is just so WRONG! Now if only some of the parents would stop treating it as a Friday evening piss up...bringing eskies and beer, it's set a better example for the kids.

The year is nearing an end and Mr 7's speech pathologist has retested some cognitive receptive stuff from the CELF 4 ( Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals, 4th edition) as a research into whether the Ritalin has increased his concentration spans, at a glance this was obviously a contributory factor as his progress looked remarkably different from a few month ago. We are under ongoing review by his pediatrician as the side effects can be varied and static so I am happy for regular follow ups.

My baby, turned 5 last month, he's a big boy now and goes to school next year. He is so independent and fun filled I actually enjoy having him at home, whereas with Mr 7; I relished the quiet time of his kinder time. A remote control truck was the order of the day for this birthday and although we did not get the requested talking version of Cars: Lightening Mc Queen or the Tonka truck with a plane, he has a wonderful time zooming the truck about the yard with Mr 7's remote control truck in pursuit. His grandpa's and uncle and aunts monetary contribution allowed him to go to the local toy shop and get his truck with a boat ( better than a plane) and of all things, a collection of plastic horses. He was allowed to pick what he wanted for a birthday dinner and he choose pizza, so we lobbed at a La Porchetta restaurant on the way back from some shopping...after checking the menu, no, he does not want dinner here. The conversation went something like this:

"But you wanted pizza and this is where they have pizza"
"No, I don't want pizza now" By now we have ordered drinks for three thirsty children
" Well, what do you want?" It's his birthday and he can push the envelope a bit
" Not pizza"
"Well, what do you want?" Envelope is tilting slightly to the red side now

" I dunno"

We eventually ordered pizza and pasta, and moved on to the ice cream place up the road for dessert. My little boy is growing up, no longer a baby in the physical sense but always my baby in the ideal sense.

Miss 10 is developing a wicked sense of humour and irony, she often creates nonsensical songs and ditties which her brothers copy with glee. She has been asked on a "date" by classmate and declined, too shy and shocked to accept. Apparently a 'date" in senior primary school consists of hanging about together...nothing new there; Miss 10 has about three male friends she hangs about with at school that I know of. She attended a senior leadership course a few weeks ago and now has aspirations of being a school captain. She becomes a senior buddy again next year to a prep child and the principal has realised that the youngest sister of Miss 10's own senior buddy ( who is now 18) will be starting in Prep, and Miss 10 hopes that history can repeat and she can be buddied with that child. It would be providence in a way.

I don't want to be the over zealous parent but really do not want Miss 10 o have the same teacher as this year for Yr 6. This teacher is all groovy and cool with the kids, often cranky and strict, gooey eyed for the male parents and tries the false empathy with the mums...it's a crock of shit. She is lazy and limited in her abilities to teach outside the curriculum, no library time has been allocated for this class all year and I wonder how the children who do not have Internet access at home, reference books at home or public library access got heir assignments done this year. "Not a teachers bootlace" is an expression that comes to mind. I also want Mr 7 to have a particular teacher next year and plan to make that request soon; I have asked this teacher if they are OK if I request Mr 7 to be placed with them and they are OK with it. A quandary now emerges, do I take the bull by the horns and also ask for Mr 5 to have the irrepressible, Mrs R, for his prep teacher? Taking my request to a "pick the teacher " style of parenting I really do not like to prescribe to. Methinks, I will ask for Mr 7 to be placed with the preferred teacher and leave the rest to chance.. I can always ask for a swap of Miss 10 once class assignments are made. WHO knows, she might get one of the new, whizz -bang, here to impress teachers who were interviewed last week.

Funding and Ritalin

Well, it seems not even the CEO know what they are doing when it comes to funding. Several weeks ago the VP at Mr 7's school told me Mr 7 was up for funding renewal in October this year and new reports would be needed. Having just completed and handed over a CELF report in February I asked if that report would suffice if an addendum was included. No,.. new reports were needed apparently...GREAT, the last one took up 5 therapy sessions so there went Term 3 speech out the window unless we took on extra sessions and alternated between one therapy session and one testing for the whole term. Mr 7's S/P could not understand it and we tried to find out what reports they needed as the last test was valid for two years after the test date. And lo and behold, the CEO now concurs that Mr 7 has ongoing funding until 2010. Not that I can complain but it would've been nice if the criteria is somewhere accessible for all, when I asked the VP about this; he admitted it was not anywhere or on any guideline format. Mr 7 is doing great guns and is now in reading recovery also. His last visit to his pediatrician came as a bit of a shock as she states we are doing all we can fro him with therapies, speech, classroom assistance and such, he's been in formal education for over 18 month now but his concentration levels have not increased ( if fact his aide was away for several weeks and noted on her return that his concentration seems to have lessened) His pediatrician suggested a well know drug to help increase his concentration levels and for the first time ever mentioned ADHD as a possible diagnosis. Interesting. I have read all the associated hype and concern about this drug and we have agreed to a one month trial and if he shows any of the many side effects, he's off it because it is not worth his well being for an extra 10 minutes of concentration. This was a hard decision to make and will be made even harder if he continues to show change as he has being doing; because then we will be looking at long term use of it. Devil and the deep ,blue sea time.

Of little words and bigger dreams

I was interested and aghast at the parallels and oft unfounded assumptions made in such articles as this.
Which were equalised somewhat by these articles.
My point being that despite what all and sundry assume, guess, speculate, or blame. No one person can categorically tell or diagnose why a child has speech issues which limit their expressive/ receptive speech, their syntax, their irregular patterns of pronunciation has such problems. I abhor placing children ( or adults) in the diagnostic boxes created societies need to categorise and label. This is further enforced by Government red tape and sub agencies ( yes, Centrelink, Education Department and Health funds, I am looking at you!!!). There are more children being diagnosed earlier with speech delays but because of positive actions like more maternal child welfare resources, associated welfare and children programs at community health centres,more funded early intervention programs, recognition of possible developmental delays in relation to premature births ( of which the success rate has increased allowing many more premature bubs to survive and thrive), proactive monitoring of premmies by MCHN's and GPs so early onset of any delays are actioned and therapy commenced where appropriate.

As recently as 2005, the Victorian Department Of Education recognised severe language disorders (SLD) as a a genuine issue requiring funding for assistance in schools. This was withdrawn in the 2005 school year leaving many parents without speech therapy or assistance for their barely verbal and often non verbal children in schools. The World Health Organisation accepted level for speech ability in children WORLDWIDE is a score of 71, in Australia we accept 67. Now in perspective a score of 67 is relative to the comprehension ( receptive) skills of a 3.5 year old- 3year old with little or no knowledge of opposites , prepositions, common nouns, syntax, sentence structure. A score of 67 in expressive language would mean pronunciation of words would be disembodied, mixed and often showing no real pattern in the mispronunciation( dyspraxia) THIS is the benchmark we allow bureaucrats to place before our children as the acceptable level of achievement to attain, this is the line in the sand for having an aide in the classroom or not for your barely understandable child.

I challenge anyone who claims TV, PCs or any other of the theorems sprouted by the uninitiated to our world of mumbles, signs and frustrations; to spend a day with any of our children in their school and home environment and then try and justify the theory in a relative matter to what they see. Parents strive for all these children's needs to be addressed so they may be able to learn, work and undertake a role in society. We are poleaxed by red tape, funding issues, bias,unknowledgable guesses, and unkind theories. We stand united by the ideal that our children , although often silent or unintelligible, have a right to a voice and those voices sound long, loud and clear as a warning bell in a silent bay.

And between the sixth and seventh days..God made speechies

Today Mr 6 Almost 7 had his first speech session for 2007, complete with new book and new abode for his darling, R. His S/P has moved from the planet of the blond receptionist medico centre to her own digs not far away from where she was. It's a light, airy room which ; to me ;was reminiscent of the type of English nursery/children's room you read about in kids books. She has shelves of games and books, a Velcro board with Com Pic pictures on it, a tall table for working on with two straight backed chairs and the smaller toddler table in muted pastels. Mr 6 Almost 7 was very impressed with graduating to the bigger table and chairs. He was on the final leg of his testing which takes up to an hour at a time and if we didn't complete it this week, would have to start again as he will be 7 in 5 days time. The testing involves various game type activities, like repeating number combos of up to three numbers, repeating a sequence of numbers backwards, looking at a picture and being asked "what is the boy doing?" and being able to place as much discription and explanation as possible, placing like objects in groups and using collective nouns and explaining why they are of the same group. They grade his expressive and receptive language skills as well as break it down to his abilities to understand numbers, instructions, comprehension skills, etc. Whilst he was very distracted by the new area and the accessibility of the games, he did very well and the test will be written up and ready for school in time for the 1st PSG for Term 1, 2007. I have put off requesting this so I will have the report to pass on to his teacher as I feel some relevant material is not passed onto the teacher unless I undertake it. All in all, looks like another progressive and fun year with R as his S/P and bonus is I don't take Mr 4 with us any more as I co ordinate the speech appointments for during kindy time.

School started....

School started for two of mine on Wednesday, Mr 6 Almost 7 was very happy to return but a bit confused about the whole not being a Prep anymore. He knows he is in a different room with a different teacher but has not quite grasped the idea that he is now a Grade one boy. He has an older teacher who whilst firm handed will give him all the help he needs as she is of the "old school" of teachers who have many tricks up their sleeves. She also has a background in cued articulation which is one of the visual cues used by his speech pathologist in his speech therapy. He will retain his aide from last year for which I am very grateful as it turns out she was very, very happy and helpful in the session she had together with Mr 6 Almost 7 and his s/p last year. The cued articulation will go a long way towards helping him increase his sound repertoire and word annunciation. The down side being it is a 4/1 teacher split, he has teacher "W" 4 days a week and teacher "T"on Tuesdays. Teacher "T" is the teacher I swore would never teach any child of mine again after Miss 9 had her in Grade one. She is computer illiterate,yells at the children A LOT and has done so in front of parents, and generally lax in her approach to teaching but, hey, that's just my opinion and a few twenty or so other parents. What would I and three others who are qualified to teach know anyway???? So that is the trade off so to speak, "T" is there in Tuesdays but, WAIT his s/p now works Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays and as Mr 4 has kindergarten AM Tuesdays, it allows plenty of time for a round trip to Woodend for speech whilst Mr 4 has kinder. SO that means he has her for maybe an hour in the morning, he returns for lunch and if he has Japanese in the PM,( which he is being withdrawn from...why try and learn another language when your own is a mystery to you) we'll be lucky that she only has a few hours to muck up everyone elses work with him:).

Miss 9 started with the teacher of her dreams, "M". Miss 9 has always had nice teachers apart from the horrendous 6 months in Gr 1 with "T". Teachers who care and are innovative, teachers who are true leaders and encourage all children of all capabilities. I know "M" from outside of the school environment and whilst young, she has the grit to teach senior classes but with the compassion that is also required at such a level. She is approachable and friendly but often seeks me out to chat about our mutual interest and teaching in general. Miss 9 has been told that she needs to study more and not just cruise, she is capable of may things but chooses her subjects for excelling in and cruises by the others when she could excel. As a parents, we always believe our children are good at something. As a parent I see this in all my children, as an educator; I can see so much potential within her it astounds me. A perceptiveness that is beyond her years, empathy which is boundless, an ability to create in word, paint and cardboard any myriad of worlds, images and lifeforms.
Whilst I am not a fan of over parenting, the education system today relies too heavily on completion of the syllabus rather than the associated outcomes of spelling,comprehension,logic, grammar, sentence structure, letter formation, basic combined math problems, etc. Much of the learning of these skills fall on the parents, I get tired of the "parent information nights" where they tell you to "encourage your child to add up items from the shopping or play spelling games at the dinner table" all under the guise of involving you in their learning.....NO, it so you can teach your child the basic things the school is not spending time teaching them. Yes, they learn spelling in literacy but there is o subject on the syllabus titled "spelling" or "punctuation" or "everyday math skills". This is where our schools are failing our children, this is why I fought for an aide for Mr 6 Almost 7, because the system as it was would fail him( as it does many children across the board) because it is poised for syllabus completion not student comprehension.
Mr 4 has started kindergarten, he had an hour on Wednesday and an hour and a half (without mum) today by next Thursday he will be on a full schedule. He is very confident with kinder as he spent a lot of time at Mr 6 Almost 7's kinder in 2005 so he is very familiar with the content, the toys, the activities and the format of the program. I had a hour to myself today, a precious glimpse of the times to come and a smack in the head reminder that time is marching on and my babies are growing up.