Goodbye Grade 1

Today is the last day of school for us, I don’t know if I should be happy or sad. She is such a happy little girl who is excited every day to go to school but it’s so hard for myself because I know the struggles that she’s up against that she is unable to understand herself.

In May we went for the assessment and next week we will get the results of it. To be transparent, I went into the assessment thinking I will prove the teachers wrong, that I will show them there is nothing wrong with her learning, that she isn’t the problem. I have friends who are teachers, who have children with disabilities, who look at Mackenzie and watch her interact with other people, tell me there’s nothing wrong with her, tell me they wouldn’t flag her for ADHD or Autism. I work with a mental health worker who specializes in children with ADHD and said she would bet her job that Mackenzie didn’t have it. So, I went into this meeting confident that this was just what we need to do to put this all behind us and move forward.

When I met with the psychologist I completed the interview to share more about Mackenzie, the issues we have, when things started, just a lot of the history. I shared I can get Mackenzie to do things for me at home, but she won’t do them at school, she wont write in her agenda, she will spell her name incorrectly, she won’t do any of the assignments unless she has 1 to 1 help. The psychologist explained the assessment would be to see what Mackenzie can do without help, I was disappointed and told her she won’t do anything without help so the results weren’t going to be very good, but we went all the way there so we had to proceed.

We had two days of assessments where I had to sit in the waiting room. Through the door I could hear Mackenzie, sometimes she was silly, sometimes she was using a baby voice, sometimes she was saying no or saying she wants to go home. I had to force myself not to get up and open the door and tell her to stop and explain we were paying a lot of money for this! Instead, each break I would try to redirect her behaviour, which would work but would result in another behaviour. At the end of day 1 the psychologist brought me in to tell me what she had seen and to confirm if I see similar at home, some I did and some I didn’t. She decided to try the same activities again but with me in the room so I could witness it. I sat behind Mackenzie who seemed excited and proud that I was in there with her, she kept turning around and smiling at me or blowing me a kiss and kept needing to be redirected to the task. I was able to watch the assessment where she did everything incorrectly because there was no prompting or helping, the psychologist could only say “does this look like this?” pointing between Mackenzie’s answer and the example, and it was always “yes”. She never was able to recognize by herself that she was wrong. I then witnessed her being unable to do a memory exercise at which I stepped in and tried myself. Sometimes she was able to do it with my help, other times she wasn’t.

The bell went off in my head and I finally understood. The reason I can get her to do things for me at home is because I have the time to help her, I have the time to tell her she is wrong and make her correct it, I have the time to explain to her how to do something. The school doesn’t have time to give her that extra attention because there’s 18 other kids that need attention also and most of them probably don’t require as much so they have to keep the lesson moving along. The lack of 1:1 support and the lack of structure there isn’t helping her to progress her learning, there just isn’t enough time or resources.

I left the assessments with mixed feelings. Defeated, knowing that this wasn’t going to be the outcome I was hoping for. Enlightened, having discovered this new perspective about things. Confused, not knowing what the future will look like for us. Anxious, knowing that I must wait another 2 months to get the results so we can move forward.

I made sure the rest of our trip was fun, I didn’t want her to remember going to Alberta for testing and then the results of it. We went to West Edmonton Mall and did rides at Galaxyland, we built a bear (well, she chose a frog and named her Marley), we had play dates, she got her first pedicure, she got to spend time with grandma and grandad by herself and not have to share their attention, she went swimming in the hotel and flew on an airplane. It was a little vacation just for us that we haven’t had before. I think we got a lot of good memories out of it. 

For myself I hit the books again, started listening to more parenting courses, started doing more research. I happened to talk to two people that first day of assessments who shared with me that they homeschooled and the benefits of it, I looked into the options available to see if that’s something I could do with working or if I would have to quit my job. I found us more homework books to do at home. I came up with new schedules. I did what I normally do when I feel I have no control and just try to learn more. 

Since returning we have hit a regression in her behaviour. We are facing problems that we used to have at the beginning of the year when she was very defiant, yells ‘no’ a lot at the simplest requests, starting to wake up in the middle of the night again, we have stepped back to language issues we used to have with incorrect grammar. She is obsessively picking at her lips sometimes to the point where they start to bleed like she did last year. I don’t know if this is normal for her age, if they go through regressions during school, something else to research later lol.

On the other hand, while we have been dealing with that piece, I have been working hard on figuring out a learning strategy and how I can help from home. We have been making huge progress on the things we have been working on with our math and writing and are even starting to get some practice in with our reading. I am committed to working throughout the summer to see if I can help to get her up to where she should be going into next year.

It’s truly been a tough road this last year, really the last two years. It’s been difficult for my mental health, it’s been stressful for our family and challenging on our relationship. Sometimes I feel ‘why can’t I just catch a break?’. To some, thinking my kid has learning difficulties might seem minor, but it doesn’t feel that way when we consider the other pressures we have in life. We have another daughter who requires help, we live in a remote area that makes resources difficult to reach, we have no family support nearby, we really just have ourselves and are trying to make the best of it as two parents with little time between working our own jobs and having no child care or even breaks. Some days feel like a lot and we just have to remember we are healthy and blessed in other ways.

The other day I went to lake day for a couple hours with Mackenzie’s school and it was such a neat feeling to look out at her with her school friends playing in the water. It was a beautiful experience to see that, to see the mountains behind her while she’s playing and the peacefulness of the moment, even in the noise of kids laughing and running around. It’s something we would have never experienced in Alberta and probably something we likely won’t get to see again as we are passed the halfway point of this adventure. It’s been a challenging journey, I have cried hard about wanting to leave, I have begged to be able to leave, but watching her in those moments made my heart hurt a little to think about saying goodbye. What an amazing memory for her when she grows up to remember when her class got to go to the lake and splash around for the day to celebrate the end of the school year. She’s met amazing little friends here and has the kindest school around her.

We have our challenges to get through but fortunately we are blessed with her not realizing yet what all we have been going through on this path. She goes to school every day happy and she comes home happy and that’s what matters. It’s tiring and some days it’s hard but I’ll carry the load for her on my shoulders as long as I can and help to get her where she needs to go because she’s my girl, my best friend and she needs me.

Pray for us for our results next week.