It was a great start to the school year. She was happy, doing good work...then two weeks into school everything changed. She started throwing fits, crumpling into a little ball on the floor, falling asleep there to get out of working. We thought it was a phase; we had been there before. But it didn't go away.
I wonder constantly about last year and how she had a lot of free time in the classroom. I think she got used to being undirected. It was not the best academic year, but we had fought to stay at our home school despite rezoning, so we felt a little obligated. I am afraid keeping her there has produced this behavior this year. I skipped over most of this last year in this blog. A few weeks after our great start to school last year, a teacher left. The school reeled for a few weeks with Whitney's wonderful teacher being pulled to teach another class. They hired a new teacher, who didn't quite have what it took to manage a class of ESE students. She was NEW....new to teaching. Nice enough, but maybe a few too many video days in the classroom. Whitney went from reading at a first grade level back to not knowing simple sight words. That is where we start this year...back where we were two years ago academically.
Of course, these challenges could be physical. We talked with our neurologist. We decided to try ADHD medicine. Once we found out Whit has a Mitral Valve Prolapse, it limits our use of stimulant ADHD medicine. That leave two medications. We started her on Intunive at the beginning of September. It was an amazing two weeks, then it stopped working. Oh she was TIRED! Intunive was originally a blood pressure medicine. It made her a little dizzy, and VERY tired. We already had sleep issues - long afternoon naps, inability to go to sleep at a reasonable time....well, we kept her on it for another month, trying different times of day, but nothing worked, so I stopped that medicine.
We are back to where we started....
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