Author: Rebecca Manari| October 20th 2022
Prep for school
For any parent, sending children to school for the very first time is daunting. It can be terrifying for both parent and child and a million questions flooded my mind.
Am I doing the right thing? Is he old enough? What if the teachers are too harsh?
In my son’s case, these feelings and doubts were even more intense especially because my son is autistic. While other children may be able to narrate parts of their day and talk about their feelings at the end of a difficult (or exciting) day; my son struggles to recollect or spontaneously mention the things that are important to him.
While other children tell their teachers what they want or need, My son may simply whine or cry instead, which would lead to a frustrated teacher and disappointed child.
So as you can imagine, naturally, I had reason to worry.
What did I do?
The key here is ‘One step at a time’.
I created a list of concerns long before he was scheduled to begin school, and I started to work on them, one by one. There were some concerns that I wasn’t quite sure how to address and for those, I consulted with therapists or other mothers who have been through the same.
My biggest concern was his communication. While my son has a brilliant vocabulary, his speech is rather unclear and he is often misunderstood. I talked to a speech therapist who assured me that it’s quite normal for toddlers to have these speech issues and they settle themselves by age 7. In the meanwhile, if he is not understood, I was to consider pictures for communication instead.
The next issue was self care. Because of my son’s motor delays, he doesn’t yet dress and can’t open his schoolbag or snack box yet. He was unable to drink out of a bottle too. Again, I took the help of a special educator who shared with me some ideas on how to teach these skills with my hand placed over his.
A major concern in many schools is that children are made to begin bookwork and academic tasks starting at age 3 itself. This is something I was dead against because I believe it is not developmentally appropriate. However, the school I had picked, didn’t give me an option in this matter. They insisted that he simply had to follow what his peers were expected to do. What I did, is I decided to then put him in a class that was for younger children so that he had the time to adjust to school before he was pressured into doing academic work at this tender age. I decided to give him time to grow and develop properly before attempting writing and bookwork.
Social development and separation from family: To prepare my son for the separation and being away from his comfort zone for so long, I made social stories that explained his situation better. When children understand their situation and surroundings, then they can adjust easily in the given environment.
The road to this new milestone certainly wasn’t easy. It involved a lot of preparation, and even when we prepare, things don’t always happen like we expect them to. Preparation makes things better, but that doesn’t always mean that nothing will go wrong. When things happen unexpectedly, we need to take a deep breath, stay calm, and trust that things will smooth themselves out eventually. Like every new beginning, it was full of anxiety, fears, nervousness, and a few setbacks here and there. There will be several milestones and even more adjustments to be made, and the first steps into school gave us the experience and lessons that helped us pave the way for so many things that will follow later on in his life.
Parents are welcome to reach out to me [email protected] or [email protected]– we welcome feedback and suggestions on Sethu’s current services and how together we can help provide new and researched based services for our children and timely necessary support for parents.