Downs With Ups

Hello dear reader,

It’s been a long time since I’ve put fingers to the keyboard (and there’s been many different reasons for this).  Thank you for your patience.  Here’s the first installment of a topic I need to tackle in segments…

…I recently had an epiphany.  I’ve come to the conclusion that Poppet would be better off attending a special development school for her secondary schooling.  I feel quite liberated now with the benefit of this resolution, even though it’s taken me months of emotional turmoil to reach this point.

I had the opportunity weeks ago to talk about my concerns regarding this rather than keeping all the thoughts swimming around in my head.  I was walking with a friend along the riverbank and was bringing him up to date on all the things that were occurring in my life, since I’d last seen him.  Wonderful person that he is, he let me talk for almost all of our hour together, listening carefully and probing gently for more details every now and then.

This chance to voice my concerns came at the right time, for my partner and I were in the middle of reviewing the alternatives for Poppet’s secondary schooling, which by the way, was an extremely emotionally-charged process.  I tried to understand why it was such a challenging topic and came to the conclusion that there were many factors contributing to my angst.

Firstly, Poppet’s future is unknown.  With regular kids, the path is fairly well trodden.  A myriad of educational choices is available for them that caters for their individual strengths, interests and results.  This is a significant opportunity for these kids.  You can expect them to go through secondary school then leave to either go to uni or enter paid employment.

For Poppet, her future is not so clear.  She will go through schooling, of some kind, at a secondary level.  What happens after that though is not known.  Will she go on to study further?  Will she be able to work?  We don’t know, although we do know the options available to her, are limited.

I see that her future will be shaped, to a large degree, by the quality and suitability of her secondary schooling and that the learning environment she experiences will affect her confidence and her ability to learn new skills.  As a result, I feel enormous pressure to select the school that will best suit her needs.

I believe that Poppet will need to gain from her secondary schooling, just two things: vocational skills and a social network.  For Poppet to feel worthwhile, just like every other working adult in the world, she’ll need to learn skills that can take her into the workforce, be it paid independent employment or employment in a sheltered workshop.  Her secondary schooling will need to provide this.

As for a social network.  This is something she lacks now and it’s becoming more pronounced as she grows older, towards teenage years.  It occurred to me as I was talking with my friend, that the main source of my pain, sadness and angst, or whatever it’s called, is Poppet’s loneliness.  It has been a concern for me for all her primary school years.

And maybe it’s just my issue but, over the past six years at school, she’s only been invited to seven birthday parties and two play dates.  We’ve had a party each year for her birthday and we’ve had lots of kids over here, taken them out, had meals with them, but these times have never been reciprocated.  I can understand that people would be reluctant to bring a child with special needs into their home, but there’s nothing that a conversation couldn’t address to overcome any concerns.  That being said, she’s not a monster, ‘though people don’t know what they don’t know.

There are so many factors affecting this decision, it begs the question; what really would be the best type of secondary school for her?

Well, that’s the first part to this.  More to come later.