"I did all the work!"

Two weeks ago on the Sunday evening at the end of Spring Break, Bigs and I were having our bedtime sttories and such. I lay down with him for a minute or two after we read stories. It's a habit we've had for years. He's usually asleep in thirty seconds or so. Not so this Sunday. He was talking about his Latchkey supervisor, Miss M. To say that he loves her is a gigantic understatement. So he got a little sad and I told him we'd make arrangements to visit Miss M at his old school one day. He was quite sad and thought he'd never see her again. "She lives too far away for me to visit her." Poor guy, he doesn't get that distance is easily covered by this new fangled invention - the automobile.

He was sort of satisfied with the Miss M solution, but still a little weepy. Then he looks at me with his sweet little long face and says, "Why did they move me from Highland? I did all the work!" And proceeded to sob. As did I. I never felt so bad. The school and I had tried to be positive and to support him with this new program that is better than the others. Yet here is my boy, in pain, because he thought HE did something wrong. I reassured and held him fo ra long time that night.

So, yesterday, I finally told the school about this. Not the Miss M stuff, but the other. Here is an email I sent:

Hi, Ladies! How are you? I hope well. I hope you had a good Spring Break!

Something Ben told me on Sunday night before going back to school after break struck me as a little sad and I wasn't exactly sure how to reassure him.

He was crying in bed before lights out and he said, "Mom, why did they have to move me [from Highland]? I did all the work." And then he sobbed. He didn't say, "I want to go back!" or anything like that.

I am afraid he is feeling punished or that he was a bad kid at Highland.

I told him that at Riverview he has teachers that can help him have better days in school and isn't it great that he's been getting 2 happy faces a day?

I just wanted you to be aware in case he got really upset. There's something behind it. Maybe he won't ever say it, but somewhere inside he's thinking it. And it can manifest in many, many ways! (as we all know). Thanks for your time and listening to my worries!

Here are their responses - I have to say - I am VERY VERY pleased with this school system at this moment:

#1 - Hi Kris,  I forwarded your email to [school psychologist] and our behavior consultant.

Poor little guy - we will make sure we get this addressed in social skills group and [psych] may want to pull him out for some one on one time

with her.   Please keep me posted and I will do the same.

#2 - Hi there - We addressed this in social skills group today.  We did a lesson on feeling good about yourself.  We talked about what we like about ourself, etc.  Then, we directly addressed Ben's situation and talked about why he left Highland and came to Riverview.  During group, he didn't verbalize that he was upset about it, but did come over for a few hugs while we were talking about it.  I think it went over well, because one of the boys in the group told Ben that he came to Riverview to be friends with him.  I hope it made him feel a bit better!

#3 - Sure thing!  Ben came in to our group pretty grumpy today and we thought we were going to have a rough time.  One of the boys really made an effort to cheer him up, making faces at him and telling him jokes.  They ended up having a really good time telling knock knock jokes to each other (that were not funny in the slightest....ha!), and finally Ben said, "Alright, alright, I'm fine."  The three boys ended up holding hands at the end, which just cracked us up.