Yea! Good news

It is wonderful to have good news to share.  We had the therapy meeting 1.5 weeks ago, and the teacher meeting 1 week ago.  The therapist was impressed by how well H is doing.  She can look at and repeat 9 numbers at a time (how did that happen?  We have never practiced more than 8 at a time).  Her responses to physical stimuli are good.  Her crawling and walking is good.  We are still to work on the juggling more as well as the visual and auditory stimuli.  She still needs to work on her eye muscles as well.

When we met with the teacher she said H had been behaving well the past few days.  At the time I thought it was probably just a few good days for H.  However for the entire past week she has behaved well at school.  This is huge.  She has also been finishing most of her work at school so that we don't have as much homework.  And her last few spelling tests have been Cs instead of Fs.  It is the only subject she is failing, so I feel encouraged by the trend.  Her other grades were Bs, with one high C in science due to two tests that she didn't study and failed.  Her teacher said that now that she is doing the quantity of work expected, we need to work on the quality of work.  Her sentence structures are at a 3rd grade level at best (hmmm....and I was always thrilled for her to simply have a whole sentence rather than a fragment).  I think she can come up with the complexity that a 4th grade student would, she just hates to write and therefore writes as little as possible.  We have given her some extra-large paper with the hope that this will give her more room to write more detailed sentences.

Overall her maturity seems so much better, and yet she has not lost her fun-loving nature or her goofiness.  I am so glad, since that is what makes her unique and was one of the things we lost when she was on ADHD medicine.  I know there are still challenges ahead.  She still requires more teacher attention than most children, and still tends to be distracted easily.  Her organizational skills are still non-existant.  But I feel like we are now on the tail end of normal, rather than being out in the land of disadvantaged or disability.
Smiles,
'Chelle

First quarter of school

So much has happened this past month.  It has been a series of ups and downs (what else is new about that?).  It is one step forward, one step back.  Or is it one-and-a-half steps forward and only one step back?  Sometimes it is hard to tell.  But at least I can say we aren't getting worse.

On the good side of things, H is still doing great with math.  She still has to do some of her math schoolwork at home, but she does it quickly and rarely has more than 10 problems to do anyway.
H has also done really well on her book reports.  She tells me what she wants to say in it, I write it down, and then she copies what I wrote to hand in.  This gets around the problem of her thoughts being faster (and fleeting) than her writing.

Spelling is still a problem; she has been getting 40s and 50s on her tests.  However, after trying many things, her teacher recommended we use a chalk board and flashcards to study the words.  That has seemed to help.  At the very least she doesn't mind writing with the multicolored chalk we bought.  And I think writing the large letters, using her arm more than her fingers, is easier than regular writing for her.  So this makes studying less of a chore, and therefore we study more.  On her last spelling test (the first one after we started using this method) she made a 73% on her test.  So I feel like we are making progress there.

Her creativity has been enormous lately.  She is designing and sewing outfits for her stuffed animals.  She is making clay sculptures (we love sculpty clay) of her favorite animals.  She is making small books.  She is drawing all the time.  And she is happy.  And she is loving.  I do realize how blessed we are.

So what are the steps backward?  Her teacher said she still moves constantly, and has to be brought back on task alot.  Even worse, she mentioned that if her grades don't improve, she will have to repeat 4th grade (I am a bit confused over that; I think spelling is the only thing she is failing.  She has gotten some really low grades in science and english, but that is balanced by some really good grades too).  And as another low, the scouting troop leaders said H can come back only if I or another adult specifically assigned to H were to come, for those times she has behavioural issues.  This really took me by surprise, as last year things seemed so good there.  But I do know she is a problem at times.  Since I have the other kids and can't leave them by themselves, H is not is scouting this year.  Instead she is taking flag football and loving it.  I think God's providence was in that little move.

And onward we go: we will be meeting with the therapist again this week.  It is the first time since school started.   The therapist and I will also be meeting with H's teacher later in the week to see what we can do to help H's teacher.  I think she is beginning to be overwhelmed by H.  She has been a huge help.  She has started to give H a sheet telling her every day what books she needs to bring home and what assignments she needs to do.  She is also assigning H stars for good behaviour each day: and if she misses a star, I am told why, which lets me have some good talks about what is socially acceptable and what is not.  Things that I think of as obvious, like not looking toward bathroom stalls because you can see through those cracks in the door, never occur to H.

So I will try to post again soon, to let you know how all the meetings went.
'Chelle

Third week of school

Things are both up and down at school.  On the plus side, H has discovered she can do math, and do it quickly.  It began as a competition (I was desperate; it was taking her an hour to do 5 problems).  I bet her she couldn't do 5 problems before I finished unloading the dishwasher.  Then it was 10 problems while I folded the clothes.  She was delighted to beat me, especially if I acted chagrined.  On my part I was amazed at how she was whizzing through the problems.  After a week of that, she is now doing all of her math at school at a normal pace, and not having to bring any of it home.  She even got a 95% on a recent math test.  Thank God!  On the down side, she is now dragging at spelling.  She is fairly decent at it, but has gotten it into her mind that she is horrible and it is taking forever to go over her words, the whole time she is moaning about it.  I think I may try making a competition out of that too, since it worked so well with the math (bribery doesn't work for her).  I'll let you know how it goes.  She is also having trouble (again) bringing home the right books for her homework.
'Chelle

Pear juice

We love pears in this family.  So while the pear season is here, we are having pear muffins or pancakes in the morning, pear slices during lunch and dinner, and an occasionaly pear crumble.  In addition I have frozen away alot of pear slices to make pear/applesauce in the winter.  All of this has led to LOTS of pear cores around the house.  I hated to see them go to waste, so I tried dumping them in a crockpot, half full of water.  Then we let it cook all day, after which we collected the juice.  It has been a huge hit.  It is not as sweet as the juice from the grocery store, but since we rarely buy juice at all the kids think this home made stuff is a big treat.
Anyway, just wanted to pass on this tibit.
'Chelle

The beginning of school

We have been on a new set of exercises for about a month now, and are two weeks into a new school year.  Good news first: Usually when we start a new set of exercises there is a major fuss/tantrum at some point, probably because her brain is rewiring a part that was formed at an earlier age (see previous posts to explain this).  However this time we only had part of one day that was a little fussy; really nothing worse than what you would expect from a tired child.  I am hoping that means that we have fixed most of the early age problems and are now working on some of the older age problems.
More good news: H's teacher says she is sitting in her desk, not popping up; and though she occassionally makes noise, it is not often.  Apparently she is quite popular amoung the kids. (I am so thankful for this new school; the teacher is great and really working with us and they placed her in a class with other calm children which helps alot)
Bad news: H is not copying things from the whiteboard very well, including homework assignments.  And she is very slow in doing her schoolwork, which results in more of it coming home.  And getting homework done is still close to hell. We will often be working on it until after 6pm.  It is not that she has alot of work; her younger brother could probably do an equivalent amount of work in 45 min, as compared to her 2-3 hrs.  She still spends alot of time daydreaming.  Only one thing has seemed to help so far.  When she has math problems, we break the problems into 5 or 10 problem groups.  We then "race" to see if she can get the problems in a group done before I finish a chore such as dishes or folding laundry, etc.  It is amazing how this strategy will transform a 1 hr math set into a 10 min math set for her.  It shows she can do it, if only she could concentrate better.  I wish I could wave a wand and put that concentration in her.
Be praying for me:it is sometimes hard to have patience and to remember that H is really quite bright.

Another progress report

The summer is almost over.  It has been a good one for H.  Her behaviour has been consistantly calm and much more mature attitudes/choices than I have ever seen in her before.  Throughout the summer we have tried to do the majority of the exercises every day.  I think there were only a few days that we did every one, and a few days that we didn't do any at all.  Overall I think we did pretty good.  And we didn't stress about how much we got done from day to day.
We had another therapy evaluation last week, and the therapist was surprised at the progress H has made.  She has taken away the crawling (yea!) and put in running instead.  We are also learning somersaults, headstands, and juggling.  And to help get ready for school we are doing a special type of math flash card.  So far H has done the exercises with a good attitude.  And even better, she is excited about starting a new school (wonder of wonders) and has volunteered to get in front of a crowd and say things a few times (she had developed horrible stage fright two years ago).
I'll let you all know how school goes in a few weeks.  I am still concerned about her having control for 8 hrs straight and being able to do the homework afterward.  If you read this, please pray for us!

A month of summer

It has been about a month since my last report.  The summer has been incredibly busy, mostly for me and not so much for the kids.  We have been doing the new exercises, though it is not unusual for us to miss a couple of them on any given day.  Overall I do not feel like we have made any progress.  It is like we have reached a plateau.  It is all very frustrating.  If anything, I think we have lost some of the progress we had made.  I think most of that is due to the change of schedule that is "summer break".  ADHD kids do best in a uniform, consistant environment.  For instance, I gave H a sheet of math to do the other day.  It took her over an hour to do 8 simple multiplication problems, and then she got at least half of them wrong.  When we went over the ones she missed, she almost went into a "crying, I can't" fit.  We have done some math each day since, and she has done better, though still not as well as I would like or as well as 4th grade is going to expect.  But I will give her this: she managed to control her emotions enough not to go into a fit, and she has been reading alot of books this summer (Ramona books).  It is a huge deal that she is voluntarily reading books when she is bored.  And she is still creating lots of projects/things all during summer.  When she was on medication, her creative side completely disappeared.  So let me brag about what she has made all on her own, without any suggestions or help from anyone: an adorable giraffe finger puppet, a small stuffed pillow in the shape of a pokemon (don't ask me which one), tons of drawings of both known pokemon and ones she has made up, and cards for father's day.
I need to keep focusing on the positive, and praying that God will see her/us through another year (and that we get a good teacher this time)!