Daycare Saga and sadness

Tomorrow we go tour the special ed classroom we’re considering placing Monster in.

If we like it he only has two more days at regular school. I want to take him to tour his new school if he’s going there so I will probably take some time off work either Thursday or Friday.
I want to buy treats for a “going away” party at his school. I don’t know why but this breaks my heart. This kid is always leaving places and has never found a place where he belongs. I hope to god if we move him that this is the right place and he can stay there awhile.I feel rotten for the little guy. I fell like we should have done this right off the bat and not even attempted inclusion. But we didn’t know. We though this is what you do. Now we have a child who, from the time he was two, has been at 11 or so different schools and daycares. And kicked out of most of them. Lemme count here….

Children’s World – Expensive. They would NOT keep him awake the 15 minutes it took me to drive over there after nap time started, so he would not fall back asleep at home and it drove me nuts.

Home daycare mom – one day. Tried to kill my child in many ways. Worst person to watch children ever. Did not feed or change Monster’s diaper in 5 hours. Sigh. Kept my deposit. Back to…

Children’s World – One of the “teachers” in one of his rooms yelled at a little boy for crying – IN FRONT OF ME, and he got hurt once on the playground and nobody knew how – told me “Kids will be kids…” he was 18 months old….

Kindercare – Would not potty train to get moved to the older kids’ room. Threw tantrums. Hit a teacher and threw a chair across the room. Beat on other children. We got called into several meetings where we were told we were rotten parents who didn’t discipline our child and it was partly because Monster was an only child (also our fault). After three or four discplinary actions they tossed his ass out.

Wonderful Small Daycare Chain – a local chain with two teachers, an assistant, and a manager. They were wonderful with Monster. They loved him. They had a couple other “different” kids (one who, to me, was OBVIOUSLY Asperger’s – haha – joke was on me. I had no clue about my own kid). Six months later the owners announced that this one branch was not making money and they were closing it. Heartbreaking. Monster loved that place and we wouldhave kept him there until kindergarten if they had stayed around. So sad. I do say it was my blessing in disguise though, because it was only when we put him in the next place that teachers started telling us there was something wrong. The teachers at WSDC worked with him and never once did he get written up for anything.

Funky Overly Religious Lutheran Daycare – These people seemed very nice. They allowed Monster to stay in the toddler room even though he was too old for it, because the older kids’ room did not have diaper changing facilities. Monster was almost 4 now. He did really well in the younger kids’ room. At this time he finally decided he COULD pee on the toilet and got promoted to the preschool where all hell broke loose. They brought in behavior specialists. They wrote Monster up and sent him home. I do think they tried their best. One day Monster smacked a kid in the head with a building block and the kid needed to get stitches. This was the beginning of the end. This place recommended we contact our city’s special ed services. I put it off. I wanted to pretend it was the school that could not handle my child.

Wonderful Small Daycare Chain – Location # 2 – Nothing like the old place. Main teacher in Monster’s class HATED him – called me at work the first day and told me ABSOLUTELY they could not keep this child here – as if I had placed the devil himself into her peaceful little daycare and destroyed it all. I panicked and called our special ed dept and got an emergency meeting with the daycare. Sat at this meeting with this huge special ed team plus the teachers and directors of the school and wept as main teacher explained how none of the kids like Monster and none of them wanted to play with him because he was “bad”. The special ed team pushed through the test because they agreed he HAD to get out of there, and found us a nice-seeming home daycare woman.

Home Daycare Woman – she seemed okay. But she treated Monster like shit. She had two 5-year-olds and my 4-year-old, a 2-year-old and a couple of babies. She allowed the 5-year-olds to tease my son and would tell me it’s because he annoyed them. She let them play with the babies but Monster was not allowed to touch them. She let him bring a toy from home but the only time he played with it was if he snuck it past her while she sat and watched TV (all day every day) and hid in the little playroom. She made him nap alone. I had feelings of panic that I had to get Monster out of there quick, so I found him

Home Daycare Dad – this guy lived SO close to us, he was funny and nothing seemed to faze him – he took the kids to parks and took them out to play (Monster was not allowed outside ever at Home Daycare Woman’s house). He was there for quite awhile but then a couple of the other kids’ parents’ told him that Monster had to go or they were going, so Monster was tossed aside.

Happy Fun Junky Daycare – in a crappy-looking stripmall, these people took in my son and cared for him like the ones at First Wonderful Small Daycare Chain did. Monster had SOME issues there, but he always acted better for people who treated him with respect and allowed him a little leeway in the rules (what a concept). He stayed there until kindergarten. They were wonderful. I am so grateful for them and WSDC. That was a total of 12 months of my now-5-1/2-year-old child’s life where things went well for him. People understood him and cared for him and allowed him to be different without criminalizing him.

Kindergarten – We all know the story about that. He lasted at this first one for 6 months.

After school program – 6 months. They’ve hated him from Day One and threatened to have him thrown out before he ever actually enrolled.

So that’s 12 places. And he’s 6. He’s been kicked out of 5 of them. And now we’re moving him again, and this time it’s something we’re asking for.
He seems pretty resilient. He seems to look forward to new places as if they are fresh starts – maybe the kids at this place will like him, maybe things won’t be so rough for him, etc.

And this may be the right place for him, and we won’t know unless we like it tomorrow and try it. We KNOW where Monster is now is wrong for him.
I just feel so sad for him. He is such a courageous guy, that he does go to these places without much fuss and usually quite a bit of enthusiasm. Maybe it’s because I have given him the idea that he is an amazing and loveable child and he is still young enough to believe it and so thinks everyone really likes him. He appears pretty clueless about the people who don’t like him and I hope to god that this is true and not just that he is internalizing everything.

His caseworker told me at the meeting where we decided to place Monster in special ed that he goes to the nurse’s EVERY DAY with complaints – sore throat, stomach ache, etc. Is this his stress, or is he looking for some attention, or a break from the routines of his day? I wish I knew. I wish I knew what was going on in this little guy’s mind most of the time, because I worry so much that there is pain in there we don’t know about. The psychologist assures me I would know if he was in mental pain – it would manifest itself in pretty obvious ways. I haven’t seen the warning signs she talks of. He has fears, but don’t all kids his age have fears?

Anyhow. Tomorrow we’ll know. Tomorrow we’ll tell him, if he’s going there. Everything right now hinges on what we think of this new place. On top of all of that we still have summer looming ahead, and we have a few maybes but nothing is looking like a great option right now. I would have had him spend the summer in the after school program if they hadn’t kicked him out. Now we’re trying to find a PCA and not having lots of luck.