School and daycare and PTSD

Not that I take PTSD lightly, but I really think I have it. I get notes from Monster's teacher and some days the notes are all about how horribly he acted - he was making noises and couldn't be quieted - needed to take 4 time outs, tried to hit the teacher, yelled at a classmate, etc. I read these reports and want to cry. As if each time I hear about these things my son does it re-opens the wound. I KNOW my kid occasionally (okay, maybe not so "occasionally") acts badly. Why does it scare and horrify me to read about a problem at school?

Because of kindergarten. Because of the hell we went through with suspensions, "quiet rooms", calls from the principal, etc. Intelectually I know that the school and classroom M is in now is such a change from kindergarten, and the principal at this school and his teacher actually LIKE him. I know that my son is not going to be sent home for being rotten. They deal with it. He is in a classroom FOR rotten kids - if they were sent home for being rotten the classroom would be empty most of the time and the teacher out of a job.

So I try not to get upset when I read about these bad days. But always my stomach knots up and I feel as if I am having trouble breathing. Panic attacks. Small ones, but there it is nonetheless.


Daycare. Let me count here......

#1 - National chain - pulled from center because my parents decided to stop helping us pay for his daycare. Out of desperation I placed him in

#2 - a home daycare - a single mom who seemed nice enough, sort of hippy-ish, pretty cool. She tried to kill my son. Maybe not flat out, but she didn't change his diaper in 5 hours. Didn't even open his baby food or wipes. Claims she tried to give him a bottle. Put him to sleep on his stomach. Called me at work to complain that he couldn't be comforted. Arrived to find that her daughter had some awful Jim Carrey movie playing at a deafening volume. Got my son calmed down but then called my boss and said I couldn't come back to work. Asked for my deposit back and was told no. Took my unopened diapers and baby food and left. Sued her in small claims court and won, but never got any money.

#3 - back to # 1. Fought constantly with them to not allow my son to fall asleep at 12:30 since I picked him up at 12:45 and he never fell back asleep. They never did it. Once walked in to find the woman in his room asleep on the floor next to one of the kids' cots. Another time she was screaming at a tiny boy for crying. When M was 18 months old he had a fat, bloody lip when I picked him up. No incident report. I was tld nobody saw it happen, but "you know how boys fight".

#4 - Brand new gorgeous national chain daycare opened and thank goodness because #1/3 was awful. Within a couple of weeks the trouble started. The write-ups started. Biting. Hitting. We had meetings with the director and classroom teachers where they told us what awful parents we were (in slightly more veiled words) and how we needed to punish him more for his misbehaviors. We tried - we really did. I still have guilt over the constant trouble that kid was in and the lectures, because I know now that these things don't work and only add to the ASD child's stress. When M was two he got written up for throwing a chair across a rom and hitting a teacher. He was placed on warning. More meetings. More "strategy development". Was refused to be put into the older kids' room because he wasn't potty trained, even though a girl in the older classroom once came up to me to show me her "Dora panties" and lifted her dress to show off Dora pullups! At some point we knew it was only a matter of time before M was gone and I started searching for another place. We were told that after two more written warnings he was out. I found him a new place and on his last day he was written up three times. I threw them in the trash instead of signing them.

#5 - The Most Wonderful Daycare Ever. A small, local chain that treated M like the special, wonderful boy he was. The place was small and there were only maybe 12 children and they were usually split between two rooms with two teachers in each. Wonderful women and the kids were happy and well-adjusted. A 5-year-old there obviously had Asperger's. Once a teacher said to me, about this boy AND M, "I just love kids like this!" I was oblivious. I also once told the director how I was glad M wouldn't need special ed, and she said, "Well, don't be so sure..." once again, I simply let it go. I didn't know what to make of it.
The owners of the daycare decided that location wasn't profitable and closed it 6 months after M started.

#6 - SO close to my work, a daycare run in a Lutheran church that seemed very accepting and kind. They knew M had aggression issues and said they would work with him and us. They did well for awhile. M was in the younger room, once again because he wasn't potty trained and they didn't have diaper changing facilities in the older kids' room.
When he finally did potty train they moved him up. This is when the trouble started. The kids knew he was different and egged him on to get him angry. M wanted so badly to be accepted and when he wasn't he hit and pushed and kicked. Suspensions. Calling in a specialist who observed M and gave advise on how to help him behave better. Then he hit a kid in the head wiith a wooden block and the kid needed to be rushed to the hospital for stitches. So much for the church daycare. Back to looking.

#7 - a different location of the wonderful local chain. I was naive enough to think that the teachers would be the same. Day One I got a phone call from the teacher saying that my son would never work out in this daycare and why did I ever think this would work. She hated him. He actually drove her to tears several times. I would go to pick him up and she would be crying, telling me my son had done this to her. It was time to get answers. I broke down and called our city's special ed division. I told the woman in charge that it was an emergency. She went to the daycare the next day. She called me after observing and used that awful word - that "A" word, the one I had heard occasionally before but just knew didn't apply to my son. But here she was telling me my son displayed several traits of Asperger's. They set up a meeting, and knowing that this teacher hated my son and did nothing to hide it, and refused all of their attempts to help her deal with him until we could find him a new placement, they pushed through his testing schedule at lightning speed, and within two weeks we knew my son had Asperger's, at least according to our school district.

# 8 - M started a special preschool. We were told (honest to god) that we would put him in this class and by the time kindergarten came around he would be "fine". At this time we also placed him in a home daycare with a single woman who treated my son like a piece of dirt. She spoke with the autism specialist from the school and decided that my son could not be trusted to play with other children - she kept him isolated in a stinky cluttered room on his own most of the time. Two older boys played tricks on him to get him in trouble with her, and she always blamed my son, even when the evidence pointed to the fact that these boys had purposely done something to get him in trouble (like throwing his favorite toy into a playpen they weren't allowed to climb into, and then telling the DCP when my son went to retrieve his toy).

# 9 - I got him out of there as soon as I found him another place, a place that oddly enough I had checked out when we were looking for home daycare when my son was a baby. I called it "the garbage house" and that's basically what it was (Still is). He loved it there though and I thought was doing well, until one da they dropped the bomb that he wasn't welcome back. I don't know why. I thnk another parent complained because their kid was pushed.
Found out months later that the man who watched the kids mostly used to flick M in the head and spank him. He also had friends come over to visit and once my son asked for a drink of water. A "friend" gave him water and my son took a swallow, and it was hot water. M freaked out. Friend thought it was hilarious.

And people wonder why I have issues with home daycares....

#10 - Another wonderful independent local chain who understood my child, and while they did have to call a couple of times to ask us to come get him because he was out of control, he did really well there. He graduated from there when he was ready for kindergarten. I miss that place.

#11 - The after-school program at school. They can't kick him out, right? They're funded by the school. They are in the school building. They can't discriminate against my kid, right?

My son went insane at that place. He once hurt a teacher so badly she was out on leave for awhile. They kicked him out. I fought them. I went to the OCR. I filed a police report when my son came home with dark red marks in his armpits where his "aide" had grabbed him and thrown him into the "calming room". We lost our case after about a year.

#12 - Hubby and I worked out an insane schedule so we could be home when Monster was home. We did this for a few months, until summer came

#13 - PCA and respite and day treatment program for summer - PCA mornings M-TH until 12:30 when the bus picked hm up for day treatment. I was home before he got home. Fridays, no day treatment, so he went to respite at a very nice facility that he will be too old for next year. This all happened because I finally got PCA hours, or I would have done this all earlier.

# 14 - the home daycare he's in now. The HDC mom has a 12-year-old child with Asperger's. She's complained about M a few times, but so far no threats. But every day I wait. I have no faith M will make it here. I wish I did.

So. This is why I am traumatized about daycares. Wow- that was sort of cathartic, in a way...