School Scars: PTSD from Schools and the Autism Label

~ Laura

My son is leaving the public school system in two months, on June 21st. This milestone is making me nostalgic, but not in a good way. 

Other parents treasure their memories of their children’s first day of kindergarten, when they file into the school and are greeted by a young smiling teacher. They recall the time that their kids scored the winning goal for the soccer team. Groups of parents cheering and a shiny medal. Woot! 

My memories of Ian’s time in public schools come at me at midnight, when I should be sleeping. As I lay awake in bed, I recount all the ways that my son was denied a proper education over the years, all the times that I was discounted, and my own myriad of missteps. I have memories of IEP meetings and administrators, stone faced like Easter Island idols, refusing to give my son help, until I learned the special passwords or hired the right lawyer. I don’t have nostalgia; I have PTSD. 

He’ll attend college full time this fall at age 22. At 18, he wasn’t ready socially, medically, and emotionally. Despite an average to superior IQ, he also wasn’t ready academically and required years of tutoring to catch up, because his prior academic preparation can best be described as tragic. Administrators put him in classrooms with low academic expectations, because of his “autism” label. In hindsight, I should have never let that happen.

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Published by Laura

7 thoughts on “School Scars: PTSD from Schools and the Autism Label”

  1. Happy belated bday to Ian! I hope he liked the Apple Watch. And congrats to you and your family for handling a lose-lose-lose-lose-lose situation with so much tenacity. It sounds like he’s on a really good path.

    af

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  2. Thanks, af! Yeah, he’s doing great. He just got a scholarship to Landmark, the autism college in VT.

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  3. Just catching up on these posts (life got in the way).

    Happy Birthday to Ian – I hope he absolutely loves his new Apple watch.

    I think that one of the things we all struggle with as parents is the guilt over the decisions we made. The fact that the decisions were the best ones we could make at the time, with the knowledge we had, and the opportunities that existed – doesn’t change our desire to Re Do From Start.

    Having had a view of the classroom – with kids on the autism spectrum included – it isn’t all a bed of roses either. Kids can spend so much energy ‘masking’ to try and appear normal, that they don’t have any attention span left for learning. Sometimes the learning environment is just so intense that spectrum kids melt down (and, if the melt down involves risk to themselves or other students, get excluded from the class). Other kids can torment and tease the spectrum kid- indeed, they can easily become the target of the entire class for verbal and physical bullying – teens and pre-teens can be thoughtlessly cruel (I sure we can all remember instances from our middle- and high-school years).

    I’ve got one friend who has pulled out her boys (both on the spectrum) from the school system, and is home-schooling them. And that’s not a bed of roses either. Her entire life is parenting. I have significant respect for her, without wanting her life one little bit.

    Be kind to yourself. You made the best choices that you could. Ian has had the love and support and educational opportunities which will set him up to live his best life in the future. The fact that this is taking longer for him than for others, is only a very small factor.

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  4. Best wishes to Ian for starting college. I’m about to enter the writing big checks phase of my life too.

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