Instead of going to school to submit my book order forms today, I attended a meeting for Ian’s special education program. His school is part of a cluster of programs. I suppose Ian’s school is for the kids with the most minor programs, because I got an earful today from some parents on the edge of a nervous breakdown.

It was a behavior modification class. Ian’s behavior problems are mostly in the classroom, where he’ll jump up, if he’s bored by the assignment. At home, we have no problems as long as I get him to bed by 8:00. It’s all a sleep thing for Ian. But I didn’t really know what they meant by behavior modification, so I went to the class to find out.

The behavior specialist gave us a long list of things that kids could do wrong (hand flapping, fan staring, running into traffic, hitting others) and then told us the key was to figure out what the problem was. Ian didn’t do any of those things, and I regretted blowing off work.

Then the parents started interrupting the speaker and venting. They told stories about being overwhelmed with kids who touched their poop and ran in circles for hours at a time. They were desperate for help in the after school hours when they had to make dinner and watch other children. One woman said that she had already spent $100,000 of her own money on therapy for her two kids. They all advised against lawyers and said to move to one particular town in New Jersey. They discussed the swing in the court system away from parents and towards school systems.

The speaker volunteered that her office regularly gets calls from New Mexico and Florida asking which town in New Jersey to move to. New Jersey has a national reputation for special education.

The venting was more interesting than the speaker, so I didn’t mind too much the derailment of this class. My heart really went out to those families.