My son has ADHD. We’ve known this for years.
For years we’ve struggled with uninterested and unwilling medical professionals and educators who dismissed it as not a big deal. I’m not sure how, as it’s pretty clear that he was struggling. It took years of fighting for services before I found the magic words to push for an IEP evaluation. They found he had a severe need for services. He spends less than 2% of his class time focussed on what is going on. He only got his IEP last year, and they’re still not following the steps outlined in it.
Today, we went to the doctor. I showed up with a stack of evaluations done by the school, by various therapists and psychologists, by behavior specialists. This is the fourth or fifth doctor we’ve seen. I was ready for a fight. I’ve heard everything from “he just needs stronger boundaries” to “he’s just being a kid” as if better parenting and acceptance will fix the fact that my child can’t sit still long enough to brush his teeth.
Today was different though. Today, with my stack of papers and anxious babbling about all his evaluations and all his wonderful traits and all the struggles and the ways we adjust for them and where we’re succeeding and where we’re failing and all the support we already have and all the places we’re still lacking, we were heard. Finally.
We were heard. And he got what he needed, and despite our low income and despite the colour of our skin, we weren’t treated like a messed up poor family looking for an easy way out of parenting.
We were seen for what we actually are: a family that is devoted to each other and determined to survive, whatever the world throws our way.
Just because we have to walk through metal detectors on our way to our appointment doesn’t mean we don’t deserve the same standards of care everyone else does, and today, we got that. I’m so grateful.
- Bad Weather And Mutual Aid - December 22, 2022
- Matthew Berdyck - December 2, 2022
- On Grief And Tokenism And Friendship And A Hundred Billion Other Things - November 28, 2022