Celebrating the New

It is hard to believe that tomorrow will mark two weeks that Cam has been at his new school. These two weeks have completely flown by, yet it seems like he has been there all school year. The change has been a completely positive change that I now wish we had done long ago, but I am trying to remind myself that I  can’t look back, I just have to be happy that we finally made the change.

Last Friday I had my first parent/teacher conference with Cam’s new teacher. I didn’t sleep the night before and was pretty sick to my stomach all day with nerves. This entire school year at Cam’s old school every conference ended with me in tears, fighting for my son’s rights, fighting for his teacher and other staff members to see my son and not just a diagnosis, fighting for the bullying to stop, I think you’re getting my point. Each meeting was Hell. So, I was trying to stay positive, telling myself it was a new teacher, new school, new possibilities but still had everything from his old school playing in my head. 2:15 could not come soon enough and then when it did come I wanted to run. That is until I sat down and the first words out of her mouth were, “I just want to let you know what a joy Cam is to have in my class and I am really enjoying getting to know him”. Now I was holding back tears, but not fighting, you don’t understand my son one bit tears, but happy tears. We talked for almost an hour and not once did she have anything negative to say. No, she didn’t tell me he was perfect but the couple of social issues that she has noticed she turned into a positive of something that we, together can work on. Academically she said he is doing amazing. She said he’s already making friends and has fit right in as though he’s been there all school year. She let me know that she will not treat him any differently and that there are some days he will come home not liking her because she is there to be his teacher not his friend and she will push him to be the best he can always be. Seriously, I wanted to hug this woman. I don’t want him to be treated differently than any other child, if he is then his differences stick out more than they already do and then his self-esteem continues to spiral downward. Yes, accommodations need to be made but if she doesn’t point them out to the entire class they will never even realize these accommodations are happening. She sees a child not a diagnosis and I love that! When Cam, his sister and I walked out of the classroom, Cam turned to me and said “mommy, I must be doing good enough for this teacher to like me because she was happy in the meeting and you aren’t crying like you always did at my old school”. Well now I am kiddo because it breaks my heart that one, he feels like he’s good enough now when he should have always felt like he was good enough for any teacher and two, I didn’t hide my tears well enough from him in the past.

Fast-forward to today and his school had a run-a-thon to raise money for the school and to help promote fitness for the students. The goal was for the children to run 20 laps in two hours or less and those 20 laps would equal approximately 5 miles. Cam usually isn’t much of a runner so I wasn’t really sure how well this was going to go and there were a ton of students running all together, so I was worried he would be overwhelmed. He had told me in the morning he was going to do all 20 laps but again my worries put doubt into my head for him. Well, leave it to my son to completely prove me wrong. He didn’t get overwhelmed at all and he was determined. In a little less than an hour he ran 14 laps, which equaled approximately 3.5 miles! I believe it is safe to say, I know he would have accomplished his goal had a bad storm not hit and they had to end the run-a-thon early. But, he did it and he never once gave up. He ran 99% of it and it was so awesome to watch him be so happy with his friends.

The change was scary for all of us but it was by far one of the best decisions we have made for Cam in a long time. The teachers at his new school really care and they are seeing Cam as a child not as a diagnosis they don’t feel like dealing with. His self-esteem is improving, the depression he was in is going away and he is happy and loving school. The struggles that Cam went through this entire school year at his old school is something that I wish I could erase for him and I wish we would have made this change earlier but as I said earlier I am trying not to dwell on the should haves. “That” school is an amazing school and has turned Cam into a different child in just a short two weeks. Celebrating the new and moving on from the old.