He looks normal

It has been a very long time since I have posted and recently I was flooded with facebook memories to look back on and there they were the beginning of my blog. I realize with so much time having past it would be difficult to catch up on all that has happened. In brief summary Joseph is still at home with us, CSB is no longer involved, and we have made some progress with Joseph. That being said with the progress we have made comes new challenges. Joseph is now almost 15 years old and you can imagine that even "typical" 15 year olds are hard to deal with at times... multiple that by a million and you get a rough estimate of how hard it is to deal with raging hormones in a already compromised brain. This year has been exceptionally difficult. Joseph had transitioned last year to the Junior High in the resource room and all appeared to be going well. Than at the beginning of this year a teacher who has been involved in Joseph's case for years left the district and replaced with someone who to say the least did not even begin or try to understand the nature of Joseph's disability. After much struggling and nearly having the bottom fall out on us we had to move Joseph back to the opportunity school, as we felt that was the better placement for him.... or at least we thought Now I try to give people the benefit of the doubt that Joseph's disability can be hard to understand. He looks normal. There is no outward sign of his disability which makes it hard. To complicate things Joseph's disability affects his frontal lobe which means it affects his behavior, processing,emotional regulation, and executive functioning. There are a lot of disabilities that can cause problems such as these but a lot of those have physical manifestations of one type or another that "help" people "identify" that a person has special needs. Again that is not the case with Joseph. So in short you have a "typical" looking 15 year old kid with behavior problems.... what do people think....he's a punk kid. It is infuriating to sit in meeting after meeting with "professionals" who do not listen to what I or the clinical experts at Cincinnati Children's are saying. He does not have a conduct disorder, he is not a sociopath, he is a kid with a brain injury! By all means this does not mean that we excuse Joseph from bad behavior. No oh no. I above all else continue to hold him accountable for his actions because after YEARS of repetitive intervention he may improve. What this does mean is that there is a way to go about behavior modification with Joseph that would be different than other "typical" kids. Believe me when I say I understand how frustrating and exhausting this can be. But it is what it is and expecting things from him that are not within his ability to do or understand will only lead to more failure and frustration for everyone involved. I often ask myself, If the people who are charged with helping Joseph do not understand or have any desire to understand the nature of his disability how are they truly going to help him. I sat in a meeting today where it was repeatedly said that I need to hold him accountable for his actions and behaviors. All I could think was "right lady because I just let him get away with whatever he wants". I feel as though because Joseph has no physical manifestation of his disability people think I'm making it up or using it as an excuse for his behavior. When in reality I do nothing but say "this is in no way to excuse his behavior". My explanation of his disability is to educate you on how to help him not excuse him. I will say as bad as it sounds Joseph's behavior is also all relative to me. Where Joseph's behavior of being disrespectful or aloof is annoying and frustrating, there is a part of me that thinks well he's not destroying property and the police were not called, gee that is some progress. With the "progress" that we have had I sincerely know that the battle is not over and will most likely continue to get harder as he gets older. For with every passing year he gets older, people expect more maturity and better behavior and the reality of it is he may not be capable. Also with every passing year there are new people to educate and inform about Joseph and his needs. Moral of this story " Do not judge my story by the chapter you walked in on" or " Never judge someone without knowing the whole story. You may think you understand but you don't. I hope to get back to writing. I feel it is much better to have these thoughts on paper than rolling around in my head. Thank you everyone who has took the time to read this and those who have been the ongoing support in our lives..... On to the next battle.