But she will
We’re officially several weeks into the school year over here. The sweet porch photos with the chalkboard signs and uniform captions about how we can’t believe our kids are going into X grade are but a memory. Also a memory is my plan to set a workout schedule for myself and to do better about reading the two dozen emails coming from their schools each day.
Anessa’s backpack is already dusted in the ground remnants of her snack, and I have no idea what happened to our water bottle stash. There have been tears, a lot of them. And I can’t help but question why I continue to romanticize this time of year.
Don’t get me wrong, by the end of August I am CRAVING routine and I love school supply shopping as much as the next nerd. But the adjustment back to school is rough. Especially when you have a child with learning disabilities.
Last spring I wrote a bit about getting a few diagnoses for Anessa. I’m still not interested in going into specifics, but suffice it to say she has a strong IEP. Which is wonderful. I am so grateful to the teachers and admins in our district who have helped me make sure Anessa is receiving all the services available to her.
However, no matter how much support Anessa has, school is still going to be really freaking hard. She is old enough now to know it will be hard and to understand that it is harder for her than it is for many of her classmates. Going back to school offers her less of the fresh start I experienced as a student. Instead, it is more like standing at the bottom of a mountain you have already climbed, with heavy luggage, and told cheerfully to do it all again while everyone around you is carrying only a knapsack.
And now we have the added layer of insecurity. She knows that the words on the page, which she can’t make heads or tails of, are telling a story that most everyone in her class can read. And even if she can make the words out, the amount of focus and energy it requires isn't happening in a loud and distracting classroom.
That insecurity simmers inside her and reduces to a concoction of anxiety-laden exhaustion. Asking too much of her after school sets off a nuclear meltdown. Which has a lot more to do with white-knuckling through expectations built for someone else’s brain than me asking her to put her toys away.
Her anxiety looks like counting down the days until the weekend when she can feel a respite from the constant measurement and the moments when everyone else seems to move on while she is still trying to understand the directions. It looks like sleep regressions where she refuses to go to bed, or asks to sleep anywhere other than her room, or tries to sneak her way into our bed. She is fighting for any last bit of control she can shake from the day before she has to wake up feeling powerless and do it all again tomorrow.
As the school year moves on and she grows more comfortable with her new teachers and routines, I am hopeful some of that anxiety will taper. But I am also familiar enough with anxiety to know that once ensconced, it never fully vacates the premises. So, we argue because I don’t care how tired she is she cannot talk to me that way. And we cry – Anessa in her room after she’s slammed the door in a rage and me in mine because I can’t always make the world work for a brain like hers.
Transitions are tough, and back to school is a big one. But, at the end of the day, even after I’ve spent 15 minutes negotiating where she will be sleeping that night, I know that she will be ok. She will learn. She will read. She will process. Not in the way traditional school expects her to - but she will.
And should she run into trouble, she has a fierce mama in her corner with more than a few years of child advocacy experience under her belt.
She can thank her big sis, Adelaide, for that.
ID: Kelly reading "The Little Engine That Could" to Anessa. They are sitting in her bedroom with pink, yellow, and white triangle bunting hanging behind them. Kelly is wearing a blue and white striped shirt, and only Anessa's eyes can be seen above the edge of the book.
