Neurotypical Gen Ed Choices and Consequences

It’s that time of year: Elective selection for next year. He says he wants Band, Theater and AFJrROTC. It won’t all fit. Not in regard to time of day nor in regard to modifications/accommodations. The military doesn’t modify, ever. He has been talking about ROTC for a long time. He has friends there, the uniforms look wonderful, and he can feel the camaraderie.

You may remember that if your grades suffer, so will your extracurricular activities, and quickly: Within the first 5 weeks of the school year. So if you get in academic trouble early, it’s quite hard to dig your way out fast.

He really should pick something besides AFJrROTC, for many reasons. Maybe the computer scheduling will make that forced decision for him. It just can’t be Mom telling him to give up on a dream and be practical. The school and I all know it’s all a long-shot for John, a stretch of his academic challenges, executive function and self-regulation. 

Our high school been excellent at giving John enough rope to earn it (or not).  He had been showing some behaviors that I interpreted as self-sabotaging in band this semester. I figured it was a coded message of frustration, as his skills (and his sentences) are behind his peers. Dyscalculia (affecting sequence, timing, patterns, counting, etc.) and other learning inefficiencies are alive and well at our house. There hasn’t been the expressive sentence of “Mom, I’m frustrated and I may want to give up next year”.

I told him he wasn’t a prisoner of band, and could pick something different next year but he would lose band and not get it back. There must have been some truth in all that, as he’s doing much better now in his choices and wants to stay in.

So, we filled out next year’s elective forms and will see where the schedule allows John.  There’s a lot I don’t know, but I do know that these last two years will important opportunities for John to earn experiences.  The LEA knows we work hard on interventions in our non-school hours.

At home and with his private team, if he fails academically, we won’t grieve but instead we will be glad that he had an honest try at the best life of inclusion he can earn each year.  
Our LEA team has been stellar, the law is here and we appreciate the quandaries they face.
He must treat each teacher and class with high respect and his best decisions.  
We train for natural consequences.

Speaking of all that, his most recent essay is “How to Earn a Girlfriend”. We have lots of puberty natural consequences to work through, as well as all social ones.

It won’t be John’s GPA that makes his life. 
It will be all the social EQ, executive function, auditory processing, best choices, and friendships he can create and keep.

Part 2: As it turns out, he has recently been self-advocating, verbally, boldly, that he wants one of the entrepreneurial electives in Specialized Instruction. {It can also be described as Coffee Cart in Special Education.}

The rejected elective option is Art, which has never been anything he valued. Arts and crafts to him have always been a bridge too far, something to get through as hastily as possible. Creating art continues to be a fine motor challenge.

We have just had a life-planning transition meeting, and it turns out he’s delighted with Coffee Cart Entrepreneurship. Not what Mom would choose, but, hey, it isn’t my life.

This will be his way for his natural strengths to start to blossom … but it doesn’t seal his fate. He’s quite happy for the opportunity, the training and the friends.

Mom is listening better because he is advocating better. I don’t always have to read his mind through his behavior. (Do you have that at your home?)

We still are working on that girlfriend thing. I am telling him, “in college”, and that he can practice now by using good manners, personal space, kindness and sentences. I will keep you posted.

With respect and gratitude,
Gayle