The Boy has been having some rough days at school this week.  Lots of talk about people being absent from school, and students who have “left” school and may never come back.  None of it is true, but he has emotional reactions to these “events” and we are left to try to figure out what is at the heart of it. Add that to lots of perseveration on his favorite topics, and anyone can see he’s anxious about something.

His teacher emailed me the other day commenting that he seems to let one small correction bother him, and then add real infractions to ensure he gets “punished” or sent home, or some judgement that seems worthy in his mind.  I let her know that this is a common occurrence at home, as well.  Yesterday, I could tell she was frustrated because her email started with “Another bad morning today…” at 10:07am. Rather than respond, I let it ride. She’s young, and doesn’t seem to have the patience the job requires all the time.  Maybe she just needed to vent. I wanted to remind her of Rule Number 1: Behavior = Communication, but I didn’t.  People don’t like it when you tell them how to do their jobs.

And sometimes he’s just crabby… Kiddos on the spectrum are allowed to have emotions, too.

I’m not sure what’s going on with The Boy, but he seemed much happier yesterday afternoon than he has been in about a week.  I hope that whatever has triggered this latest round of rough days has resolved itself, but only time will tell.  The Boy and I did talk yesterday evening, and I got the sense that we had turned a corner.

Sometimes we figure it out, and sometimes we let it ride and walk on eggshells for a bit. As our very favorite teacher always used to say, “Tomorrow’s another day.”