We had a huge meeting today about David at his school. I must have met ten different people – principals, assistant principals, teachers, aides, specialists, etc, etc, etc. We had to answer a lot of questions about his behavior and development level in order for them to set up a program for him, and it turns out that he’ll have to move to another local school in order to get the attention he needs.

It was a very emotional, stressful, overwhelming experience. Emotional? Yep. I’m biased because I’m his dad, but I swear, I’ve never met a sweeter child. He has no guile in him. He’s not jealous of his younger sister, nor does he pester his older sister just to be mean. I don’t think he even knows what a lie is yet. Everyone at his school loves him. So his teacher broke down crying when she was told David would be leaving her class, which caused my wife to start crying. So the meeting boiled down to long stretches of having lots of technical jargon dumped on us punctuated by someone starting to cry.

The thing is, even in the six weeks since he started at his current school, my wife and I have noticed a marked improvement in both his speech and his behavior. The combination of a more structured environment and other children to interact with has already been very good for him. I can ask him a question now and there’s a good chance that he will answer it, instead of simply reflect it back to me. I’m grateful for what his current teachers have done for him, and I’m eager to see how much he will improve in a specialized curriculum.