Susan Senator

Dreamt about Nat last night. He was throwing a chainsaw at people and then he ran away. I was screaming at his teachers that they had to find him, and they seemed not to even know that he had a disability. Finally I got him to come back by yelling, “Natty, I’m going to give you chocolate when you come back.”

When he got back he was an old man, with a shaggy head full of silver hair and a beard. The teachers made him sit on his hands. I wanted to cry when I saw this but I felt I should let the school do what they do.

As you can see I am a bit anxious about Nat’s placement and progress, and about my ability to help him in time. He is almost 17!

Nat is in an ABA school; ABA is very big where I live and in many parts of the country. I have my reasons for putting him there (read the book) and I am reluctant to move him. However limited their approach, they treat him like a star there and they will train him for jobs and (perhaps) independent living. I hate the underlying assumptions of ABA, which imply that the student is a creature made up of behaviors, both desirable and undesirable. It is far too simplistic and black and white for my view of people. And I just read Autism Diva’s post on the TEACCH method and it made me wonder further if I should try to find such a program around here since moving to North Carolina is out of the question for now (Ned just got a wonderful new job in January and I feel like New England is in my blood, for better or worse). I contacted our school district liaison a few weeks ago with concerns about Nat, and she gave me a little bit of a run around. She’s a good egg, but still I wish she would get over the idea that nothing can get done during the summer.

In the next few weeks I am going to educate myself more about TEACCH and the use of visuals around our home. A friend has offered to help and when I get back from this adventure in Washington I will take her up on it.

Oh, Natty. It is so hard to know if I’m doing right by you.