When my parents offered to take Shane to Chicago for some “special Shane time,” I thought exclusively about how much fun he would have, and how some special time would be great for him. And indeed, he is having a wonderful time.
Beyond missing Shane, I didn’t think about how losing Shane would affect our family dynamic – particularly, how it would affect Dylan.
With Shane gone, Dylan spends all of his time texting his friends. He spent the entire first day alternatively texting and reading Shane’s book, Adventures in Odyssey: The Official Guide – a huge paperback about the radio show that Shane adores. Dylan has started listening to it, too, and he studied that guide in one day more than Shane studied it in a year.
Bill and Dylan have had time to do some go-kart racing – something they’ve been meaning to do for six months at the new indoor karting place. And as a family, we all went to see Dylan’s friend’s dad play music with his band – which was a real treat, except that Dylan’s friend didn’t show up.
Mealtime is rather lame. Bill and I have been sitting in front of the TV with our slices of toast or whatever we throw together, since Dylan is either still sleeping or busy texting. We don’t have our happy family meals. Shane isn’t sitting there asking us to play a game – which he often does – so no one has even bothered to sit at the table.
I am getting a glimpse of what it would be like to have had only one child. Before we decided to have a second child, I was so worried about what it would do to Dylan – to his whole life – if we took away our individual attention from him, and added a baby to the mix. After I was pregnant, I remember sobbing, afraid that I would somehow be losing Dylan by having a second child.
It is so clear, now, that having Shane has brightened everyone’s life. He has helped to make us a real family, and has brought so much joy to all of us. He’s such an integral part of everything we do.
Shane is funny. He makes us all laugh. He has a wit so dry, sometimes even he doesn’t know why he’s funny. And his calm is infectious. The rest of us are a bit more relaxed with life, just because he is near.
When his favorite song comes on the radio, we look at each other with sad faces. There is no one here to do magic tricks for us. We didn’t realize how often we asked Shane for advice, until he wasn’t here for us to ask. When anything comes up in conversation that reminds us of him – and many, many things do – we just can’t enjoy it like we do with Shane.
We miss him. We can’t wait for Shane to come home, and make our family whole again.
Today, Shane flies off to Chicago for four days – without me.
He’s going with my parents, so he couldn’t be in better hands. (Actually, he’s probably better off with them than with me.) But all of my anxieties are hitting me full-force, with vengeance.
I’m not worried about whether or not he has everything he needs. He does. I’m not worried about him making it to the plane on time. He will. I’m not even worried about him getting sick, or being unhappy, or not having a good time. He won’t get sick, or be unhappy, and he will have a good time.
My anxieties go right for the jugular. I’m worried that the plane is going to crash.
I don’t need to go into the horrific details that come to mind with a plane crash. Everyone who has ever been afraid of anything knows what it’s like to fear. My fears are never small. They leap right past “I have a cold” to “I’m going to die.”
This isn’t the first time it’s happened. As a matter of fact, it happens every single time I’ve taken a trip, or my kids have taken a trip, since they were born. (Before that, I apparently didn’t care that I might die.)
It doesn’t matter if we are driving or flying – although I know that flying is safer than driving. What matters is, someone is going away. I have tremendous abandonment issues.
What if they don’t come back? What if he doesn’t come back?
Some of this is my protective mom’s instinct, I suppose. But most of it is just plain fear. I’ve heard that fear and faith can’t coexist – and have found that to be true.
So what am I so afraid of, really? I’m afraid that I can’t control the uncontrollable.
So it’s a justified fear.
For a control freak like me, this can cause great anxiety. I can’t control anything really, but I always run around with the illusion that I can. So sending my baby on a plane trip is the antithesis of control.
It’s letting go of control.
And that is very, very hard for me to do.
But today, since my baby is still home and I have several hours to spend with him before he flies away forever (or for four days), I am going to make the most of our time together. I am going to be with him, and play with him, and love him for every moment of the day.
I suppose in that way, it’s like any other day – or at least, I try to do that each day. Sometimes I slack off and spend the whole day on the computer. Those are the days when I go to bed thinking, Wow, what a wasted day. I could have spent time with my kids.
So today, I am going to spend time with my kids. And I am letting go of the illusion of control. Just for one day. So the anxieties won’t eat me alive, and my whole world will be just a little brighter.
In spite of the fact that we’ve fallen in love with the second school we visited, we went to see another ADHD-centered school. Instead of 9 total pupils in grades 6-12, like the first place we visited, this one includes grades K-8 and has a total of 16 kids.
All 16 students have ADHD (or some variation) so the school is specifically geared toward learning like Dylan does.
“The kids meet in the gym in the morning,” said the headmaster, “where there is an obstacle course set up, so the kids can run first.” The headmaster had to describe the school in great detail since, once again, there were no students to observe.
She stood up as she talked about the obstacle course, and walked around, indicating activity. “Then for half an hour,” she said, returning to her seat, “they have social time. They enjoy that, and they can get it out of their systems before Language Arts.”
Classes then commence – but only in 30-minute blocks. “Every 30 minutes, we have what we call Wiggle Breaks,” she said.
During Dylan’s third grade, I went to his elementary school every day, pulled him out of his class, and let him run around (literally) for five minutes. Then I gave him a handful of almonds to eat on his way back to the classroom. (Almonds have loads of great brain nutrients.)
The principal of the public school put a stop to this as soon as she saw me doing it.
But here in this specialized ADHD-kid school with 16 kids, they take breaks every 30 minutes.
“Some kids even get extra breaks,” she said. “And we make sure anyone who needs extra breaks gets them.”
Their small class size allows each student to use his/her own computer software for studying – and that includes doing math online. All students use computers with great frequency – and P.E. happens every day. The grounds are beautiful – 20 wooded acres – and the church that houses the school has been very accommodating.
Sigh, I thought. If only I’d known about this school years ago.
But years ago, it didn’t exist. It’s only been around for three years.
And years ago, it was substantially more perfect for Dylan than it would be now. Dylan is 5′ 8″. He barely fit into the small classroom chairs. And while he particularly adored the chair called “The Cadillac” – a bouncy exercise ball with wheels – Dylan is way too old for something called a “Wiggle Break.”
There is a strong possibility of a high school coming the following year – which, actually, we didn’t want. We just wanted him to have a place to catch his breath for the year, and develop some solid executive functioning skills.
I’m not sure that having Dylan at this tiny school for one year would teach him how to succeed. It would teach him that there are more kids like him, and that his needs could be met for a mere $17,000 per year. But it wouldn’t really prepare him for high school, or college.
In fact, she even said, “This is like homeschooling.” And quite honestly, it is like homeschooling: individualized attention, a style of learning perfect for the student, and plenty of breaks and fun time built in for sanity.
But I could homeschool for free.
So when we got in the car, I asked Dylan, as nonchalantly as possible, “What did you think of this one?”
“Definitely my second choice,” he said.
So, since we were (almost) in the neighborhood, we drove out to look at the Quaker school again. We got out of the car.
Dylan looked around and said, “I would be honored to call this my school.”
And I feel the same way. So I guess it’s up to God now.
While waiting to hear from the school of our dreams as to whether or not Dylan will be accepted, I sent Shane on a playdate with one of his very best friends.
Alex is an incredibly intelligent boy who also has a vision processing disorder. Shane met him on the playground just before second grade started. Unlike all the other second graders, Alex was the only boy Shane really liked. Alex is bright. Prodigy bright. So I was very interested that Shane was interested in someone so smart. The boys weren’t in the same second grade class, but they played together at recess every day.
Alex’s mom and I both went to the school administration – unbeknownst to each other – and asked that the boys be put in the same third grade class. So for third grade, they were inseparable. They talked about the Bible, and numbers. Alex has mastered calculus; Shane’s interest is in statistics. They created “time machine,” a game where they travel back in time and relive history.
Then Alex got into the GT program for fourth grade and Shane didn’t, so they’ve grown apart a bit. But they still have fairly regular playdates.
Alex’s mom and I have become friends over the years. We’re not as close as we might be, but we always end up talking endlessly, even when we don’t have time. So today, when she dropped off Shane after the playdate, I told her about applying to private school for Dylan.
“What’s the name of the school?” she asked. And I told her.
“My mother founded that school,” she said, as casually as if we were discussing the weather.
Her mother founded the school. Alex’s grandmother founded the school we found for Dylan!
The found is the legend everyone loves, even though she retired (after decades of running the school) at the age of 72. She started the school, moved it from a church room with only 13 students to another campus, and then bought 54 acres and built the school where it stands today.
I’d read all about her, the story behind the school, the interviews for the news. By the time I found out that Alex’s mom’s mom founded the place, I knew “the legend” almost as well as I knew the school. I knew she was responsible for all that was good about the place, all the things I loved about the school, all the reasons I wanted Dylan to attend.
My overriding thought after hearing “my mother founded that school” – the thing that reverberates through my brain even hours later – is:
Coincidence? No way.
I felt like God gave me the gold-star stamp of approval! It was like someone affirmed that the place is genuinely the loving, caring place it appears to be. I know that no school is perfect – but at least I know now that they mean what they say, and that their mission is truly to “seek and speak truth and love.”
I told my husband and mother about this miracle “coincidence.”
Neither of them responded with the thought I had: the gold-star stamp thought. They both said, “Well, why don’t her kids go to that school?”
They both are relatively pragmatic. I have no idea why Alex and his siblings don’t go there, but I will ask her when I see her next.
Meanwhile, I just think it’s a sign from God that whatever is meant to be, will be.
Eventually, we are going to have to deal with the extremely significant question looming on the sidelines, waiting for an answer.
What about Shane?
Shane starts middle school in one year. When Dylan started middle school, it was like throwing him into a pit of snakes. While some of them were harmless, many of them bit him. Most of them were poisonous.
Shane is currently happy in his public elementary school, with his little group of friends – who are wonderful – and the teachers who are incredibly kind.
He has an option to apply for the public gifted program. Shane wasn’t accepted into the elementary school gifted program, but he has skills and interests that might make him eligible for the middle school’s gifted program. If he gets in, it might be wonderful for him… except that it would mean an hour-long bus ride, both ways, to get there and home.
The public school also has a magnet program, for kids interested in aerospace, computers and/or the performing arts. We went through the process of learning about these programs when Dylan was in fifth grade – and he was accepted into the magnet program for performing arts.
But Dylan decided he would rather go to the school where most of his friends were going – his home school. The snake pit.
And that’s where Shane says he wants to go. Shane is willingly and knowingly requesting the snake pit.
He doesn’t want an hour-long bus ride, and he’s not interested in aerospace or computers. And while performing arts holds some interest for him – he likes taking acting classes – he really wants to be a magician. There are no public middle schools for magic.
To be fair, all middle schools are snake pits. Even Dylan’s Quaker-value-filled middle school still has middle school students. The students are the snakes. They are learning to find themselves, trying to figure out who they are in relation to others, and trying to “fit in” and “stand out” all at the same time.
Middle school isn’t going to be good, no matter what happens.
But what if Dylan’s school is really as good as we believe it will be? What if it’s so good, in fact, that we want Shane to go there, too?
How the heck are we supposed to afford the tuition for two kids?
So. We will research our options in depth, but it looks like it’s the snake pit for Shane.
Shane is laid back, knows the system, follows the rules. He gets his work done, turns it in on time, knows what’s due and when. He may really enjoy the nuances of having seven classes in one day, with seven teachers and all the different kids in his class.
He won’t enjoy the crowded hallways, the swearing, the pushing, the punching, the malicious ways students invent to hurt people.
They will hurt him, and I know it. But I think he can survive, so we will probably keep him in public school, and see how he does.
Does this mean I’m a terrible mom?
Applying to a private school is like shining an enormous spotlight on the problems with public school.
it is summer, and I don’t expect much from public school staff. But I need two completed teacher recommendation forms, and a transcript mailed to the private school. So I took all of the appropriate paperwork to the school and asked around to see what I could do.
The sole staff person on front office duty is a friendly, hardworking woman who gets paid nowhere near enough to do all she does. I realized this while I was talking to her, but it didn’t make her answers any easier to swallow.
“I need two teacher recommendations,” I said. “But since it’s summer, I have a list of ten teachers we might try to contact.”
“The teachers aren’t here,” she said. “It’s summer.”
“I know,” I said, “but I was hoping you could still contact them and see if there’s anything they could do. It should only take a minute to fill out the form.”
“Well, we can’t do that,” she said. “They are all on vacation. I guess you could email them.”
“Don’t you think they would respond more quickly if the email came from the school?” I asked.
“Oh no,” she said, as if the school has no influence whatsoever on the teachers. She fingered the neon green papers in my hand. “And I don’t know how you would get them these forms,” she added. “I guess you could come back in the third week of August.”
“But that’s too late for the application,” I said, whining a bit.
“Sorry,” she said, shrugging and smiling at me.
“Right,” I said, giving up. “So I will email the teachers and hope someone responds, and then I will try to figure out how to get these forms to them.”
“Okay,” she said, clearly pleased that I understood her utter helplessness.
“I also need a transcript mailed to the school,” I said.
“Oh,” she said, sighing. “That will cost $3.”
“Okay,” I said.
“And you will have to have that done through the counseling office.”
I went into the counseling office.
In the counseling office, I found another tremendously underpaid hardworking staff member, with the neatest, most organized desk I’d ever seen. She smiled at me as I explained my plight.
“It won’t go out until next week,” she said, disappointed in herself that she couldn’t do it more quickly. (More quickly, by the way, would have been mailing it within an hour of my request.)
This woman obviously had more power and ability to help than the other one. I gave her $3 for the transcript and said, as an afterthought, “And I just have to find two teachers in the middle of the summer who will answer emails.”
She looked at my list of teachers. “Oh, she lives in the neighborhood,” she said. “I could call her today. And he is easy to reach. Do you want me to get these to the teachers for you?”
I almost fell over with gratitude.
“That would be awesome,” I told her, giving her the forms and my contact information while thanking her profusely.
Then I headed out, thanking God and the great staffer for their hard work on our behalf, and went home to fill out Dylan’s application.
Now that it is summer, Dylan stays up very late. We’ve taken away his bedtime rule, allowing him to stay up as long as he likes. Bill and I often go to bed before Dylan now.
Shane, meanwhile, goes to bed at 9:00. If it’s a late evening for some reason, he doesn’t go to bed until 10:00. It doesn’t matter, though, because Shane wakes up at about 7:00 every, single day. Then he sits there, alone, reading, practicing magic tricks, and listening to Adventures in Odyssey – sometimes for two hours, before considering breakfast.
Shane adores this alone time.
But sometimes, I think, he doesn’t.
Yesterday, we were planning to take Shane along to do something that Dylan had to do. Shane’s job would have been to sit, for two hours, and wait.
“Do we have anything else to do tomorrow?” Shane asked.
“Well, Dylan has church,” I told him. Dylan’s youth group meets on Wednesday nights – and this week, they are watching a movie.
“Can I go?” Shane asked.
“Sorry,” I said, “it’s only for middle school kids. So, are you going to be okay sitting there for two hours tomorrow afternoon? You can bring a book or something.”
Shane nodded, not in a despairing way. But I caught a glimpse of something I hadn’t noticed before. He nodded … with some anxiety that I might notice his disappointment.
Shane didn’t want me to be angry that he didn’t want to sit there for two hours. So he gulped and nodded and I saw just a flicker of sadness.
When you’re a mom, you can see these things, clear as day, right in your child’s eyes.
I always wondered how my mom knew things that she couldn’t possibly have known – when I ate a cookie, for example, if she wasn’t even in the house when I did it. But she knew.
And now it’s so obvious. I just know.
So I picked up the phone and called my dad, who is the greatest grandfather in the whole world.
“Shane doesn’t have anybody to play with tomorrow,” I said.
“Well, I don’t have anyone to play with tomorrow either,” he said.
So Shane gets some time with Grandad now, instead of spending two hours just sitting there, waiting for Dylan.
And this evening, when Dylan is at church, watching a movie with his youth group, I plan on watching a movie, too, with Shane.
Sometimes I have to see past the acquiescence, and give him something really special: time.
My husband, Bill, is not excited about private school. He doesn’t talk about how wonderful it is, that we’ve finally found a place for Dylan to succeed. He doesn’t wake up every morning relieved, or excited, or even somewhat content.
He says things like, “You have to teach him to deal with the problem, not remove the problem completely.”
The problem to which he refers, of course, is public middle school.
“I totally disagree,” I say, continuing to research the school, the administration, the teachers and the Quakers – just so we can be as prepared as possible, should Dylan be accepted.
Bill is worried about the money. He is only worried about the money. With all that worry, there is no room for excitement.
It is, after all, a lot of money. And we don’t have a lot of money.
“We might be able to do it for one year,” he says. “But if he wants to go to private school all the way through high school, we just can’t afford it!”
“Why don’t we do this one year at a time?” I say. We might be eligible for financial aid next year. There are a handful of private high school scholarships, too.
Plus, maybe I will actually work enough to pay the tuition for Dylan.
I have recently been cleared to work in – ironically – the public school system, as a home and hospital teacher. I can make reasonable money, if I actually start teaching. It’s just that, so far, I haven’t taught anyone.
The public school system kind of forgot about me, and I didn’t call to remind them that I am available. But now… I have an opportunity and a reason to teach!
I do find it to be incredibly ironic, though, that I’ll be teaching for the public school system in order to pay for my son’s private school tuition.
And – oh yes – we have to wait and see if he’s accepted. Then we can panic.
We have found the school for Dylan.
We drove into the middle of nowhere to find this school. We went through miles and miles of farms and fields with birds drifting overhead. After about 45 minutes, we turned into the driveway of the school.
As I got out of the car and stepped into the quiet, Shane asked if he should take a book. (Shane came along for the tour.) I said almost without thinking, “You can come back and get it out of the car if you need it. We don’t need to lock the car here.”
It felt safe.
While there were no kids to meet, and only two adults to greet us, we gathered a lot of information from the grounds. The welcome sign said, “Seek and Speak Truth and Love.” The 54 acres showcased an enormous soccer field, a garden area, two tether ball poles (my kids’ favorite) and woods with a small stream running through. The small campus included only two major buildings – one for elementary ages, and one for middle and upper grades.
Inside the middle school, where Dylan would attend, artwork was everywhere. There was a small lunchroom for a population of around 50 students, with an adjacent kitchen. The library consists of two sofas and a huge shelf full of books. There’s a full-sized gymnasium with a regulation basketball court, and a theater with a stage where they do several dramatic productions each year.
There’s also a room with keyboards for music classes, and several student-art-enhanced classrooms. Even though we toured in summer, we could see the circular arrangement of the desks. The teacher is part of the circle, rather than a lecturer. Discussion is encouraged rather than forbidden, and the kids are all engaged in learning rather than being quieted while all facing forward.
We learned even more from talking with staff – and there is so, so, so much I could say about what I learned from this tour. But in trying to keep it short, I can say that this is an academically centered Quaker school. It is an environment of caring and kindness, while encouraging kids to find their place in the world – to develop their talents and strengths, while also learning the subject matter and study skills required to succeed in school and the real world.
And to make everything just a little bit better, the kids practice a brief morning routine where they reflect on a topic (“like courage,” said the headmaster) as they center themselves and get ready for their day. So Dylan would be able to learn the art of calming himself – something he needs maybe more than anything else – so that he can go forward from there and accept himself.
He could excel here, really excel – not just struggle through each day, fighting the cruelties and trying to wait until college. Dylan would be able to pull himself up and out of the dust, and go on to succeed beyond even his own dreams.
When we left the tiny campus after more than two hours, I was ready to start Dylan there tomorrow. But … I hadn’t asked Dylan what he thought of the place – and he had been exploring with Shane (on his own) for more than an hour.
“So,” I asked tentatively. “What did you think?”
“I want to go there,” he said.
And that was that.
In my quest for private schools, I found one for grades 6 through 12 that specializes in teaching students with “learning differences,” including processing disorders (Shane) and attention disorders (Dylan).
The website on this school was vague, so I scoured the web for more information, while I waited to go on my tour of the school. I found almost nothing, except one generic school site listing the population of students as 9.
That can’t be right, I thought. There can’t only be 9 students in the whole school!
But indeed, there are. Well, actually, two students just graduated so with Dylan, there would be 8.
The school is located inside a church that was having Vacation Bible School, so there weren’t any classrooms to tour. But I was able to sit with the school’s principal for an hour and get a good grasp on what the school is like.
While the small size concerned me, it was the principal’s comments that knocked me nearly across the room – and right out the door.
“We do have some gifted students,” she said, in response to Dylan’s brilliance. “It often boosts their self-esteem that, when they are done with their own work, they can help the students who are not as high-performing.”
I could imagine Dylan sitting with his three-day project finished in 20 minutes (although he probably forgot to put his name on it). Then I imagined him spending the next three days helping someone else finish that project.
Then there was the story of the incredibly gifted boy who, in spite of his learning differences, excelled in science.
“We had to buy him a new textbook,” the principal said, as if that would really help the gifted boy go far.
I pictured Dylan with his new textbook, bored to tears. Dylan wouldn’t ever open a new textbook, even if someone said it contained the secret to life itself.
But the creme de la creme – and the final straw – came when the principal said to me, “I noticed you mentioned Dylan wanting to go to MIT. You really shouldn’t do that.”
After some story about a kid who dropped out of high school because he couldn’t play college basketball, she said, “You don’t want to get his hopes up.”
I DON’T WANT TO GET HIS HOPES UP?!?
Actually, Miss Principal, I do want to get his hopes up. I am well aware of the MIT reputation for admissions – only 8.2% of applicants were accepted in 2014. But if Dylan wants to work toward the goal of acceptance by MIT (which he actually does not), then he has every right to do that – whether or not he has “learning differences.”
I expect great things from my boy – most especially happiness and the ability for him to do whatever the heck he wants to do. If the kid wants to go to MIT, he will apply to MIT. You will not squash his dreams – any dreams – even if his dream is to be a world-famous quarterback in the NFL, or a taco truck driver, or a heart surgeon or a ski instructor or a door-to-door lava lamp salesman!
So.
Dylan will NOT be going to school at Private School Option #1.
Unless, of course, he really wants to, because that would be his choice.
But, he says, he does not – and I didn’t even tell him about the whole MIT thing.
