It's been really busy

I have been drowning here of late and now that the ladies Retreat is over I can actually just roll with the punches for the next few months. The kids are fine. We are all a bit under the weather today. While I was out of town, Kamdyn came down with a big cold. I am sleep deprived from the retreat (I was 1/2 of the "Snack Chicks") so that has led to a nasty cold for me as well.

Retreats are fun but they are also a lot of work. This is my 7th retreat to serve on the committee for and each year I say it's the last but I have already signed up for next year. I know, I know.

The kids played Moses in the Jordan river ( Garrison is confussing the story of Naaman and Moses) today and then they ran around playing Barbie and the Magic of Pegasus. I am glad that there are more male parts in these new movies. Garrison pretends he is the evil Wedlock or the good Adian. Kamy is always Princess Annaika. I love watching them play. They are at a great age for that right now.

I also think I have found a new pre-school for Kamdyn this Fall. Sachse Christian Academy is only 3 minutes from our house and actually less than anywhere I've looked at on this side of town. This will be the first year they are having a 3 year old pre-k class and they use the Abeka method of education. I've been researching it and it seems to be a Christian based curriculum much like she has been learning at Prestoncrest. Garrison will start Cox Elementary in the Fall and will study with Dr. Sally Kirkham two hours a week. She focuses on more of the Science and History he loves so much and won't get much of in public kindergarden.

Standard parenting stories apply, nothin out of the norm here in the house. It was good to get home and sleep in my bed.
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Old post reposted / by request

Thank you to everyone who called and asked about little Garrison and his testing. He's been acting out a bit in school, biting his fingernails and giving us some fits at home. Dr. Sally Kirkham had been recommended to us last year and we just waited, well I'm not sure why we waited, but we did.

Now we are a little bit better equipped to understand him and how his little mind works and why he's acting out like he is. We didn't know what to expect and got mainly good news about Garre. I've talked to some of you and this below is a comprehensive report on his meeting and testing. I've probably said bit's and pieces to different people so forgive me if this sounds a bit different. I'm typing from my meeting notes now.

If this looks like a lot, it is. I am sharing this in this format for a couple of reasons. First, I can look back at it and refocus. I am not a very organized scheduled person and Garre needs that a lot right now. Second, because I have one of the older kids in my group of friend and I wanted to share our experiences and maybe encourage you, if you're reading this, to remember that you know your child best and a little encouragement goes a long way. I was afraid that he might be labeled a problem and I didn't want him to have that stigma. So no matter the outcome of the testing, as least we know and have a game plan for his education. We are not just roaming around in the dark.

Garrison did terrific in his academic testing on Monday. In fact he surprised us a bit. The doctor (Dr. Sally Kirkham, expert in psychology and education)that he tested with, met with Garrison him for a little over an hour and evaluated his abilities in the areas of spacial reasoning, general knowledge, math aptitude, and reading level. Over all he fell in the late kindergarten to mid-1st grade areas in most of the evaluation. In other areas he was more advanced, for example his verbal skills. He averages out at about a 6 year level.

Sean and I were very excited to hear that he does not tend or lean toward ADD or hyperactivity, although it's a little early for an official diagnosis. Some of the tasks she had his perform are as follows:

1. First he was asked to write the alphabet for memory in a room alone, stayed on task and not get up and roam around. Guess what?!!! He DID it. She said she was impressed to find that he stayed in his chair, wrote 24 of the 26 letters and never left his chair. He sat quietly until she came back in the room. She had been watching him. I was the most proud and surprised at this.

2. He was given a set of patterns and asked to draw them at the 4, 5 and 6 year old levels. For example one set was a series of lines intersecting in different patterns and he was instructed to re-create the pictures in the box given. He was able to do each one up to the 7 year old level and even at those he understood the basic principles of the layout of the objects as evidenced in his attempts to re-create the patterns.

3. He was given a series of letter patterns in both upper and lower case
for example:
b b d b b d
p q p q p q
and he was asked to name and write and continue each pattern.
He was also given shape patterns and word patterns in the same test, progressively getting more difficult and he was able to follow the patterns and word sequencing up to a 6.5 year old level.

4. They play a game to see how well he could listen and follow instructions. He also did very well. They only had to play twice before he could count the numbers on the dices add them and move the corresponding number of spaces.

5. She tested his listening comprehension. She read a paragraph and then asked his questions. Here he did fairly well but at about a 5 year old level.

There were other tests but at his young age you can not but a "academic number" (ie: IQ) to the results it's just too early. He will get that at 6. He has to have it if he is going into an accelerated academic prep-school.

Garrison's over all assessment was that he is advanced and extremely bright but he is very hard on himself and quite a perfectionist. He does not have the maturity yet to understand and channel his thoughts and energy into productive output. Dr. Kirkham feels he would benefit from a private education and recommended the Greenhill School or St. Marks of Texas for middle school and high school. She was very fair in her assessment and treatment of a public education. Neither Sean or I found her to be a proponent of either in general. She said it really depends on the nature and personality of the child. Her assessment of Garrison's kindergarten through 4th grade was either keep him in Wylie ISD and supplement his education with outside academic stimulation via a gifted program or see if we could get him into the di Vinci School of Dallas.

After Sean and I were shocked into silence. (Shocking, I know, Steph at a loss for words) I asked about his behavior of late and her assessment was that his is not getting enough active mental stimulation or being challenged enough and is looking for things to activate his brain and keep him interested.

It was at this point that she noted that Garrison is not a big risk taker. Her term was a "low risk threshold." In other words he doesn't try sometimes because he lacks the confidence in his own abilities and he's terrified of failing, getting into trouble for doing it wrong or being called out in front of others and being made an example of wrong.

She said he need to build up his confidence to the point where he wants to try new things and is not afraid to fail once in a while. Here I though we were doing such a good job of praising him and letting him know we believe he is a good boy and a wonderful kid.

Near the end we agreed that we would like to start sending him to her once a week to supplement Pre-K and she also suggested he and I start a journal and track his own thoughts about his school fears and his progress. She recommended that he dictate a couple of sentences a couple of times a day and have him re-read them back to me later and talk about them. She also suggested that we take his homework and make two piles; Assignments that he felt he did well and assignments he did not like or refused to do for whatever reason. She also asked that we talk to his teacher and give us a concrete, written down list of daily "green expectations" and have his memorize those and recite them. We are also going to move to a Red Yellow Green daily evaluation system at home to mirror the school program.

Last but not least I am going to involve Garrison in all preparation and plan making throughout the week so that there are no surprises. He doesn't handle change well and that actually is right in synch with his teachers at school. Transition is the hardest time for Garrison. He will get his own calendar in his room so that he know what is coming up and we can mentally prepare for it.

She said somewhere he's getting the impression that wrong or incorrect is "bad" so he wont even try and get very wound up and frustrated if he's pushed outside his comfort zone.