Bids for Connection

Shane was almost on time for Tiger Tones Wednesday morning. 

A couple of cars pulled up after I was driving off, so he wasn't the last one!

We've been trying to get plugged in to our new community ever since we moved. We joined a small group for our church that met several times before disbanding. We've been visiting a local church instead of our old one, but it's really small. Shane's in after school care. Tiger Tones is once a week. I'd hoped there'd be more Scottsville kids in soccer, but only one 2nd grader from Shane's school was on his team. Carrie gave our phone number to our neighbor, but thinks she copied it down wrong.

So far our biggest local success is Henry pulling up in our driveway to deliver jumps with his dad.

We had a parent-teacher conference at Shane's school last week. His teachers noted that he has a ton of ability, but is having trouble working to it and integrating socially.

On the social side, they said that he has trouble fitting in with the different friend groups and has bounced from group to group. They said that Shane often sits on his own and reads rather than interact. They said he blurts out things that no one wants to hear (like how big his poop was) and that he can come across as impatient and even condescending when there are kids who have trouble with subtraction with regrouping and he can multiply and divide mentally.

Shane has started a "chase game" that is played at almost every recess that goes over well, though.

This week, there was a cardboard challenge day Shane was looking forward to. Carrie got a text from the teacher that Shane was refusing to participate. I asked Shane what happened when I picked him up and he said that he hadn't wanted to work alone. He said no other groups would take him.

The SPED teacher ended up working with him and he said that was a lot of fun, but we hoped he'd have more friends in his class by this point.

Shane reports a slightly different story. He has friends and chooses to read. He said that kids think he's funny and hums away seemingly undisturbed.

Academically, the teachers said that Shane has fantastic strategies for solving problems that are more advanced than most of the students. However, they then showed me a math test on adding and subtracting large numbers he scored poorly on. The teachers stated they could see Shane looking around mid-test and seemed unfocused.

The distraction has continued throughout class. He hasn't been honest with his computer use and he has to sit with the computer screen facing outward when he's on it as a result. He's been using it for his reading, too, but to the point he's neglecting his other reading tasks because he only wants to do the online books.

There was a standardized reading test I can't remember the name of.. Shane scored a 5 on it where the national average was a 7. The next time he was assessed, Shane scored something like a 23.

So it's been a rougher transition than planned. School and meeting kids was something that Shane excelled at in the past.

It's like the game has changed on him and he hasn't adapted. Shane likes to do something super high energy, dramatic, and silly to get people to look at him. That was enough to make 'friends' when younger. Coming in to a new setting with older kids requires more finesse with skills like listening and empathy.

Every morning when Shane hops on the bus he stops and shouts some sort of announcement. "Look at the horses over there!" Or "Do you see my dog!? He ____!" Shane is Shane after all. He's said that kids on the bus have liked him more ever since the horses have set hooves on our land.

Everything seems fine when Shane's at home. He acts happy. He'd love to have multiple play dates every day and asks me to call people for him, but he's always been like that!

Some of this is probably standard parenting. There's always something you hope your kid will do better with.

What I really want to see is an improvement in Shane's listening skills. There are times I talk to him and I can see it going in one ear and out the other. Then he tries to continue talking about whatever it was he wanted to mention before I spoke. I bet if he was a better listener and more observant of those around him it'd help with school and social outlets.