Wednesday, October 22, 2008

Daycare Woes

Well, over the past year and a half, I've been very happy with our daycare. Chase is a handful some days, but the teachers have been very understanding and given him the extra attention he needs to survive in a daycare situation.

Until now, that is.

For some background, Chase (and Cory) go to a very nice daycare each morning. Chase leaves around noon to go to his "real" preschool class.

At daycare, he's in the 4-5 year old preschool/daycare class. There are about 20 kids and two teachers. It seems to me that one of the teachers does not want to "deal" with him.

Yes, he takes some negotiating on certain things. But, once he's comfortable, he does pretty well.

At his "real" preschool, which is afternoons at the Elementary School for our district, he is doing good. The class is about the same size, but there are three teachers.

So, yesterday, we had his Teacher Consultant (who helps his teachers to meet his special needs) observe the daycare.

Her feelings were like ours: The teacher was not going to put any extra effort in to help Chase. She was actually excluding him to a certain level, and even though we offered ideas to make things easier for him, it was going "in one ear and out the other."

So, we took him (and Cory) out of the daycare. My angel of a Mom is going to watch the kids until we can figure something else out.

We've been at that daycare quite a while, and I'm sad to have to do this, but we don't really have a choice. They never said that they could handle special needs kids, but so far, the teachers have cared enough to put in a little bit of effort.

There's actually other autistic kids at that daycare, but these kids are less functional than Chase, keep to themselves, and do not interact with the teachers or the other children. So, these kids are "easy" compared to Chase, who wants friends and to interact but doesn't really understand social norms and rules.

It makes me scared to think about future school classes and how those will go. sigh.

2 comments:

Erika said...

wow. that's EXACTLY what happened to Alex at his last day care.

So we took him out and he is now in a day care that provides a respite teacher for his transitions. It's amazing. So I applied through the county to apply for respite care and I qualified for $2.50/hour rate for 8 hours per week. The day care then provides an extra teacher to work with him and a couple other kids with special needs throughout the day. LOVE IT. This teacher also has a son with autism. She totally gets it and is totally wonderful. Hope that you find the same kind of wonderful solution out where you are!

April said...

Sorry things are tough. Daycare woes are the worst. Thankfully you have your mom to help out!