Oh, wow I feel you on that second to last paragraph.
I'm a Midwesterner (small town, Swedish Lutheran, raised to value humility and frugality. Totally not special.). We now live in suburban CT and send our kids to Catholic school.
I was SO proud of my autistic daughter for making honors for her first marking period of sixth grade. Then I w…
Oh, wow I feel you on that second to last paragraph.
I'm a Midwesterner (small town, Swedish Lutheran, raised to value humility and frugality. Totally not special.). We now live in suburban CT and send our kids to Catholic school.
I was SO proud of my autistic daughter for making honors for her first marking period of sixth grade. Then I went to the ceremony and saw that more than half her class had *high honors*. And I had a moment of "am I not doing enough?"
I had to consciously nip that thought in the bud.
My daughter entered kindergarten years ago with a thick IEP. She struggled with changing schools during COVID. Kids make fun of her because of her autism. She dealt with girl bullying. A particularly savage helicopter mom, who didn't think kids on the autism spectrum "belonged" in private school and thought my daughter "annoyed" her son, tried to bully us out of the school.
My daughter goes upstairs everyday with her backpack and just diligently does her work. She has no more IEP, no accommodations. She is 100 percent self motivated. Honor Roll was HER goal, not ours. She earned that completely on her own without parental intervention.
And when they announced her name for "honors", it didn't matter that she came after all the "high honors" kids. She squealed with delight and ran up to the stage smiling the biggest smile.
And I was like "yeah, I'm doing everything right."
Oh, wow I feel you on that second to last paragraph.
I'm a Midwesterner (small town, Swedish Lutheran, raised to value humility and frugality. Totally not special.). We now live in suburban CT and send our kids to Catholic school.
I was SO proud of my autistic daughter for making honors for her first marking period of sixth grade. Then I went to the ceremony and saw that more than half her class had *high honors*. And I had a moment of "am I not doing enough?"
I had to consciously nip that thought in the bud.
My daughter entered kindergarten years ago with a thick IEP. She struggled with changing schools during COVID. Kids make fun of her because of her autism. She dealt with girl bullying. A particularly savage helicopter mom, who didn't think kids on the autism spectrum "belonged" in private school and thought my daughter "annoyed" her son, tried to bully us out of the school.
My daughter goes upstairs everyday with her backpack and just diligently does her work. She has no more IEP, no accommodations. She is 100 percent self motivated. Honor Roll was HER goal, not ours. She earned that completely on her own without parental intervention.
And when they announced her name for "honors", it didn't matter that she came after all the "high honors" kids. She squealed with delight and ran up to the stage smiling the biggest smile.
And I was like "yeah, I'm doing everything right."
That's lovely. :)