Extended School Year

Extended school year (ESY) is a special education service that goes beyond the usual school year, into the summer.  It is provided by the federal law, Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). The issue is whether the benefits obtained during the regular school year will be significantly jeopardized if the child is not provided an educational program during the summer months. The child’s IEP team makes the ultimate decision on whether the child can attend ESY services.  Aiden has been fortunate to have had pretty good IEP teams that have always pushed for him to attend ESY services. That decision was based on their efforts to prevent or reduce possible academic regression (decline in knowledge and skills that result from an interruption in education) and to minimize recoupment (the amount of time it takes to regain the prior level of functioning).  ESY is not exactly like regular school. He only goes for 3 hours a day, 4 days a week, for 5 weeks with a week break in between, but I’m grateful that he goes. Aiden relies heavily on routines and schedules. Stopping all that, once the school year ends, is difficult for him even with ESY and the routines that I keep for him at home. Fortunately, Aiden also likes ESY.  He doesn’t love it, but he does like it.  I think all the familiarity of being around his school friends and school routines makes him feel more comfortable.  I hope he’ll continue to receive ESY services every year.

Parties

We’ve been to a fair amount of parties in Aiden’s day.  It usually goes okay if Aiden finds someone to run around with or if he has a phone or tablet to use during the party.  But since we haven’t had any huge problems occur in that area lately, it gets easier to take it for granted and think that he’s just fine with everything that’s going on around him but that’s not true and he reminded me of that recently. We were at a more formal party this time so he had no toys and no electronics to keep him content. Thankfully he did have his little cousin there to help keep him entertained but throughout the time we were there he kept asking me when we were going to leave.  When could he get back on his Chromebook? When could he back at home? I answered him with “I don’t know”, “later”, “in a little while”, etc.  These are not concrete answers and so they were difficult for him to understand and accept.  I know that but didn’t think of it at the time.  This went on all night.  From the outside it looked like he was fine. 

He said his hellos to everyone, he played with his cousin, he even danced on the dance floor for awhile, but really he wasn’t okay on the inside and my vague abstract responses to his questions were only worsening the sensory overload he was most likely experiencing. Unfortunately this wasn’t apparent to me until later that night after we got back home.  After he was comfortably settled in. After he was happily back on his Chromebook. Then about 30 minutes later he came to me crying.  I asked him what was wrong, I thought he was feeling sick (that’s usually the only time he really cries just out of the blue) but that wasn’t it.  I kept asking him what was wrong but he doesn’t always speak in complete sentences and when he’s upset, even just simple words are difficult for him to get out. So it took me a minute to figure out why he was crying but I eventually realized that it was because of the fact that I didn’t give him any concrete answers at the party as to when we would go home. He didn’t understand what I was telling him at the time but he did very much sense my frustration at him for asking me over and over again. It took him the whole ride home, getting comfortably settled in doing what he really enjoys, plus an extra 30 minutes to process what he had been experiencing and feeling at the party and then tried his hardest to explain it to me.  I still don’t even know if he’s done. He could bring it back up to me again tomorrow.  

I always think that once he’s really mastered language/speaking that things like this will be easier to handle. Maybe not his sensory input, but at least being able to talk about it.  So I told him that next time we would bring a little notebook this way if he had a question we can write it down, along with my answer, so that he could refer back to it when he’s starting to get anxious again. This way he’ll have a physical reminder that he can actually “see” and “touch”.  And I will continue to work on making my responses more concrete. Ah, the journey continues...

Epic Air Trampoline Park - South Elgin, IL

Epic Air is an indoor arena with jumping courts, foam pit, trampoline basketball & dodgeball, ball blaster, and a concession stand. This place was definitely a winner for Aiden.  He really liked it here, the jumping, the foam pit, the ball blaster area, he liked it all.  I figured he would enjoy it since he really likes jumping on inflatables but I was a little bit surprised because for days, maybe a week before we went, he seemed excited but nervous at the same time.  I guess it was because he would look it up on YouTube and watch videos of people doing tricks jumping high, off the walls, and into the foam pit. I thought that would excite him rather than scare him but he would tell me that he didn’t want to jump that high and would ask me if he had to jump off the walls.  But now looking back on it I think what was really making him nervous was that during this time he hadn’t been feeling very well, kept getting stomachaches in the mornings so I think he thought that if he jumped too much or too high at Epic that he would throw up.  I’m pretty sure that’s what it was because as we got closer to the Epic day he was no longer feeling ill and when the actual day finally arrived, he wasn’t nervous at all, just super excited. He really did enjoy this place and would love to go back.

Medieval Times - Schaumburg, IL

Medieval Times is basically a dinner with a show inside a big castle-like space.  We were served a 4-course meal, without utensils, as we watched a live action show set during the medieval times. There was a king, princess, knights, jousting, horsemanship and falconry. During the show you cheer for the knight that represents your crown color as he competes for the title.

I wasn’t really sure what Aiden would think of this trip but he said that he liked it and he really was getting into it towards the end when the knights were actually fighting each other.  I thought the food was pretty decent.  Aiden didn’t really eat much because he is extremely picky and there are no options at Medieval Times.  You eat what you’re served or you don’t eat at all. He did at least try everything.  He was especially curious about the “dragon meat” they served. I’m so glad that’s what our server called it because had she said “chicken” he would’ve passed.

Deicke Park - Huntley, IL

This is a very nice park. The playground here looks like a little town with a pretend ice cream and barber shop, a railroad crossing bell, musical instruments, and bench sized swings for adults to sit on, all with a rubber cushioned floor.  There’s also a sandy area, different height basketball hoops, as well as swings and standard playground equipment.  This place was clearly designed with younger children in mind but Aiden’s been here twice now and he’s really enjoyed it each time, as did I.

Funtopia - Glenview, IL

This place was great! There are 2 sections of this place that we saw.  One with a maze like area of soft foam thing obstacles to crawl on or through but we didn’t go in there because it’s only for kids ages 1 - 8. The other, bigger section is full of fun walls, ropes course, a 20 ft tall slide, and a free fall jump.  Aiden is the very active, very physical type so I thought for sure he’d love this but as soon as he got harnessed up and we walked in, he cried. I guess up close he realized just how high these walls actually go.  He was struggling to do this so we had him start with the easiest looking ones, the tires.  

It was a good call.  He did it with ease after watching a little girl half his size do it first.  After that he tried out everything except the free fall jump.  He did have an issue with the ropes course though.  He insisted he wanted to go on it then he started it, didn’t feel he could continue, and just stood their crying.  I felt so bad for him.  He was scared, there was so much going on around him, and there was no one to help him. I couldn’t help him.  He was a good 10 feet off the ground and you couldn’t go up on that thing without being harnessed.  We had to get the employee’s attention to have her help him get off.  It was such a terrible feeling for me, I can only imagine what it was like for him.  But after being at this place for 45 minutes he insisted that he wanted to try it again.  So up he went.  This time he got further down the course than the last time but again he got stuck, stopped, and just cried.  Once they got him down from there I couldn’t wait to wrap my arms around him and tell him how proud I was of him.  There have been so many times that I’ve asked him to do things that he was afraid to try and now here he was voluntarily trying something on his own that he feared.  I look up to this kid so much.  He is always so brave.  Also, this place is a good workout.  He knocked out as soon as we got in the car.

Kids Expo - Schaumburg, IL

This expo was held at the Schaumburg Convention Center.  It had several exhibitor booths with lots of small freebie giveaways.  

It also had several attractions that were fun for Aiden like knockerball, a petting zoo, balloon artist, stage performances, and character appearances like princesses, pirates, etc. There was also face painting and bounce houses but those things you had to pay extra for.  And there was a butterfly sanctuary that he went into and a free Chicago Herpetological Society reptile show where he got to hold a turtle and touch snakes and lizards.  He really loved that, he is all about the reptiles!  All in all he had a pretty good time here.