Cole

Holy smokes. That poor kid has made friends with more doctors, therapists, and psychologists than probably necessary. All because of an over-zealous preschool teacher. Which angers me beyond belief. Livid is actually an appropriate word here. As a parent you know if your kid is different. There's something not right about them. Cole was assessed for autism a year ago. Of course, being a helpful parent I shared that with his preschool teacher for the upcoming year. She almost refused to take him without a program assistant. I had to do a lot of talking to get him in there, despite the fact he did NOT place anywhere on the autism spectrum. Screened completely out. Because of that assessment they did make the recommendation that he see a speech language pathologist (we were already on that one), an occupational therapist (slightly behind in gross and fine motor skills), and a behavior therapist for defiance and manipulation issues.

So being the diligent parents we are, we got all of that lined up. Speech, he's doing just fine after weekly therapy appointments and we didn't need autism screening to tell us he was behind and having formation issues. The OT wanted me to work on snipping paper with him, mazes, and putting his coat on. Done and done. A year at preschool covered that. The behavior issues? He's 3.5/4. He's strong willed. He's highly intelligent. It's the perfect storm for "I don't want to, so I'm not going to, and I'll trick you out of me doing it". Yes, our 4 year old can outsmart us on occasion. I'll fully admit that. Never to him though. Here, sure. And Mike and I are intelligent people ourselves, so the kid comes by it honestly. It's just staying one step ahead.

So with the "your child may be special needs" package also comes a supported child development worker. Our was named Cindy. Cindy observed Cole at preschool monthly, and wrote up a report and sent it home in Cole's backpack. Cindy was a blessing really. She assured us that Cole was a very bright, friendly, well behaved child at school. This was completely contrary to what his preschool was saying. Not joking. His preschool actually tried to get a program assistant for Cole for next year for his "behaviour issues". Cindy is the one who would have granted funding for it, and immediately denied it. According to his preschool Cole was easily distracted, lacking focus, very high energy and a disruption in class. Cindy found he was one of the best behaved kids in class. Not wanting to leave a stone unturned, back we went for more assessments, this time ADHD. We'd rather be proactive rather than reactive parents. We didn't want him to get to elementary school and have nothing but problems because of some unknown issue. Right around then Cole started doing math at home. Like Grade 1 math. Addition, subtraction, greater than, less than math. He started learning how to read shortly after his 4th birthday. The pediatrician we saw (and have always seen since for developmental issues since Cole was in NICU) didn't completely rule out ADHD, but did feel that Cole was bored and unchallenged at preschool. In other words, cut and paste wasn't enough. Teach me reading, math, geography, all of it. Now. That was last month (May).

We'd been looking into schools for Cole since February. We knew that if we were going to send him to private school, we better know where we were going, so we were on the waiting list. We just weren't overly happy with most of our public school choices. We found a private school we love. I called them after the pediatrician appointment just for guidance on what to do with Cole for the next year while we wait for him to start Kindergarten. They suggested we come in, with the possibility of Cole starting K a year early. So, we went. And they were very happy with him and what they saw. Cole starts Kindergarten in September, a year early.

A lot of thought went into that decision. It wasn't something we just rushed into. He's really small for his age, and that bothers me because now he's going to be really small up against kids a year older than he is. His birthday is early February, so he's not that much younger than the youngest kids chronologically. Our K cutoff is December 31st for the year of enrollment. We would be doing him a disservice really to not enroll him now. Another year bored in preschool? He's my baby, and I had mentally prepared myself for September 2013, not September 2012, so that has taken some adjustment. The principal said that they don't really see if it was a mistake or not until they hit around Grade 5 or 6. So, we'll see. But for now, this is the best decision for Cole. My baby starts Kindergarten in September. Oh, and preschool's reaction? Less than favourable, and almost downright nasty. Two more weeks to go there.