Image via WikipediaToday is the official last day of the holiday season. Tomorrow, the work place will return to normal. For me, that means no holidays until President's Day in February. We actually have a choice between Martin Luther King's Birthday or President's Day, but to me, King's Birthday is just too close to the New Year holiday. After President's Day, the next official holiday that my office has off is Memorial Day in May. It is just another reason for me to pick President's Day as my flex holiday.In addition to the work place returning to normal, it is also the day that kids return to school. For most parents, that is a day of relief, but for me it is a day of dread. I have documented on this blog some of the challenges that my wife and I have faced in the transition of our son to a residential education program. The two most recent examples of which can be found here and here.
Originally, my son was supposed to come home for the Christmas break on December 23rd. Due to a particularly bad weekend, the head of the program decided to send a few kids home early. Instead of being home for a 10 day Christmas break, he was home for a full three weeks. While it was great to have him home, it is just going to make it that much harder to get him to return to school tomorrow morning. In essence, the whole process has to begin again.
Since the day we brought him home for his early Christmas break, he has been telling us "no school tomorrow." It is his way of telling us he doesn't want us he doesn't want to go to school. Part of the problem for him is that he doesn't get to do a lot of the things he likes to do at home. They requested that we not leave anything of value at the school. Consequently he doesn't have his computer, DVD player, or video games. The only thing he has from home is a portable CD player.
He keeps his CD player with him constantly. It is one of the things that gives him a great deal of pleasure. When we picked him up three weeks ago, the batteries in his CD player were dead. We had left a large quantity of batteries with the school for him because we know how much of them he uses. Unfortunately, the batteries were kept locked up in the residential director's office, and nobody had access to get him fresh batteries. It made me wonder how long the batteries had been dead and if that contributed to his behavior issues.
I understand the decision to want to keep the batteries in a place where they would be safe. I do not understand them putting them in a place where nobody else in authority would be able to get them for my son. I also understand the school not wanting us to leave anything of great value at the school. We have been very hesitant to let him keep his Nintendo DS or his portable DVD player at school. Though I do have to wonder if his transition would be easier if he had one or both of those things.
The dorm area seems to be the area where he has the most difficulty. When in class, the majority of the reports that we get are positive. They do have some after class activities that he enjoys. They have weekly socials with music and dancing that he really enjoys. On the night before he left, they had a karaoke party that he had a great time at. In fact, he told me he danced with one girl in his class. He has mentioned her a couple times since he has been home, but he still doesn't seem to like or miss her enough to go back to school.
I am still torn on whether or not we should let him take his DVD player to school. The dorms have one television that all of the residents use. Aside from when they put a sporting event on the television, I do not think he ever gets to watch any of the things he likes when he is home. Things like Wheel of Fortune, Maya & Miguel, and of all things, believe it or not, infomercials. He has DVDs that I have made for him of all of those things. Having those to watch in the dorm might help him while he is there, but I would also hate for anything to happen to the DVD player while there. What would you do?
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