Final school shopping-
I took my kids today for the final round of school supplies shopping. Roughly, $240.00 spent today, not counting what was done before which amounts to about the same. I want to say, first of all, that I understand the frustrations of teachers when children come ill prepared for class. I've seen some creative solutions for teachers "lending" supplies to students, mostly at the middle school age. One teacher I know makes the student take off one shoe in exchange for a pencil. There's no way they can say they "forgot" to give it back at the end of class. Anyway, I really do understand that it is frustrating and expensive for the teachers to keep providing supplies.
BUT- All that said, there's just no reason why the school supply list has to be for the entire year. There's no reason why my 3rd grader needs to have 24 pencils at the moment, or 8 folders, when they are used strictly for bringing home school work. I think she used 4 or 5 last year.
It get's crazy. I have 3 boxes of 24 count crayons, 2 boxes of markers, highlighters, red marking pens, dry erase pens, glue, scissors, rubber cement, 48 pencils, black pens, mechanical pencils, 2 binders, 3 backpacks, 16 folders, pink erasers, rulers, notebook paper in two line sizes, and then I'm expected to buy tissues, babywipes, ziplock bags. Some of it, I'm guessing at, because my son hasn't met with his teachers to know what specific items he'll need in HS.
I had to buy his Adderall today. He also has an infection in his eye, so he has antibiotics to take too. But, for now, he's all set for school.
In discussing his meds with the DR., there's been a shift in what ADD/ ADHD is all about.
Back when my son was in 2nd grade and we began this journey, We never got a good explanation on what was going on in his head and why a medicine that would make me hyper, would settle him down. "It just works opposite on these people" is what we got.
Now, there's been a shift in the idea of what's going on inside there people's brains. Now they think that parts of their brain are actually trying to go to sleep and the people act out and their brain acts out, trying to keep itself awake. The meds actually keep the "sleepy" brain more alert, so the kids don't have to go to extremes to wake it up.
My son was never aggressive towards others, never acted out in class, fidgeted quite a bit in his seat, wiggled and squirmed. In the summer, we take him off his meds so he can gain weight and not build up a tolerance to the meds. I deal with a lot of irritating behavior. Most often he actually yells, "bla,bla,bla,bla !" or some other nonsense sounds. It's wearing on you. It's irritating, it's noisy, it's childish. But, he's gained almost 10 lbs. And worth it.
He's on a very low dose, only raised once since 2nd grade and, since he's grown, we are tapering him off it slowly. I can see a difference when he's on his meds besides the lack of weird noises. He's quieter, less animated, there's less sparkle to him. He's less likely to show any humor, which is something teachers notice when he's not on meds, like this summer in his art class.
Speaking of him and art classes, I can not give his Middle school art teacher, Mrs. Alexander, enough praise. She single-handedly turned his whole attitude about art around. He was never considered successful before, therefore, he did not like art. It was painful to be artistic and have a son who didn't believe he could be. She made a difference.
I plan on having a quiet day tomorrow and staying home. I may get talked into walking down to the lake for a swim, but not anything more than that. It was miserable driving today, but there's some sort of antique car show going on in Branson, because we saw tons of them driving around. There didn't seem to be a theme to it. All ages, restored to original, or not. A bit confusing actually, but nice eye candy.