Educational Evals- A parent's view of the first time

Many times, ed evals are done at a younger age. My son had his first one at 3 1/2. If there are things going on or a teacher is complaining they may come later. This is OUR first experience with an educational evaluation. It was not pleasant, I will admit that doing this as a solo parent was painful; emotionally and mentally. If you can get someone to go with you, DO.
Again this was our FIRST EXPERIENCE: it was many years ago and many things about the process has changed....still it is worth reading.

"Evaluations suck. They do; they suck, blow or whatever vernacular you can use…. that is it in a nutshell. Our first ever evaluation was done at a school.
The old bat (she was really), oops, I mean teacher, that was in charge of the evaluation chastised me for everything under the sun. She got after me about using my son's nickname, not doing potty training sooner and allowing him to eat baby food and rot his teeth. IT got better from there.

There is another parent here, her son supposedly lisps and she wants free day care. My baby can't talk and she is fussed about a supposed lisp?? Some people should just get smacked up one side and down the other. For some strange reason, I have NEVER forgotten that Mom and I look at her with disgust every time I see her. She sickens me. I think she knows it too, she is super nice to my son every time she sees him and knows I can see through her…. The nerve of some people’s children; it amazes me that people my age weren’t brought up better. This sense of overall entitlement is beyond anything.

Anyhow, this school evaluation…. the initial testing went downhill from the start.

This first school evaluation went on for hours and hours, and hours. I really don't recall HOW long we were there (does eternity sound about right?). They checked through everything, and asked me why my sister-in-law in AZ was trying to help me get through all this (emotionally and mentally I was wiped out for other reasons). I will admit to not being in good shape (mentally or physically) for this type of ordeal. Essentially, I was newly separated, unemployed, taking care of my parents (OK trying to…they were stubborn). Just not a good place and trying to find out where a good place is for myself and my son.

Anyhow, on goes the first evaluation at the local school.

We went, my son and I, and I don't really remember how we got there or what happened after we arrived. From what I recall, I believe I drove myself there, although the evaluation was less than a block away from where we were living. Good thing I did drive, I don't believe I could have managed the walk home although driving about a block, it was completely debatable. After the evaluation I am pretty certain that I barely managed to drive home....I was shell shocked to say the least. If I remember correctly, my son and I came home, and we both crawled into bed....not sure if we had dinner or not or if we were cognizant enough to discuss the overall evaluation and coming treatment options with my parents.

In any case, at the first school evaluation the teachers were disrespectful at best. My favorite question was, "What did you do to him to make him this way?". As soon as we were in the door of the school the questions about home issues started. I was asked some pretty bad things, and asked why my son would not respond to them (DUH, he doesn't know you).

Then another old hag, OOP's I mean teacher, asked me why we didn't call him by his first name instead of a nickname? WHO CARES??? We had always used his nickname (given to him by his aunt, my sister) and had done so for years. Old witch, some teachers should just retire (at 20). They just do not have the ability to help or teach when they loose their compassion. Her line was, "If they don't use his name how do they expect him to know it?" Um, hello moron, children have nicknames, and our son knew his....what an old bat.

Anyway, at the school, during the evaluation process multiple forms had to be filled out. The forms, my God the forms; I filled out SO many blasted forms that day. After the forms and the questions they, the teachers and other evaluators, took a break (Thank God they finally left the room....I needed to breathe and wanted to cry). For an extremely uncomfortable twenty minutes, the other mom, her son, my son and I were left in this room. The other mom (the parent of the kid with a supposed lisp) couldn't look me in the eye. She was ashamed, I hope, of trying to get free services for a child who lisped when my little boy was out of control and couldn't speak. I wanted to say something to her, but I was so devastated all I could do was stand there and hold my son and try not to cry my eyes out. I kept shoving my son's head on my shoulder and just pacing around with him in my arms. I wanted to run out of that room and tell the teachers and evaluators to shove it, but I didn't. I stuck it out; maybe from morbid curiosity, or just the fact that, "My Daddy didn't raise no coward"; I really wanted to know what those evaluators were going to say. Unfortunately, they said nothing substantial when they returned....my son and I grabbed his toy bus, and I, carrying him, walked very quickly out of that classroom praying NEVER to return."

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