Slice of Life Post- Conference Time

Each Tuesday Ruth and Stacey at Two Writing Teachers host Slice of Life Stories (SOLS). This is where bloggers link up to share anything they would like to share about what is happening in their lives. 

Last week was conference week at my son's school.  He is in second grade and has moderate autism.  He has had the same wonderful special education teacher since kindergarten and the same one-on-one ed. tech for two years in a row.  My son, who we call TJ, is the sweetest, happiest most lovable little boy you would ever hope to meet. 

As a parent of a child with special needs, I don't get many opportunities to talk about how awesome my son is with anyone else except family so when I get the chance to gush about him, I just love it. 

I arrived at the conference first since I left right from work in the next town over after school.  My son's school had an early release day so he and my husband arrived shortly after (my hubby is a secretary at my son's school, I know, cute right?).  TJ bounced into the room wearing his happy smile on his adorable, chubby face. Then he sat down on my lap and gave me a hug.  

His special ed. teacher then directed him to do some math so we could see him work.  To my complete astonishment, he did a sheet of addition and a sheet of subtraction independently.  Since he will not do anything resembling schoolwork at home, I was blown away. Then we had a fabulous discussion about how well TJ is doing while he played and happily flitted about the room and occasionally came back to our meeting to see what we were up to.

I feel such great appreciation for his teachers. His classroom teacher has created a community of acceptance and compassion for everyone. His special education teacher knows him so well and expects him to achieve. His specialists provide the support and focused work he needs in order to express himself and develop self-help skills. And his dedicated ed. tech faithfully works with him, cares for him and clearly just loves him to pieces. I left the conference beaming with pride and with a full and grateful heart.