The countdown is on.  The day I’ve been dreading all summer is just around the corner… Lily starts middle school in a week and a half.  I’ve heard that there are other parents who actually look forward to sending their kids back to school.  I can’t imagine that, because for me, the school year is a lot of hard work and with Lily starting middle school, it’s going to be even more stressful.

This morning, I set up a special visit to her new school.  I know Lily needs extra time to learn her way around.  We walked around to all her classrooms and she was okay for awhile, but eventually she got overwhelmed and started to get upset.  She wanted to know exactly how things were going to happen, where they were going to happen, when they were going to happen… starting with getting off the bus–step by step.  I tried to do that and she seemed to calm down.

We still have 6th-grade orientation and back-to-school night before the first day of school, so I’m hoping that helps.  I mean, this is a twice exceptional kid who has months of adjustment every school year and this is at the same elementary school she’s been attending since Kindergarten.  A new school, plus all the added Executive Function demands of middle school… could be a rough transition.

That’s actually an understatement.  I’ve been trying to plan for her middle school transition for more than a year.  I shopped around for public schools, got Lily several evaluations, found her a psychiatrist, a psychologist, taught myself to advocate for her at school using www.wrightslaw.com and the book Wrightslaw:  From Emotions to Advocacy, shopped around for private schools, wrote demanding letters, attended many meetings, helped write a Behavior Support Plan and helped write a comprehensive IEP.  Thousands of hours and dollars later, I feel like we have good support in place for her, but the real test comes in a couple of weeks….