a new school year, a new man!!!!

Hey everyone! So it has been a while since I have updated. School started back up about a month ago and Collin is now a 2nd grader. It's no secret that Collin HATES school. Why wouldn't he...NO ONE likes to do anything that is hard and frustrating for him and for Collin school is HARD. As the summer came to a close and the new school year was about to start we defiantly noticed Collin getting stressed and noticed the "return of the tick". We weren't surprised at this happening as we were told that stress can trigger it. Collin grumbled in the weeks leading up to school that he didnt' want to go and blah, blah blah. We tried really hard to put a stop to it and finally told him ENOUGH. Together we decided that we were going to start this new school year with a NEW ATTITUDE. It's a new teacher whom we had heard AMAZING things about, a new class and new peers. We asked Collin to at least "try" and be positive. He agreed...although I defiantly didn't think he was gonna keep up his promise to try when he left for school that first morning.......


first day of school....yeah not so thrilled

But to my absolute delight when I picked him up from school that afternoon this is how I found him..


a big smile

He liked it! In fact I might even go out on a limb and say he REALLY liked it! A month later and Collin is still smiling and over all seems to look forward to getting up and going to school. He can't say enough about how awesome his teacher Mrs. Dietrich is. She is a sweet, smiley, pretty, energetic and above all kind hearted teacher. She makes Collin feel GOOD about himself and uses positive words to encourage him.  She's adapted lesson plans to suit Collin..for example he only is expected to test on 6 spelling words vs the 12 the class does. When he does try out the other words she never marks him wrong if he gets the "other" words wrong. Instead she over looks them and give him the "AWESOME" stickers for the words he got right! I can't even begin to tell you how this makes me feel. To see Collin come home from school happy, to see him making positive steps forward. I could just cry. Now, Mrs D isn't working alone...Collin still gets pulled out for reading and Math. But right now he is really liking math, they are learning about the "value" of number ie the number 54....the 5 is in the 10's column and worth 50! For some reason this has clicked with him and he seems to really understand..which makes him feel good. He can sit down do his Math home work basically with no help and isn't frustrated. We are still getting OT, PT, and ST but again all these things are falling into place.  I know it's only a month in, but I have such high hopes and feel so good about this year! I know it's still a long road ahead, but for now I have a new school year, a new attitude and a new, happy and feeling good about himself man!!!!