Jam is currently almost 5 years old.
I posted here about a decision we made two years ago to have Jam continue on in his cooperative preschool. In short, a coop preschool with 20 kids and 11 working adults meeting four times a week is not ideal for a dyspraxic, SPD kid. Or, at least, not my dyspraxic, SPD kid. And, honestly, other than playing at one or two activity stations, he was rarely excited to be there.
But, in my goals to 'mainstream' Jam and help him develop those 'societally requisite' social skills, I decided we'd spend another year there. It was too much of a benefit that I could always be in the classroom to help Jam navigate the chaos. You really can't do that anywhere else. A few months in, though, I knew we wouldn't be continuing in the coop system come next fall. It was amping Jam's anxiety and slowing his progress. So when the next 'School Application Frenzy' season opened for fall placement, I toured a Montessori-inspired preschool that I really liked. That seemed like a great match all around.
And I liked it so much, I dropped us out of the coop preschool immediately and moved us to the Montessori-inspired school.
Though it was a mid-year move, the transition went smoothly. Especially for transition-phobic Jam who actually looked relieved when I told him we were leaving our coop. At the new school, I stayed in the class with him for a few days. Then I stayed in the school office for another few days so Jam knew I was at least on the premises. And then, after that, he was fine being left there by himself. The entire approach the school had with Jam, and all the kids really, was very gentle and low-pressure. He had two awesome teachers (one of whom I think he wanted to marry) and his classroom only had 9 other kids and was a small, contained room. Much less chaos for an SPD kid.
It was a perfect school by most standards, yet not perfect enough for our needs. I would often arrive early just to secretly observe Jam in the class or on the playground. He wasn't self-directed at all, choosing to visit only one or two of the various 'work' stations in the Montessori classroom, even when encouraged by teachers to try others. Instead, he spent his time coming up with a thousand and one imaginary games involving the work station manipulatives, but never use them for what they were intended. By the end of class, his eyes would glaze over and while it turned out he was actually paying attention, he would 'appear' as though off in another world. And the playground- well, motor skills not being his thing, he would just wander around aimlessly while all the other kids played chase and climbed on things. Occasionally, on a good day, I'd find him in the sandbox.
And, keeping in mind that class was only for a few hours, he would still need a lot of time immediately afterwards to decompress, just like at our old school. So we'd just eat our packed lunch and walk the grounds having 'adventures' until he was ready to transition to the car to go home for his nap. And as annoying and time-consuming as that decompression time was, it was a necessity to avoid daily afternoon SPD meltdowns.
I was worried Jam was starting to get really run down. Occupational therapy once and twice a week plus three preschool classes a week. Plus play dates and park dates. He wasn't getting enough down-time. And this kid needs so much down-time. We eventually dropped a day at preschool, moving to two days a week, but Jam was just still so tired. Preschool was taking a lot out of him.
When time came to decide on plans for the following year, the year everyone else was doing Pre-K programs in preparation for kindergarten, we chose to not continue with regular preschool.
Instead, I decided to see if Jam would qualify for the school district's developmental preschool program. Something I'd been avoiding like the plague...
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