How a Gradeschool-Aged Child is Doing After 1 Year of Being Mainstreamed into the Classroom

One year after mainstreaming her gradeschool-aged son, a New York City mother reflects on the new set of challenges that come with that "progress," from persisting stigmas for her son to shifting her own parental identity.

Last year, my son Jamie entered his first year of full inclusion for the second grade. That year, he was with the “typical” kids all day, but he had with him his own teacher to guide him through the transition. Officially, we were still enrolled in his special needs program, and it was there that I found the last months of sanctuary in that community of parents, therapists, teachers, and advocates. The year went very well, and before long his special needs teacher’s role became minimal and she receded into helping the rest of the class. She did stay on him in some ways (making sure he unpacked and packed his things without becoming utterly distracted, and reminding him to keep some space between himself and his friends).

This year, for third grade, he officially mainstreamed and flew solo. He was registered in his school the same as all the other kids in his class. The year had its ups and downs, but mostly ups.
The truth is, he main–streamed with a stigma hanging over him. He was called names, threatened, and harassed by a boy who ended up bullying him for the better part of the year, always at lunch and recess. In other words, out of the range of his teacher. Where was the lunch supervision? Where was the recess supervision? I spent time in and out of the principal’s office and after a few college tries, the discordance faded, but not without some intervention.

For the most part, Jamie’s issues have diminished. He still has some articulation issues and a tendency to get in people’s personal space. He likes to tap on their heads and hug them if he likes them, and in that context, the rigidity of a mainstreamed environment was taxing. The expectations on him are as they would be for everyone else. There are rules about not hugging and grabbing and tapping (and there should be!), and so that’s a continual challenge. It’s gotten easier for him, though.

In some ways, the fact that he attends a Catholic school has helped to smooth the transition. Because Jamie’s issues were sensorial in nature—he could become easily distracted by loud rooms and large buildings filled with a lot of people—the structure and small, quiet environment of the traditional classrooms suit him. The streamlined blue-and-white plaid uniforms quieted a cacophony of colors that would be found in a public school environment. If students were birds, his school would house a flock of blue jays, while PS 41 down the street would be filled with a wide range of tropical species.
Academically he thrived, since cognitive issues were never on the table. He got straight A’s and beat the leading chess player from the eighth grade in his beloved chess club. This club marked another new terrain for us—joining a "typical" after-school club, which seems to be launching him into a great new passion.

My advocacy for him has shifted this year from minding the IEP and external services, to monitoring the way he was being treated by other students. In the context of this new normalcy, his little boy behaviors that would have been excused before, and even treated by an occupational therapist, were instead swept under the rug of, “Boys will be boys.” Boys stomp, grab, and argue when they’re playing baseball on the playground. In special ed, they have OT and counseling to smooth out the rough edges of both the social and the physical.

I realize now that my patience with his issues waned a bit, probably because I’m out of the daily checks and balances of his former special needs program. I was no longer talking about his behaviors in therapeutic terms, but in playground terms. "Keep your hands to yourself!" I’d shout from a bench in the playground when he’d grab an arm too hard during an impromptu ball game.