On the spectrum

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Thursday at bedtime, Diver, irritable and squirmy, had retreated to his basement swing, where he furiously rocked while nuking bad guys on his xbox. "Mom," he demanded, " Aren't you going to come here and ask about stuff?"

Ok.

"Every day at school something goes wrong. Someone melts down. Someone spazzes out. I'm tired of it. "

Rock, nuke, rock, nuke.

"Do you know what it's like to go on a field trip, like to the zoo, and if one guy in your class can't handle it, you all have to go back to school?"

Rock, nuke, rock, nuke.

"I cope with it. I cope, but I'm tired of it. Frick is mean. Frack is weird. Fred is in another world. I don't have any peers. And Miss ABC, the teaching assistant, isn't too sharp."

Rock, nuke. Nuke, rock.

What happens now? Diver had six years of failure in the mainstream while we struggled to get him tested, struggled to get him diagnosed and struggled to get him services; six years that culminated in dropping out of sixth grade and hiring an attorney to take on the school district. Which culminated in the interdistrict ASD (autism spectrum disorder) placement where he has happily spent the last six months. The routine and structure have been powerful healers for him, turning him into a happy, stable, composed kid. So much of what the school district called his pathologies (anxiety disorder, mood disorder, depression) disappeared when he was finally in this appropriate setting. So now when Diver, who has Asperger's, looks around at his classmates on the spectrum......he sees kids who are not peers.
What happens now? I don't think he's ready to be in the mainstream. To lose the supports and stucture that have made him successful would be a disaster.