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Jesse graduated from The Alison Lawson Program yesterday. Then last night I saw this! I am so super proud of Jesse and his awesome parents who have helped him shine. I am looking forward to hearing how you progress in the future.
"I can't express how proud we are of Jesse. As alot of you know Jesse has Sensory Processing Disorder which effects him in alot of ways - Good and bad !!!!. Some of the major problems are writing, concentration and literally sitting still. Anth and I were absolutely beside ourselves trying to find ways to help him. His school work was getting worse as the class got harder (even though he has had great teachers since Yr 2 who understood him) He was finding it extremely hard to even write one little sentence let alone with neat writing. Homework was impossible too.
We had tried everything of our knowledge to help but it was at school where he needed it, Jesse just couldn't and wouldn't concentrate. The pressure to medicate him from his previous school was disgusting and heart breaking to us as we were so against pumping our bright eyed, over imaginative and active child with tablets to help him concentrate and dull his beautiful mind. So for 3 Years now we have watched him struggle more and more. As parents we tried to find new ways to cope and deal with Jesse's SPD (Jesse didn't have ADHD which is treated with medication but SPD isn't) In the end was medicating him the answer to help him concentrate more?
Then we came across "Eyes and Ears for Learning" It's a Visual and Auditory Therapy, with amazing result in concentration and handwriting. Tanya was fantastic with Jesse and he had a connection with her straight away. So for the past 10 weeks (He graduated today) Jesse has put everything into making this work. Homework everyday for 1hr + Then eye exercises as it was picked up his left eye was lazy and unable to focus on his work. It was bloody hard - we would fight, scream and cry just to get through it then some days were great with huge rewards. All of a sudden something clicked in his brain and he could do it, his eyes were focusing on the letters and retaining information had improved a huge amount. There is still alot of work to be done but at least now he is enthusiastic to learn and can transfer this into the classroom as time goes on - Unmedicated !!!!!
Having a child whole doesn't fit inside the "educational box" is really hard sometimes and this is only our personal experience. I totally understand why some parents choose to medicate and I'm not judging you at all, it just wasn't what we wanted for Jesse."