Fish Out of Water

Effective communication can help parents of special needs kids

This Thursday at 6:30 PM the Mashpee SEPAC is hosting a workshop called Effective Communication. If you're the parent of a child with special needs and you live close by, whether it's Mashpee or another Cape town, I'd recommend dropping in -- it happens at the Quashnet school library, at 150 Old Barnstable Road in Mashpee.

Resolving conflicts and developing effective lines of communication with sped staff are issues that come up over and over again when I talk with parents of special needs kids, as chairman of the Mashpee SEPAC. Almost invariably, parents will run up against problems in getting what they want or what they think their kids need from their local special education office. They also don't always feel like they're active participants in the IEP or 504 plan process, which determines what sort of services or accommodations their kids are entitled to.

And who can blame them? Parents are put in a difficult position, having to advocate for their kids without any sort of formal training, and often with only the barest ideas of what their legal rights are. There's a different vocabulary to use, there are bureaucratic concepts and laws to get your head around -- it's really scary and overwhelming for a lot of folks. It certainly was for my wife and me at first, as it it is for just about everyone I talk with. Even teachers who have kids of their own with special needs are often overwhelmed.

So that's what this workshop is all about. It'll help you learn to communicate effectively with the special ed and regular ed teachers you're working with, and it'll also help you develop some techniques for avoiding and de-escalating potentially explosive situations, so you're working with your special ed team, not at odds with them.

The Web site asked for people to RSVP by yesterday, but it's okay -- drop us a line if you can, otherwise just stop on by on Thursday night. We'd love to see you.

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Recent Mashpee SPED bus incident shouldn't be swept aside

More than a week ago we first learned of an incident involving a special needs child on a bus operated by the Cape Cod Collaborative. It's received coverage in local publications and on Boston news programs. The mother went to the police because she saw what she considered to be inappropriate interaction between her child and the driver and monitor on the bus -- a special vehicle operated for the sole purpose of transporting special needs children. To the mother's observation, the monitor used more force than necessary. Fast forward a week.

Cape Cod Times: "There was no slapping," Collins said yesterday. "There was no hitting. There was no level of force used that was being described in the initial investigation. ... This is all much ado about nothing."

As the presumptive keeper of the peace of the town of Mashpee, Chief Rodney Collins is, quite sensibly, trying to defuse a potentially explosive situation by offering his observation that "this is all much ado about nothing." I'm not sure that his comment is an accurate reflection of the truth, however. And in Chief Collins' defense, it may be that he's just not familiar enough with the byzantine process of special education law in this state to know any better. 

It's not a question of whether the monitor slapped, hit or beat the special needs girl, clearly. Because neither the tape nor, as I understand it, the mother's initial report to the Mashpee police indicated as such. It's a question of why the bus monitor put her hands on the child at all.

The Mashpee police provided reporters who attended the press conference a copy of a memorandum produced by the Collaborative indicating that the mother gave permission for her child to be treated the way she is in the video, dated well before the videotaped incident occurred. The mother insists that no such permission was given. I've asked a reporter who received the memo if it shows the mother's signature; he could not find it. 

This is where my interest perked up, because I also have children transported by the Collaborative. I've not had any trouble with my children's transportation at all, but I can only speak for myself. What I do know, however, is that the town of Mashpee is a stickler for the rules.

I've been working with the special ed office in our town for a number of years, both as a parent of special needs kids and also, for the past year, as the chairman of the Mashpee Special Ed Parents Advisory Council, or SEPAC. It's a volunteer position that is, in some ways, similar to being the head of a PTO, but it's given me an opportunity to become much better versed in children's and parents' rights than I ever was before. 

Children who are diagnosed with behaviorally-related challenges typically will have a Behavior Intervention Plan (BIP) on file with the town -- a legal document that defines what the staff can do and how they can do it -- when it comes to de-escalating challenging behavior. It's there for everyone's safety and peace of mind -- for the town's, for the parent's, and for the child's. And a child who suffers from severe autism -- a mental condition which, in her case, keeps her from using language, and sometimes acts out as a result -- will have a BIP on file, just as a matter of course. 

The bottom line here is that if the mother gave permission for her child to be restrained in the manner shown in the video, it's going to be on the BIP. And if it isn't, the bus monitor at the center of this controversy and her employer, the Cape Cod Collaborative, still need to answer for what happened. The bus is an extension of the classroom, and the same rules for behavior and for adult intervention exist.

Now, a BIP is a legally binding document, and it's also confidential, part of the child's overall IEP. So it's not something the Mashpee police department is going to hand out copies of, and it's certainly not something that the school system is going to provide itself, unless it has the parent's permission.

But my point is this: A memo without the mother's signature shouldn't be considered the final word on the matter, especially since in that same article I pointed to earlier and in a story that hit the Mashpee Enterprise on Friday, the mother strongly asserts that permission was not given.

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Poor turnout for Monday's meeting in Mashpee to discuss sexual abuse case

Mashpee parents, what the hell is wrong with you?

Less than a week ago, I sat in the Mashpee High School auditorium with hundreds of other parents to go over the details of the upcoming D.C. Travelers trip, an annual right of passage for Mashpee eighth graders, many of whom go to Washington D.C. as part of class trip that lasts for five days. It's a big event for the eighth graders that participate -- something they look forward to all year. In many cases they have older brothers and sisters who participated in the program.

For that event, the auditorium was packed - as it should have been - with parents eager to hear Mashpee teacher Brian Hyde, who heads the D.C. Travelers program, provide details about the trip and comb over the children's itinerary. Many of those in attendance were the students, as well.

Last night, however, was a different story.

On Monday night, the Mashpee schools held a meeting to discuss what's happening in the case of Stephen Weixler, an assistant coach to the girl's soccer team, and paraprofessional at the Mashpee Middle School, who was arraigned last week on statutory rape charges for engaging in oral sex with a 14-year old girl, a member of the team he was coaching.

The turnout for that was paltry. Well less than a hundred people sat in that same auditorium, and many of them were faculty and staff from the Mashpee schools.

It was an excellent opportunity for parents to learn more about what's happening. Police chief Rodney Collins spoke about the case at least as much as he could without compromising the investigation. He put rumors to rest about who knew what and when they knew. Superintendent Ann Bradshaw, Mashpee High principal Alan Winrow and Mashpee Middle School principal Stephen Babbitt all spoke. So did Beth Biro, whose Children's Cove center in Barnstable focuses on child sexual abuse. Biro's organization is helping the Mashpee schools develop a plan of action for how to deal with the fallout from this crisis.

There was plenty of time for questions and answers, and the questions sometimes were heated, as parents sought reassurances from the school administration that their children were safe and as parents sought to understand what had happened. Many of us were plainly still processing the shock and trauma of learning that a trusted school faculty member -- someone who went to this same school, only a few years ago -- has been revealed to be a pedophile who had taken advantage of one of our own.

Understandably, many of the parents in attendance last night were upset. This is something that very few of us ever prepare ourselves to deal with -- and at least according to Biro's statistics, it's something that we don't prepare our children to deal with nearly well enough.

But that so few parents bothered to show up at all last night is a sad indictment against the parents of Mashpee.

I guess it's different when it's a feel-good thing like the D.C. Travelers program -- when you expect your kid is going to have a good time. When you've been working towards sending your kid on this trip. Plying raffle tickets on neighbors, powering up the camera, telling them to enjoy their trip to see the sights of our nation's capital.

But when something bad happens, something that has so much stigma and shame attached to it still -- the sexual molestation of a child -- apparently many parents' reaction is to not get involved at all.

I'm sure many of the parents who didn't come last night had perfectly valid reasons -- maybe they were still busy with work, couldn't find someone to mind the kids. Whatever. Between the seventh and eighth grades alone, there should have been at least as many parents in that auditorium last night as showed up last week, if not more. The rumor mill has been buzzing since last Friday about this issue. The Mashpee school administration, in concert with the police department, clearly had hoped to put those rumors to rest last night.

I'm very happy and proud to have shared the venue with the concerned parents who came out last night.

I just wish that more had bothered to make an appearance, to hear straight from the horse's mouth about what the school administration is doing about this important issue, rather than getting rumors and innuendo from the other end of the horse.

As distasteful and horrific as it is to many of us to deal with this horrible tragedy that's hit our community, dealing with it is what has to be done.

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Rules of engagement for parents for video games, manga

It's really easy for parents get estranged from their kids, especially as the kids get a bit older and crave independence. That's why I think it's vitally important to share some common interests with them. In my case, that common bond is video games, anime and manga.

As I wrote about yesterday, my wife and I spent the weekend at the Anime Boston show at the Hynes Convention Center, but it wasn't about connecting with our kids directly -- that's something we do as a couple. And part of the reason is because we like to scope out what's hot and what's new on the anime and manga scenes, so we can vet the content for our kids. I do the same for video games. I'm lucky enough to actually get paid (at least partly) to review video games, so that helps me justify keeping different console systems in the house and subscribing to various magazines, and even taking a couple of trips a year to trade shows to really get some good exposure.

But those benefits aside, it's trivially easy for the average parent to stay on top of what their kids are interested in just by paying attention, and finding good resources online and offline to help them make sense of it.

Take video games, for example. All the video games you find for sale at Best Buy and other retailers are labeled with an ESRB rating. That rating, created and enforced by the Entertainment Software Rating Board, gives you an easy-to-understand label (E for Everyone, T for Teen, M for Mature, AO for Adults Only) that provides a parent with a clear understanding of what age group the game is intended for. Part of that ESRB rating also includes descriptors that will tell you what kind of objectionable content you're likely to find inside (alcohol use, for example, violence, or sexual innuendo).

If more parents used this ESRB rating system the way it was intended, you'd get fewer incidents of kids coming home with games they're not supposed to -- though it's equally incumbent upon the retailers to make sure that 14-year-olds aren't walking out with M-rated games too. (I'm pleased to say that the last few times I've shopped for M-rated games at EBGames and Best Buy, the cashiers have made it a point to stress the rating to me before the sale is complete.)

Manga -- Japanese comic books translated to English and published in the United States by companies like Viz Media and Tokyopop -- also employ an age rating system that you'll find right on the cover. There isn't an industry-wide rating system like there is for video games sold in the U.S., but the major publishers will include tags that tell you what age group the book is intended for -- A for all, Y for youth, T for teen, OT for older teen, M for mature, for example.

Above all, try to share the experience with your kids, if they'll let you. My kids are happy to play co-op games with me or hand me the game controller from time to time, if for no other reason than it gives them great pleasure to beat me. They'll lend me the manga I get for them; they'll let me thumb through it first to make sure there's no gratiuitous violence or ecchi (lewdness).

And if they don't, well, that's where I, as the parent, clearly draw the line. Even if it creates some sour feelings in them for a while, their safety -- and making sure that I, as the parent, am the gatekeeper to what's coming into our house and affecting our kids -- is the bottom line. They don't have to agree with me, but eventually they'll understand and respect it, even if it takes some age, wisdom, and maybe a kid of their own before they do.

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Anime fans congregate in Boston

Anime -- the Japanese word for animation -- is more than just a cult phenomenon here in the United States. For many of us, even grownups like my wife and me, it's part of a lifestyle. And part of that lifestyle is expressing yourself at annual get-togethers like Anime Boston, a big show which ran at the Hynes Convention Center in Boston over Easter weekend. We joined about 14,000 kindred spirits to watch anime, buy merchandise and hang out.

That sound like a lot, and it is, but would you be surprised to find out that Anime Boston is only about the fifth-biggest anime convention in North America? An annual event in southern California, Anime Expo, draws more than 40,000 attendees each year.

A big part of this event is "cosplay." Like a lot of Japanese words, it's a contraction of two existing words, "costume" and "play." It's a lot like Halloween, without the candy: Many of Anime Boston's attendees show up dressed from head to toe like their favorite characters. Although my wife and I abstained, I'd be lying if I told you that other adults weren't dressed up (many in outfits to complement their kids).

So what to 14,000 anime and manga enthusiasts do for three days? We watch videos. We sit in on panels headed up by industry experts, talking about new trends in the business. We rub elbows with the celebrities that voice our favorite anime shows. We visit an exhibit hall full of vendors selling imported Japanese videos, music, magazines, books and merchandise. We view the works of artists who are inspired by anime, or who create their own anime.

But mostly we recognize that we're in a place with other people who "get it." Who are on our same wavelength. 

I can't quite put my finger on what it is about anime and manga that creates such strong interest and enthusiasm. The story telling and artistic style are unique, for sure. And contrary to popular belief, anime isn't just about ninja-fighting superheros, talking kitties or giant robots, either. There's an anime and manga genre for just about every conceivable interest, from sci fi and fantasy to romance to historical fiction. There's some content specifically for adults. There's some really abstract, unique stuff out there, too.

If you're still convinced that anime and manga are hopelessly nichy things that only a weirdo would like, all you have to do is head over to Barnes and Noble, Borders, FYE or Best Buy. At the bookstores you'll find shelves of manga -- compact, mainly black-and-white comic books. And at Best Buy or FYE you'll find several rows of  anime. And inevitably, there are a few people browsing. And sometimes, one of those people is me. Don't be afraid -- pick up some of the stuff and have a look. You might even find something you like.

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Bomb threats close Mashpee High - An Overreaction?

My oldest child attends Mashpee High School -- he's in seventh grade. So we've been watching events at the school this academic year with particular interest; today is the fourth time since the beginning of the year that there has been a bomb threat at the school.

This, unfortunately, isn't a new trend. It happened last year too. So far none of the threats have turned out to be credible -- it just seems to be a prank being played on the students and faculty by other students at the school. It's a sick prank, for sure. And disruptive.

"Disruptive" took a new meaning this morning. We got a call shortly after 8:00; a pre-recorded message from Lou Ann St. Cyr, the school principal, announcing that school would be dismissed and students sent home at 8:45 this morning following the discovery of yet another alleged bomb threat scrawled on the bathroom wall: "This School Blows February 15, 2008."

We weren't directly affected -- my son's been home for the past couple of days, down with a viral infection that's kept him coughing and feverish (something's going around, according to our pediatrician).  

I could have some fun diagramming that sentence: Insert a comma between "Blows" and "February" and the sentence takes on new life, for example, and it's a sentiment I'm sure that many students share. But sarcasm aside, this is getting more than irksome.

On one hand, as a parent, I appreciate the safety that the school administration is demonstrating by getting the kids out. On the other hand, as a working parent, I recognize that this deeply affects the ability for two-income families (such as ours) to care for their children. I'm fortunate in that I work from the house, so I can keep an eye on our kids when they're sick or sent home early. But under different circumstances, my wife or I would have had to leave work early today (or taken a personal day to begin with).

On one hand, I'm glad to see the school and the local constabulary take the threat seriously enough to evacuate. On the other hand, I have to wonder how often this is going to happen until it's fixed.

And how, ultimately, is it going to get fixed? Perhaps I'm betraying my cynical nature by suggesting that teaching some adolescents common sense is a bit like trying to teach a fish how to ride a bicycle; no matter what we do, some kids just aren't going to get the message that scrawling a bomb threat on the wall of the boy's lav is wrong, stupid and dangerous. I remember being 14, and I remember how disenfranchised I was and how much contempt I felt for many of my peers, for my teachers, for my parent, for just about everyone and everything in a position of authority.

But what's the alternative? To put every inch of the building under closed-circuit surveillance, including bathrooms? To install metal detectors, have cops with bomb-sniffing dogs roam the hallways, conduct random locker searches, or worse? I don't want to see Mashpee High turned into a police state, either. 

I'm not offering any solutions here. I'm curious as to what you think we parents of Mashpee High students should do, really. Should we just let administrators and officials do what they're doing? Should we have heart to heart talks with our kids? "Now son, don't make any idle bomb threats..." Should we be pushing the schools to install better security? What do you think? 

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Time ain't on our side

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Breakfast time is a stressful time at our house

I grew up as the only child of a single parent. That had its upsides -- I was, very much, for a very long time, the center of my own world. It also had its downsides -- I wasn't very well acclimated to interacting with kids my own age. From an early age, everyone told me how adult I acted. The truth was, I spent so much time with adults, I felt more comfortable with them much of the time than I did with my peers.

 My kids have grown up in a very different environment. My wife and I have been married for 14 years (we celebrated our anniversary at the end of last month) and we have three kids to show for our efforts -- 12, 10 and 7. As anyone who has grown up in a family with sisters and brothers can tell you, each kid is very, very different. But those differences get magnified when one or more of the kids has special needs, as two of ours do.

Our two older kids both suffer from disabilities that are on the emotional/social end of the spectrum, and it's caused us to develop accommodations for them over the years that our youngest just doesn't need: Sensory input, for example. Executive functioning skills like organization. Getting ready in the morning is a practical example of where these issues converge into a perfect storm. Every morning I get my kids ready for school, I feel months, if not years, taken off of my life in stress.

Our oldest has a more or less classic case of ADHD. He's extremely hyperactive and easily distractible until he's settled down into his morning routine and his med starts to take effect, which unfortunately for us (and fortunately for his teachers) is about a half an hour after he leaves the house. That means I have to bark at him like a drill sergeant to get ready in the morning -- making sure he stays on task as he eats breakfast, gets dressed, packs his bag for the day and gets out the door. I repeatedly, every morning for years, have to remind him that now's not the right time to pet the cat, stop arguing with your brother, stay away from your computer/the TV/the Nintendo DS, brush your teeth, wash your face, comb your hair, are your teeth brushed? Put the comb through your hair again. Where are your shoes? Did you pack a snack? I told you, stop petting the cat -- your school van is already waiting for you in the driveway. Grab your coat!

Sure, this is stuff any parent has to deal with -- but trust me, it gets more complicated when you're dealing with an ADHD kid, by orders of magnitude.

Our daughter is another good case in point. She's been diagnosed with bipolar disorder and she's subject to fairly rapid and fairly extreme mood swings. It's not unusual for her to burst into tears two or three times before she leaves the house because she couldn't find the right socks or couldn't easily find her shoes. Or I'll have to "talk her in off the ledge," so to speak, while she's brushing her hair. Or we'll get into a tear-filled argument (her, not me) about what's for breakfast that day, and how horribly inadequate it is. ("We only have three different cereals to choose from, and I want waffles!")

 Our youngest, meanwhile, is a breeze. Partly because he doesn't share his siblings' disabilities, and partly because he's grown up around this, he's much more self-reliant than the other two are. My wife, who is the youngest of three, sees much of herself in him -- she also learned to depend on herself from an early age.

Almost without exception, he's dressed, fed and washed, and ready to walk out the door, with at least fifteen or twenty minutes to spare each morning. He's almost always early for the bus. He's usually conscientious about cleaning up after himself from breakfast. And he's proud that he can do it himself.

So we try our best to let our children be themselves, and learn to work within their limits and help them understand what those are, and why it's so important for them to try to occasionally push those limits. That's how they grow as people; that's how they develop character; that's how they learn independence and develop a sense of self-worth. It can be a tightrope walk some days. But can any parent who loves their kids be expected to do any less? 

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Catching a Leopard by the toe

So far I've been pretty content to blather on regarding special ed issues, but I'm going to switch gears today to talk about something else that I like to ruminate about: The Macintosh.

 I'm a big fan of Apple computers. Have been ever since I was a teenager in the 80s -- talked my mother into getting me a Mac when I was a sophomore in high school, and have been using them off and on ever since. I used to do IT for a newspaper company, but for the past eight-plus years, I've written about Macs for Macworld magazine.

 Anyway, the Friday before Halloween, Apple released a new operating system called Leopard -- Mac OS X v10.5, really. It's out in the world now and I recently  upgraded my "daily driver," a MacBook Pro laptop, to the new version. It's gone swimmingly well.

 A few third party applications I've installed on my Mac over the years have broken. Most notably for me, The Missing Sync for BlackBerry, a tool that enables me to synchronize the address book and calendar information between my Mac and a RIM BlackBerry cell phone I also use. I've read and written quite a few articles about other apps that aren't working quite right in Leopard, but like any major operating system upgrade, that comes with time -- developers are working hard to get everything working.

What impresses me most about Leopard is not just the new features, like "Spaces" (which lets me have multiple virtual desktops I can shift to with the press of a command key) or "Time Machine" (a built-in, persistent backup system that makes sure I can always restore files I might accidentally delete or overwrite). It's the general speed and usability of Leopard.

A lot of times, when you upgrade an operating system -- say, from Windows 95 to XP, or from XP to Vista, you see a dramatic slowdown. Sometimes you have to add memory or a new video card to your computer just to get it to run right. My MacBook Pro is actually running smoother and faster, if anything, with Leopard installed, than it did before, when it was running Tiger (Mac OS X v10.4, for the uninitiated).

I admit that my experience may not be reflective of everyone's -- as a MacBook Pro owner, I'm lucky enough to be using a newer Mac that sports an Intel chip inside. I got it just last year. The cut-off for Leopard is older, much slower "G4"-era Macs (systems that were state of the art, say, five years ago). I don't expect they run Leopard nearly as well as my laptop does.

The interesting thing is how much positive press Leopard is generating from corners of the tech world you wouldn't expect to see it from. Computerworld, which often emphasizes the Windows end of the computing experience, said that Leopard "spanks" Microsoft's Windows Vista. Network Computing, another IT pub that can sometimes overlook Apple, calls Leopard "sleek and fast." And the plaudits keep coming in. It's good news for Apple, a company whose fortunes have risen dramatically since the advent of the iPod.

There was a time years ago, when Apple was beleaguered, that if you had cut me, I'd bleed Apple colors. I was one of those Mac users -- those guys who vainly attempted to convert everyone he knew to the Apple way. I gave that up a long time ago, but I still love my Mac, and I still tell friends and family who have trouble with their PCs to consider replacing them with Macs. There are definitely upsides, like the lack of viruses and "malware" that afflict PCs -- very few Mac users run any virus protection on their systems, because they just don't need to.

 There's a practical reason, too -- in the past eight years of writing about the Mac, I've let my Windows diagnostic skills atrophy. I can't help folks too much with Windows problems anymore. So if you're looking for help with your Mac, feel free to drop me a line. And if you need help with Windows, well, sorry I can't be of more assistance.

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No dress-up for me this Halloween

Sometimes work interrupts real life really rudely, and this week is one of those times. I'm going away on a business trip mid-week this week, which means that for the first time ever that I can remember, I'm not going to be here to walk my kids around the neighborhood on Halloween.

 Halloween's a pretty big deal for our family. It is, by far, my favorite holiday, even more so than Christmas or Independence Day, because we dress up the yard and the house, all of us dress up in costumes (except for the cat, who has more self-respect than the rest of us), and we have a grand old time.

 It's become our little tradition to make a hearty, fortifying meal -- usually a pot roast or stew, some mulled cider (with perhaps a tipple), to carve the pumpkin, then to go out with our neighbor and her kids as we take on the neighborhood.

We live in a great part of Mashpee that's chock full of neighbors who really get into the spirit of things, many with kids of their own or grandkids, and who love to see the little ones dress up (and usually treat grown-ups who dress up with a laugh and sometimes even a candy treat).

I'll miss it this year, but my children don't have to fear, because my mom will be pinch-hitting for me as the adult supervisor (my wife prefers to stay at home in her outfit, giving out candy and watching Ghost Hunters on the Sci-Fi Channel).

More than anything, I'll regret not being able to put on a costume, because I really do enjoy the dress up. But I don't think TSA would appreciate a Viking in a helmet trying to board an airplane. Although I'm sure sending a halberd through an x-ray machine might get a chuckle or two. Don't think they're giving out candy this year at Logan, though.

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