School!

My son and I went to the local elementary school today for kindergarten registration. He started attending the Children's Center therapeutic pre-school two years ago. After graduating from there he continued on to a local school on an IEP. He has experience with three different teachers and classrooms as well as riding the bus. I was interested to see how he would do.

When we first got there he had a piece of theraband to chew on and he sat through the little slide show. I took his hand and we went on a tour of the classrooms. The first is his sister's current teacher and room so I pointed to the pictures of her on the walls. I introduced him to the teacher and she was animated/ excited to meet him. He buried his head in my chest and wouldn't look at her. He didn't respond to any of her questions. So we moved on and I squeezed his hand a couple time to see if he would squeeze back. Sometimes I learn more from my children non-verbally.

He gave me two tight squeezes and then after a sea of faces we knew from our neighborhood he said "home." He just kept repeating it a couple of time"home..." We left out the side door away from the crowd. I hope he will not fall through the cracks next year in a bigger class. A part of me was a little sad. He has an IEP in place so here's to hoping he opens up once he feels more comfortable.

We handed in our registration forms and I had the immunizations in hand. this is the first time we are marking "exempt" on the form. He has been on a regular immunization schedule up to this point but now that we know he is on the autism spectrum I am not continuing on. This is a new adventure for us. I expect we will get some nasty letters in the mail from the health department.

Does anyone out there have experience with this? I hope he will have good friends and will work past the anxiety.