Finally!

After years of trying other alternatives to no avail, we were finally able to get Linda into the Special Education program at her school. She will have a special education instructor sit with her for two and a half hours during the day, primarily during math and reading which are the areas she tested lowest in. Their primary job will be to keep her on task, repeat anything she may have missed, and help her focus during tests. I really think she will thrive under this because she craves adult attention and strives to please during one on one time.

I am anxious to see the results because I have said all along that Linda knows more than her tests show. I firmly believe that if she could be verbally tested, she would do so much better. I am curious to see how she will do on a test with somebody right there to keep her on task. Right now her math and reading levels are testing on a beginning first grade level, which is not great considering she is in second grade, but we held her back so it should be third grade.

On a positive note, the school social worker had some really positive things to say. She said when Linda first started kindergarten she showed very little emotion, and almost no empathy for others. The past few years she showed emotion, but it seemed faked, like she knew she should be sad so she would over dramatize crying. This year the social worker says she sees genuine emotion, and Linda has shown large amounts of empathy for other students in trouble. That is very encouraging to us. I know that Linda is incredibly sweet and tender with the babies. I have never seen her be anything but sweet and loving to them. She loves to sing and talk to them and they grin everytime they see her.

I am really encouraged and I pray that we continue to see positive changes in Linda. We still continue to see a family counselor to help guide us in raising her and I feel that he has made a difference as well. I will keep you posted on her progress.

And One Step Back...

So the other day I posted a blog about Linda and how much progress I felt like she was making. I should've known better, it is a sure fire way to jinx myself. For her birthday i wanted to do something really special for her so I went on Craigslist and found a really nice victorian style dollhouse. Kimmie and I spent hours on it making it perfect. We fixed pieces and bought scrapbook paper to line the walls with. I bought her some really expensive, to scale furniture for it, and so did other family members for her birthday.

She loved it and I was so sure she would treasure it. Wrong. When I got home from class last night, Jake met me at the door looking defeated. I asked him what was going on and he said to go look on the table. There on the table sat every single piece of dollhouse furniture...broken. And not just accidently broken, pieces pulled apart, the food that was glued to the plates had been pulled off, the legs were broken off, doors pulled off of their hinges, foam pulled out of the mattress, it was crushing. The actual dollhouse itself had pieces of shingles pulled off, the paper ripped, I was appalled..and angry. Why would she do this? I don't understand.

She is destructive with everything. She has ripped off the tags from all of her new clothes so they have holes, pulled the sequins off of her dress up dresses, bitten off decorative photo frames, picked the stitches apart off of her comforter and pulled the fluff out, and the list goes on and on. I don't know if it is to be malicious, or if she just has some weird compulsion to pick things apart. It is so frustrating, and I don't know what course of action to take for discipline. For now she has lost the dollhouse, but it won't change anything. I am just so at a loss sometimes.