Proud!

When the school year started that boys were attending a before school program, for many reasons I altered my work hours so that I could drop the boys off at school and not use the before school program.

For those of you that know CJ you can well imagine this wasn't an easy transition. He doesn't like change and does NOT like crowded areas with lots of kids. The first few times I dropped him off I ended up leaving him kicking and screaming with the yard duty staff.

As the time went on (a couple of weeks) it got to the point where he would wait until all the kids were in the school and then walk hand in hand with the yard duty staff into the school without any issue. The school began giving him Panther Paws if he went into school without an issue and was able to go right to class instead of the resource room to settle down, this was a great incentive for him. After a while he stopped asking for the Panther Paws so they were going to phase them out, but the yard duty staff suggested that he only earn one now if he walked in with his class and didn't have to wait until the yard was empty.

The following week we began this transition. When the bell rang he stood in line with his class, with us standing beside him, and when the class started to walk in he'd give us one last hug, but then would go! Wow! SUCCESS! After a couple of days we are now able to stand beside him in line initially, but very quickly move a couple of feet away and he is continuing to go in with his classmates without any issue.

This is a huge accomplishment for CJ! We are very PROUD of him!