A Better Place to Bloom
It's been just over two years since we made the heart-wrenching decision to withdraw our son two weeks into his second year in a preschool program. They had declared him "atypical of his peers," insisted on having him evaluated despite advice to the contrary from his doctor and a former school psychologist, and told us they didn't have the services he needed (before knowing or caring what his actual needs were). Two years ago I was beside myself with outrage, displeasure, and anxiety. I knew we needed to get him out of there and onto a different path, even if I didn't know which direction to go. My job was merely to do the next right thing, one thing at a time, until we found where we were supposed to be. A banana and an orange are different, but both grow from flowers. The best choice we have made for our son was rejecting the school's pushes to have him labeled at such a young age, and enrolling him in a Montessori setting where he could blossom i