Parents' Perspective on Graduation

Doug and Janan share their thoughts (and possibly too real emotions) related to graduation, and how this hits them a little bit differently due to some of the special needs involved.  

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Hello and welcome to the next episode of Hodges Heroes, where we are trying to make the most of our mess. In our last episode, we heard from Tyler some of his personal perspectives as it relates to graduation and what that means to him. We wanted to kind of give our perspective as parents, especially parents of one with special needs, as to what that kind of means for us. So, Janine, talk to us about how this is a little bit different, conflicting.

SPEAKER_01 0:28

Sure. So for many students graduating from high school, their next steps are college, full-time work or technical college and certifications. For ours, it's not quite the same. As we mentioned in the last episode, that what Tyler will go in is called transition ESE or ESE Transition School. And ultimately, it is going to be another location where he's going to learn job skills and being trained by a teacher who's specifically trying to get him as independent as possible, with the goal being full-time employment. So that's kind of what we're looking into. What how's that going to change from high school? Well, he typically rides the bus to school and he participates in all the high school activities now. But moving forward, when he goes into ESE transition, he will be picked up by a car service, as will some of the other students who might be at the same job site as him. They will be transported there. They will be learning tasks and different things like that. And then he will be, he will come home in the car service as well. Hours are very similar to his typical school day or what he's experienced in the past. And the school calendar follows the same school calendars for Orange County public schools. So basic qualities like winter break, spring break, and summer will all still apply to Tyler's schedule.

SPEAKER_00 1:52

One of the biggest things, though, is there will be a pretty substantial lack of extracurricular activities for him. Right. So inside of a high school environment, you had things like best buddies, you had Special Olympics that he was able to participate in as a the unified Special Olympics as a part of the school environment. In this next program, it's very much so he's done with high school.

SPEAKER_01 2:14

Right.

SPEAKER_00 2:15

And so he's doing a lot of job training, which is a great program. And they're going to provide him a very valuable resource. But a lot of his um interpersonal, social type of an element, man, that's gonna take a huge nosedive.

SPEAKER_01 2:31

Right. And that's that's a major concern for me as his parent, and I'm sure for you as well. Some things that I'm kind of I've got floating around up here in my brain is, you know, he does participate in Special Olympics weightlifting or excuse me, powerlifting one night per week during the season. So he'll jump in.

SPEAKER_00 2:49

Special Olympics bowling, he does that as well.

SPEAKER_01 2:51

He does that in the summer as well, but those are only a season, so they're only several weeks. Um, you know, I think we're gonna have to get creative. We're probably it's, you know, quite honestly, when we're learning a new routine, like in the past and throughout his life, it it takes many weeks until it is a habit. So I fully expect that it will be challenging for uh a while or for several weeks. One thing I kind of am thinking that to incorporate in his daily schedules, we've got to figure out some type of exercise, whether that's walking around the neighborhood, biking, but also trying to make efforts to meet with other people who are around his age. Um, I'm not exactly sure what that's gonna look like. I mean, yes, he has friends from high school and he's got some non-disabled buddies, but they're still gonna be in school. His buddies will be. And so we're just gonna probably have to, we're gonna have to be very intentional about it. And I'm not exactly sure what that's gonna look like. So that's a little scary if I'm being honest.

SPEAKER_00 3:45

Yeah, and and graduation is one of those times where, while yes, he's got a great program to go to, it's also a um, if I'm just gonna be honest for me, it's uh it's bittersweet and it can be kind of kind of overwhelming uh in the sense of uh you know, like graduation pictures. Yeah. This me you know, feel free to get out your little violin and play it in the background as I uh as I share when I'm getting ready to share. But there's a point in which sometimes his pictures look really good. And and one of the things that happens when you see a picture of him in a you know, tuxedo, the the normal graduation yearbook photo, there's just a a little reel that kind of spins in your head. And you think about what would life look like if he didn't have some of these struggles that he had. And and I I try really hard not to let that reel run because it's a um I just can't go there on a lot of ways. And and most of the time I keep a good tight lid on that, but when you see a picture of man, everything is just, you know, smiles and hopes and dreams and future, and it's like, oh man, that's just not uh an option for him in the same way that it is for others that are going through this same transition phase.

SPEAKER_01 5:04

Yeah, it's it's very heavy. I know last summer when we did the senior photos, I took him and I was taking some pictures from behind the photographer. And by the way, the photographer was phenomenal and did a great job getting some pictures in a tuxedo and some other pictures of him and his favorite fast food toys. And I remember sending you some of those photos, and and it does, it kind of feels like you get punched in the gut, like, wow, they're amazing.

SPEAKER_00 5:30

But but, you know, it's not reality. It's it's not and it's like, man, I really would, you know, and and and I I don't, you know, you can't go back and undo what you what you what you do. There's nothing that that to our knowledge that we caused or orchestrated to have him deal with the things in life the way that he I almost wish that it would have been, then it would be much easier to blame myself or somebody.

SPEAKER_01 5:53

Right, right.

SPEAKER_00 5:54

But man, there's just there's a sense in which, especially for those in the special needs community, that age of 22 is a major cliff. And what I mean by that is there's a lot of school-based resources, like this ESC transition program that for that, you know, 18 to 22 kind of range. But once he hits 22, uh, it just falls off a cliff. And there's really not a whole lot that we have found, or then we are looking for them. There are some things that we have found, and we're trying really hard to investigate and work through that. But the reality of it is it is not an intuitive process to get him some of the resources that he needs to be successful as an adult. And it takes a substantial amount of paperwork and bureaucracy and waiting. Phone calls, phone calls, emails, voice, you know, dropping paperwork off to be signed, all you know, just a ton of stuff just to get, you know, something for him. Right. And and at some point, this whole process of graduation, it's almost like, man, now there's nowhere for him to go during the day. Yeah. And that sounds horrible. And I I if you haven't lived this life, you don't understand what I'm saying. But the reality is, is now I'm responsible for his direct supervision from 6:30 in the morning until you know three o'clock in the afternoon. Whereas before I had that opportunity to go to work and focus on work and not recognize that somebody else was taking care of him. So, yes, graduation is exciting. Graduation is fun. It's a celebration of a series of accomplishments that he's been able to do. Yeah. But for me, graduation is terrifying of what's going to be the next step and how am I going to take care of that, especially when I'm the one working from home. And he he's, you know, it's like take your kid to work day every day. And that's just no bueno on my world. Um, so that there's a there's a lot of that that's just it's like, uh, then you look at the picture and you're like, man, just one or two clicks to the left and one or two clicks to the right over here, and his life is completely different. And he's going off to college and he's uh you know, going in the military, doing a job, you know, having a life, going on.

SPEAKER_01 8:05

Yeah. No, it's it's it's a lot. And and I think too, he's always done well in the routine and the confines of school, right? Like behavior has always been better at school than it has been at home. Um, he's made connections with amazing teachers who we are very thankful for and paraprofessionals and support staff and you know, OT, PT, speech, you name it, he had everything under the sun. And so it's I'm I'm kind of mourning this some too, because I'm like, wow, he's just spent the last four years at this high school, and these teachers know him, and they know when to call or text us if something's different. And you know, it's it's I'm sad. Like if I'm being honest, I'm a little sad.

SPEAKER_00 8:48

And there's another element of it that for him, I I'm I'm sad for him because uh he doesn't know what he I mean, he has some insight and understanding that he is not like others, that he's different somewhat from others, but he doesn't understand all of the options that he could have available to him. Uh and and um, you know, the things that he he wants to be able to go do and the the the the desire, it's just it's hard to explain it because I I I I mourn for him because there's things that he's missing out on that he doesn't even know he's missing out on. There's some stuff he's missing out on and he knows he's missing out on, and he's upset and frustrated about that.

SPEAKER_01 9:29

Well, and I think too, like as we move forward, we are celebrating his end of high school because technically, although he's participating in all the senior activities, he can't officially like accept his diploma because once he accepts it, then he can no longer go into this program. Yeah. So like it's there's no reason. He'll accept something like the outer cover of the thing, you know, of the whatever the diploma, but we have to defer. Um, I think it's what defer graduation is what we're having to do and sign paperwork that he's technically not graduating, but he's moving on to this next step. And and honestly, like, you know, he's this is his senior year. And, you know, I order the cap and gown. We've got the senior walkout coming. We have what there's something else. Um the parade. There's gonna parade in downtown in the city where we live. There is an also an ESE graduation that he's gonna have that we get to go and take some family and some friends with. And he's gonna be involved in the big dog graduation at University of Central Florida.

SPEAKER_00 10:27

I'm not sure how that's gonna play out.

SPEAKER_01 10:28

Yeah, I'm not sure how that's gonna play out either, because uh I don't know. But we're just gonna hope for the best. And we're also, you know, hosting a few parties for him, one out of town with some people that he is still very fond of, and you know, one at our house, and and we're gonna we're gonna do the things. We're gonna put out all of his awards that he's gotten, and we're gonna have people, you know, sign the picture or the book or whatever, and we're gonna do it all because he is going to the next phase of life. And while all he though he is excited, he is excited. I think he doesn't know what's coming, and honestly, we don't either. In the meantime, what we've been doing over the past few months is we have been working to get him additional services at home, potentially for the future, um, because honestly, we need some help at home. You know, yes, we can teach him how to cook and we can teach him how to do his chores and different things. And he's done those in the past, but we we've mentioned in previous episodes that we we've kind of seen a little regression or maybe a plateau. And so there are some services available, but like Doug said, it's it's a lot like Doug, like you said, there's a lot of phone calls and a lot of red tape. And because we're at the mercy of the system, there's a certain amount of days. Like they have so many days till a decision is made or till they have to get back with us. And so we're kind of stuck in this limbo of well, we've done everything on our side, but now we have to wait. And then once we get the next piece of information, then we have to go down another list of getting more services. So we're still in that. We're hoping for the best.

SPEAKER_00 11:47

We're still if somebody's listening to this and you have navigated that really successfully, please call us and share your your secret sauce because uh, you know, right now we are and we're stuck in the weeds of it. Yeah. Uh it's it it's it's challenging. And and I can say I don't want this episode to come across as this horrible, terrible downer situation, but I also want to be real about it. That yeah, that yes, graduation is fun and exciting, and it's a celebration time for an accomplishment, but my goodness, it's also freaking depressing, if I'm gonna be honest about it for me. And it's terrifying as far as what the future looks like. And because I I have no idea what that is. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:23

So we're working through it. We're trying to make the most of our must and uh stay tuned and we'll see what happens.