Swimming

Ever since he was seven, Thomas has been part of the Valley YMCA Sprinters Swim Team. I will never forget his first day at clinic. His core muscles were still very weak from his dyspraxia, and he could barely hold himself upright in the water. But as soon as he pushed off from the wall to begin swimming his first lap of freestyle, he turned to me and said, "This is fun, Mom." That statement of his has kept my husband and I going for the past five years now. It's fun for him and as long as it continues to be fun, he'll continue.
The first few years of swimming were not easy. In the beginning, my husband and I jokingly referred to Thomas as "Bob" because he did more "bobbing" in the water than actually swimming forward.
Because none of us knew that Tom was dyspraxic until connecting with Warren Fried of Dyspraxia USA last year, Tom ended up spending three years in the beginner's lane. He'd no sooner get the hang of learning a stroke one day and actually being good at it, only to have him forget it the next day. On some days he swam very well and on others it looked as though he'd never seen a pool in his life. Sometimes we thought that Tom was deliberately not paying attention. While this was true sometimes, many times it was not. Over time, however, Tom got better at his strokes and increased the distance he could swim competitively from 25 yards, to 50 and more recently 100. Although he has swum the 100 yard Freestyle distance for two year, this year he has made particularly good progress, shaving some 30 seconds off his best time. His dad took a video of him swimming the 100, which I will post so that those who haven't yet seen it will get a chance to. He still has a ways to go with his form, but I believe that he is finally on his way.  Go Tom!

Dyspraxia CT Meet and Greet!

Today was our first Dyspraxia USA Meet and Greet. The CT Meet and Greet was held at the Children's Museum in West Hartford. I was especially excited since Tom loves museums. It was also a place that we always wanted to visit but never got the chance. This has been a busy weekend so far for us. Last night we took Tom to Road to Wrestlemania at the Webster Bank Arena in Bridgeport. He got to see all the wrestlers he watches on TV in action, and he was very excited. He was a little tired this morning but managed to get a bit of sleep in the car.
Tom was very nervous about meeting the other kids and parents as he is still sensitive about his learning and coordination issues. But everyone there could not have been nicer.  Bri Silver, who is pictured on the right next to Tom, took Tom on a guided tour of the museum and talked to him about swimming. Tom loves to swim and has been on the Valley YMCA Sprinters Swim Team for four years now. He told us that he especially likes swimming because it is relaxing and he likes the feel of the water on his skin. These were things that I had never known before. We knew that it was a good idea for Tom to swim in order to improve his coordination, stay in shape, and to have fun. But to him, swimming was more than that!
after the event was over, Tom took me on a tour of the museum and led me through the King Tut Exhibit. He was telling me things that I did not know he knew about Ancient Egyptian Culture. He also enjoyed showing me all the live animals that live at the museum, such as the snapping turtles, the Bobcat and a very small fox. In fact, he liked the little fox so much that we ended up adopting a couple of stuffed ones of our own! I look forward to doing another Meet and Greet!

No School tomorrow, No Sweat!

One of the factors that encouraged us to start homeschooling was the unpredictable and horrible weather that has come to our area the past couple of years. Last year, the kids lost a week of school due to the "October Surprise", the blizzard that hit our area just before Halloween. This year, we had both Hurricane Sandy and the Blizzard of 2013 a few weeks ago. In all of these cases, our kids lost weeks of school that they had to make up at the end of the year. If school is cancelled tomorrow, the kids in our town will be going to school until June 28. In Tom's case, he would go to school till June 28 and then have to start Summer School the following week, which would, in essence, give him no break at all until August. Although my son needs consistency and constant review, I felt this was a bit too long.
I realize that I may have made a mistake over the past two years. Although summer school was recommended, we passed on it. The reason we did so was because it was kind of a "one size fits all" approach. All of the special needs kids were grouped in one classroom which hosted two grades.
I went through two years of Tom doing summer school with this approach and not really learning much. I got most papers back with things already written for him and was not sure whether or not he was really doing the work. So for the following year, I decided not to send him and have him just work at home and go to his reading tutor. This turned out to be a bad idea because he didn't want to work at home during the summer, and he ended up regressing come fall. I have now realized that Tom must work every day no matter the season.
So, where am I leading with these two observations? I am beginning to think that homeschooling is going to work better because we don't need to take time off for either summer or school cancellations.
 There are a summer park and rec program in our town that Tom enjoys going to. It runs from 9-1 in the mornings. Today Tom asked me if he could start school early during the summer so that he could still attend. I said that we would think about it. We have several months of doing this ahead of us yet.
We will see how this goes. Maybe doing school every day and getting up early on summer mornings

so that he can go to rec camp will work out. We'll see.

At Last.. the first day!

Tom hard at work on Math Upgrade and Reading Comprehension Upgrade

Well, Day One of homeschooling is now complete! Although it was a great success. I am emotionally and physically exhausted. You see, I spent the entire weekend agonizing over doing this. Did I do the right thing? Will Tom miss his friends? What about his playing the saxophone. He has made much progress this year. I kept pestering my husband all weekend long. "Walter, are you sure you will continue to give Tom his sax lessons every week? I will make sure that he practices every day. He won't be taking them in school anymore. We also need to find him a new community group to play with. Let's make sure he plays a solo at the German Club Spring Concert so that he still has something to work towards. I was up two nights (no lie) questioning my own ability to do this, even though I just received a Masters Degree in Teaching and Learning Technology. On and on it went. Till this morning dawned. I got a call from the school. Apparently, the school nurse never got the memo. I'd sent my Letter of Intent and my letter withdrawing Tom from school days ago. "OK, Patty, This is your last chance to bail out". But I held firm. "No, I am sorry. I have withdrawn Thomas from school in order to homeschool him". Deep breath. "Oh, how nice", was the nurse's reply, "I wish you the best of luck and I hope he likes it". So we were off and running. Now to attend to Thomas, who was already waiting in our office (my husband has a piano tuning business)/computer room. I first asked him what he had been reading in school. He told me "Reading Raz" so I signed up for a trial membership. We tried the story Tom had been working on and he hated it. So much for that. Onto the computer program that his tutor recommended the other day. First he did "Math Upgrade" and liked it. He even sailed through place value up to a million, which is usually a problem for him. That was followed by two sections of "Comprehension Upgrade", which was also a hit with him. By that time, it was nearly noon and time to go to the Dyslexia Tutor. Now that we homeschool, we can see him earlier in the day. It made a difference. Tom was fresher and got most of his Dolch spelling words.
The best part of the day came when Tom said to me, "Mom, today I feel as though I learned something". I hope he can keep his positive attitude. Best of all, he still got invited to the annual Last Day of School Party that his friends and their moms usually hold. Time will tell how he will feel about this. He has fallen out with one or two of these kids this past year but is still friendly with others. I am off to listen to the saxophone concert in the living room. I will be back tomorrow!

Tom getting ready for the band concert.

Hi! My name is Patty Rimkunas. My son Thomas and I will be hosting the Kids and Teens Dyspraxia Blog for Dyspraxia USA. Tom is 10 years old and suffers from dyspraxia, dyslexia, dysgraphia, dyscalculia, and ADHD. But does he let that slow him down? No way! He goes full speed ahead at life every single day, attempting things that can be difficult for a dyspraxic child to do such as swimming, German folk dancing, and playing the saxophone. I hope you will join us as we share our adventures and challenges with all of you and you share yours with us. We will be sharing Tom's latest challenge with all of you as well: homeschooling! When Tom was not granted a scribe for his Connecticut State Mastery Test this month, we were told by the Board of Education that our only option to avoid testing was for my husband and I to pull Tom out of school for a month. So today we did just that. I am very scared and excited. I have never been a rebel in my entire life and have never challenged "the system". But I felt that it had to be done. Tom was getting sick and stressed out by the mere thought of taking this exam that he knew he didn't have a fair chance of doing well on. Today he is already feeling better.