Ajab’s Day At School: First Day Jitters

Published
by
moby
on January 8, 2008
in ajab
.

The day has finally come. Three months ago, we realised that Ajab was special. Today is the first step in his long road of education and learning as he starts school at the Early Years Centre at the Asian Women’s Welfare Association (AWWA). The AWWA building which houses Ajab’s school has centres of learning for children with special needs such as developmental delay, Down’s syndrome, cerebral palsy and of course, autism spectrum disorder.

The first day of school for Ajab didn’t go as smoothly as we would have liked. Having been so used to waking up around 7.30am, a bout of snoozing and alarm clock slapping ensued and I got up a half hour later than the scheduled time of 6.15am. I prepared all of the things we needed to bring to school (snacks, sippy cup, extra diaper, wet wipes) the night before so all that was required was to rouse Ajab from his slumber (which he did reluctantly, with Ayeed still asleep), bathe him and give him his morning milk, give Ayeed his morning milk, change his diaper (we left the task of bathing Ayeed to the MIL) and have my shower (I still had time for a smoke while waiting for Trin to get ready). Trin handled all Maya-related matters. Miraculously, we managed to do all that and get out of the house in about half an hour, which was already late.

To add to the drama, upon entering the lift, I noticed a familiar unpleasant odour, which I mistakenly thought came from Ayeed. No problem, since he’d be left with the in-laws. It was only when we got into the cab and I checked Ajab that we discovered the horror. He had pooed and there was very little time to change him. But change him we did as Trin, with the help of Atuk, brought the kids upstairs when we reached the MIL’s place and brought Ajab down again to the waiting cab. It’s amazing how fast time flies when you’re late.

We got to the school slightly after 8am (Ajab was supposed to be in class at 8am), but being the first-timers that we were, we sought help from the general office as to which classroom we were supposed to go to. After being directed to Ajab’s classroom, we met his two teachers (me with the mega bad memory for names forgot theirs like 10 seconds after they told us). There were two other kids and their caregivers (aunty-like mothers) in the class and they had just finished something like an introduction into the activity that was about to start where the kids had to sit in a corner of the classroom, the teachers would show them a picture of the activity (sing along session) and they would walk across the classroom to the designated “circle time” area where again, the kids were required to sit and participate in the activity together with their caregivers.

Any parent would tell you how difficult it can be when a kid is in a strange place with strangers being asked to do strange things. Our instructions for Ajab to sit on his chair might as well be in Latin or Aramaic because there was no way Ajab was gonna sit and he let rip with his first tantrum of the morning. The teachers explained to us what was expected, what the activities would be like and how they want Ajab to participate, which he did, but from a distance, clinging closely to me. No amount of persuasion was going to make him sit on his chair I thought, so he spent the half hour of the sing along session either beside us or wandering about somewhere else and we had to wrangle him back many, many times.

As with his earlier therapy sessions, he surprised his teachers by understanding and carrying out simple instructions that Trin and I gave him, like to put a picture card (he HAS to have something in his hands!) back in the box. There were moments of amusement registered on his face as he found some of the antics of his classmates amusing or the actions accompanying the song funny. Most of the time he was just overwhelmed by it all.

Sing along was followed by hydrotherapy session where the kids and their caregivers (mothers, maids of kids from another class together with ours) went to the pool for some structured water activities. Since we didn’t know that we were supposed to bring along his swimming gear on Tuesdays, Ajab had to sit with us poolside where we watched the kids ‘exercise’ in the water. This is not like regular swimming lessons. The kids don’t actually swim, but rather do certain activities and actions (and more singing along) in the water in order to build the kids’ confidence and self-assurance. This lasts about and hour or so and it was back to the classroom for snack time. The walk to and from the classroom and the pool can be pretty challenging for some of the other caregivers because some of the kids, Ajab included, simply refused to walk to their required destination, preferring to tell their caregivers that they wanted to go home (or in Ajab’s case, he wanted to play with some ride-on toy he saw in another area of the school) by rolling about in the middle of the corridor, kicking and screaming.

And there was a lot of that in class from all the kids. Screaming, crying, struggling, lashing out at caregivers, floor rolling, and general tantrum throwing. For people who aren’t used to this kind of behaviour, they might probably go berserk themselves, but we’ve been through worse with Ajab, so I felt that the tantrums he threw today were relatively mild - is just one slap on Daddy’s face mild? To me it is.

Yes, Ajab’s tantrum reached its peak during snack time after the hydrotherapy session. Initially he was ok. He took and ate the biscuit snacks that we brought for him and even *gasp!* sat down on his chair. It was when the other kids took out their water bottle with the straw attachment that he went mad. We, of course, couldn’t let him have the other kids’ water bottles for hygiene reasons and he reacted angrily at us. He calmed down enough to participate in another sing along session, this time with a parachute thingy that everyone was required to hold and fluff up and down with the kids underneath it. It was fun and Ajab liked it, giving us his first laugh in the classroom.

But his tantrum returned as we were leaving, as the kids had to take a picture and sing some goodbye song, which naturally Ajab refused to participate in. His teacher sat him down, forced him to look at her and she told him firmly that everyone’s going home and there should not be any crying during going home time. It did the trick as he immediately stopped crying and looked at his teacher, horrified at her sternness. I should have taken a picture of his face. It was priceless.

Kids with his problem need that kind of treatment. We have to be firm and patient with them. Ajab going off-tangent (way off) and us having to bring him back to the right ‘path’ and direct him through the activities will be an on-going challenge. Since it was the first day for him, it was natural for him to feel so upset at having to do this, and do that - something which he’s not used to. It will get better as the weeks progress I’m sure. At the end of the day, Ajab was so knackered from his first day that he fell asleep while I was bathing Ayeed at 7.30pm. He hadn’t even had his dinner yet. We’ll make sure he gets some breakfast before we leave for school.

Tomorrow is another day in school for him and I will be there with him by myself this time. I’m kind of disappointed that I didn’t see a single father in the school, other than those coming to send or pick their kids up. I was the only dad attending classes with his kid in the entire school I think.

First days have always made me nervous - first day at school, first day in National Service, etc. It’s the nervousness that accompanies being in an alien environment and not really knowing what to expect. So it wasn’t just Ajab who was nervous. Trin and I were too.

Ajab's School Bag

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