Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Another recommendation for the Facebook group "Parents of Children with Selective Mutism" as it's very active and has lots of people who have gone through the same challenges.

If I were doing things over with a child that age, I would also seriously consider doing an intensive therapy program like the one offered at Child Mind and several other locations around the country. With intensive intervention at a young age, you might need minimal accommodations in kindergarten and beyond, which would really be ideal.

Thank you - we're actually doing one of the 5-day SM camps next week.

Great. We were frequent fliers at the CMI one. They will discuss ieps. try to connect with other parents. You will hear a diversity of responses from schools.

Op, they are scared to say that public schools are harder to work with. My advice is, start public if you want-- but have a backup plan. If private is an option for at least a little while, it can be very beneficial in helping your kid get what they need--if public is not. Also, remember that mcps has an interest in denying services because the services cost them money. Lastly, I hope you have better support within your school on so many levels. The school "psychologist ' ( who had a masters in education and no actual psychology degree) was reading the Wikipedia entry on SM during the IEP meeting. We had an SM specialist from CMI in the phone (now it would be zoom) and mcps would not accept the definitions offered by the CMI psychologist -- only (I swear to God) what Wikipedia had to say.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Another recommendation for the Facebook group "Parents of Children with Selective Mutism" as it's very active and has lots of people who have gone through the same challenges.

If I were doing things over with a child that age, I would also seriously consider doing an intensive therapy program like the one offered at Child Mind and several other locations around the country. With intensive intervention at a young age, you might need minimal accommodations in kindergarten and beyond, which would really be ideal.

Thank you - we're actually doing one of the 5-day SM camps next week.

Anonymous wrote:Another recommendation for the Facebook group "Parents of Children with Selective Mutism" as it's very active and has lots of people who have gone through the same challenges.

If I were doing things over with a child that age, I would also seriously consider doing an intensive therapy program like the one offered at Child Mind and several other locations around the country. With intensive intervention at a young age, you might need minimal accommodations in kindergarten and beyond, which would really be ideal.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think this will depend to some extent on your principal. When my SM child was entering kindergarten, we met with the principal in the spring to talk about it, and she was extremely supportive. She actually suggested two specific kindergarten teachers and let us choose between them (!), and encouraged the teacher to actually do a home visit with us, since my kid was most comfortable and likely to speak to new people at our house. And then we also did get to do a classroom visit before the open house. The same thing (including home visit) happened the following year. We got a new principal the following year and didn't at that point need the home visits so we didn't push for those, but I think maybe we still did a pre-open house classroom visit for the next year or two.

We were very grateful for that transition to public school; it helped our kid so much to be comfortable. It still took several years before she spoke to some of the specials teachers (PE, art, etc.), but she was at least able to participate and not be completely frozen in the classroom from the beginning. She's now in high school and needs no accommodations at all, but it was a slow process through the first few years of school.

I'm the pp. That is so, so amazing you got the home visit. That is what we requested several times, and we were told absolutly not.

We were also incredibly fortunate that one of the suggested kindergarten teachers (who we then asked for) had a kid in the same preschool class as my kid, so we already knew them a little bit and they were willing to come to our house and also have a playdate in the school playground. I was more surprised that the first grade teacher was willing to do a home visit the following year, with no connection like that to draw on.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think this will depend to some extent on your principal. When my SM child was entering kindergarten, we met with the principal in the spring to talk about it, and she was extremely supportive. She actually suggested two specific kindergarten teachers and let us choose between them (!), and encouraged the teacher to actually do a home visit with us, since my kid was most comfortable and likely to speak to new people at our house. And then we also did get to do a classroom visit before the open house. The same thing (including home visit) happened the following year. We got a new principal the following year and didn't at that point need the home visits so we didn't push for those, but I think maybe we still did a pre-open house classroom visit for the next year or two.

We were very grateful for that transition to public school; it helped our kid so much to be comfortable. It still took several years before she spoke to some of the specials teachers (PE, art, etc.), but she was at least able to participate and not be completely frozen in the classroom from the beginning. She's now in high school and needs no accommodations at all, but it was a slow process through the first few years of school.

I'm the pp. That is so, so amazing you got the home visit. That is what we requested several times, and we were told absolutly not.

Anonymous wrote:I think this will depend to some extent on your principal. When my SM child was entering kindergarten, we met with the principal in the spring to talk about it, and she was extremely supportive. She actually suggested two specific kindergarten teachers and let us choose between them (!), and encouraged the teacher to actually do a home visit with us, since my kid was most comfortable and likely to speak to new people at our house. And then we also did get to do a classroom visit before the open house. The same thing (including home visit) happened the following year. We got a new principal the following year and didn't at that point need the home visits so we didn't push for those, but I think maybe we still did a pre-open house classroom visit for the next year or two.

We were very grateful for that transition to public school; it helped our kid so much to be comfortable. It still took several years before she spoke to some of the specials teachers (PE, art, etc.), but she was at least able to participate and not be completely frozen in the classroom from the beginning. She's now in high school and needs no accommodations at all, but it was a slow process through the first few years of school.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm sorry but I don't think this is going to happen in a public school. The teachers come back to school on a specific day to prepare their classrooms and according to their union contract. They aren't going to come to school on 3 separate occasions to meet with your daughter. Forget about it after school starts - there will be 25 other 5-year-olds in the classroom.

It sounds like your daughter would really benefit from a small and nurturing environment.

We tried MCPS and were unsucessful; we moved our child midyear to a smaller private school that would take her. (We did not need 'that much,' but MCPS was completely unable to provide it.) My child had a rigid case, and the school was beyond impossible to work with. We tried to get an IEP etc., in advance, and MCPS kept saying no. The school kept telling us it was 'not a big deal.' The teacher was caught in the middle and, we were told, due to union agreements, unable to help us. If MCPS had been able to 'give' my kid what you are asking for--instead of having the teacher/guidence couselor/ etc. waste hours of time in meetings with us-- it would likely have been 'over.' MCPS offered accomodations including to teach my kid sign language (for a child who had been verbal in preschool but was unable to make the transition to speaking to anyone in MCPS).

OP, you sound like you know what you need/are getting good support. My advice is to ask in the Parents of SM Facebook Group (which is quite active-- I'll look for your question there and we can private message if helpful/you are in MCPS). And, if it is a larger system like this (and especially one of the 'better' elementary schools)-- to try to get into a private setting for at least a few years. (We switched my kid to private--which was an unplanned for expense/a stretch; the school 'gave' us the probably 2 hours of time she needed in a way she needed it, and she was verbal immediatly in the school ).

Our analysis was that mcps is positioned to provide good supports to people with 'typical' issues like ADHD, autism, etc. (I know it is not perfect). It was completely unable to provide support for SM, which is less standard. Also, don't expect much from the guidence counselors at the public school. They are overwhemled and they have also likely been 'taught' things about SM that have not been accurate for the last 10+ years; we also kept getting told by the school that kids just grow out of SM.

Lastly, we were told that in the 'better' clusters/districts that SO many kids have IEPs etc.in kindergraten. We were seen as what today would be 'another set of karen parents.' Our peer-SM families we knew locally, who happened to live in clusters that were not the 'better' clusters, had better luck/cooperation in getting less traditional accomodation for their kids.

Anonymous wrote:I'm sorry but I don't think this is going to happen in a public school. The teachers come back to school on a specific day to prepare their classrooms and according to their union contract. They aren't going to come to school on 3 separate occasions to meet with your daughter. Forget about it after school starts - there will be 25 other 5-year-olds in the classroom.

It sounds like your daughter would really benefit from a small and nurturing environment.