Bumpy Couple Of Days

The Boy has been combative and resisting being taken to school.

Complete melt downs.

We've been forced to withdraw him from school before their attendance policy disqualifies him from future attendance.

In the course of finding out what our options are, we discovered that The Boy was amenable to the idea of moving out and going to a group-home environment.

Surprising herself as much as anyone, The Lovely Harvey managed not to have a full blown panic attack about the idea as well.

We've been fighting institutionalization for a long time because the institutions suggested weren't a good fit for him.

In the near 30 years we've been fighting, he's actually been doing some learning and getting to the point where he is eligible for what they call an intensive supervision group home rather than the very penal-like warehouses we feared.

It seems strange to be looking at him moving out and being "on his own".

His behavior specialist says that much of the behavior we're seeing is because we're basically unable to apply the proper pressure due to lack of staffing.  At the home he'd get six people keeping in check instead just us two.

That means that his future options get even brighter and it's possible that he could move into lower levels of supervision and get more independence.

Still emotional to contemplate an empty nest.