I no longer send my children to school, and it wasn’t because we had any bad experiences with it. I have a hard time trusting others with my children, but I didn’t want to take the time to talk about my trust issues lol. I wanted to take a moment to maybe she’d a light on the fear of sending our little ones with epilepsy to school. I don’t know about you guys but when I first began my adventure with sending my little angel to school I was afraid of everything, buses, teachers, what would they do if she had a seizure, would they make mistakes with her care during and after her seizure, would they freak out like so many have before, or would they look upon my child and judge her, would the students around her judge her laugh at her because she wet herself. I am mama bear and I take no funny business when it comes to the education and care of my child, where I understand that the care and education of my child at school is much like a business transaction. I had to learn quickly to set my emotional battles within aside and get the information facts and policies, that way I could inwardly freak out in a more secure environment. Don’t get me wrong the school was AMAZING. They were more than willing to listen to our concerns, they understood that my husband and I were very hands on parents and would often show up at school unannounced to just observe our child. I have heard in many schools they do not appreciate such behavior, we were, one encouraged to do so and two you have the right to do so. When it came to her IEP and her health we spoke of it all in detail, we made sure that they had copies describing her seizures, also making sure to allow her a pillow and blanket and change of clothes to make her feel more comfortable whilst having a seizure at school. Often times I hear many schools force the police to be called, stand your ground explain the situation if you choose not to have this be the case. If you are more comfortable with the ambulance coming and taking care of your child that’s fine, but I hear sometimes they throw their fits and their policies around as if they are law. I hate having my daughter taken to the hospital, but there are times where it is necessary and then there are times that it is not. To teach my daughter that even after having a small seizure that she needs to take the time to recuperate after her seizure is important but for us it is very important that we also teach her to not let her seizures enable her more than they have to. She is a natural fighter so this comes more easy to her. We have run into the issue of what needs to be done on the bus if a seizure occurs, we were surprised to hear that they did not have a policy in place. So we wrote one for them, we took into concideration that traffic and other variables and in this case we opted for the ambulance to be called. Anyways I suppose you get the point. Where my fears had hindered me up till the point that I need to stop and get things done to look at it like a professional and try to take the mama bear out and allow them to share their concerns and mine as well. Together with the school system we can make a difference to not allow our children feel so much of a burden but be accepted with their medical condition. That just because a seizure occurs does not mean that they need be afraid of what can happen from a legal stand point. I really feel that as a parent of a child with epilepsy that it is also my job to make sure that the people educating her or taking care of her need to feel comfortable with her, it is my job to judge the situation to ensure her safety and education. I am her parent I am the one who is control of the situation and I will fight to make sure she gets the best care and education that she deserves.
School Policies and epilepsy
