To the Woman who Brought Life Back to Me

I am honoring my son’s teacher at New Connections Autism Academy, Mrs. Lisa Meeter.

I want to say that this woman and this school brought life back to my child and me. After three years of fighting the public school my son went to…numerous send homes, expulsions, calls, meetings, times I almost lost my job because I had to leave my classroom to go pick up my child, this woman and the school he now attends has brought hope and happiness to our little family.

She has open communication with me but instead of sending me notes about what Caje did that is unacceptable, I get texts with cute things he did or said in class, pictures of him enjoying his school day.

Once in a while I get a call because she is worried about something that happened in class and wants to give me a heads up, but there is never a screaming, crying child on the other end of the phone and she never tells me I need to come “deal with him!”

She shows my child everyday love and compassion, she listens to him when he complains that something is bothering him and she adapts to his character. He no longer is “that child” who ruins her day but is the child that brightens her day.

She has helped to lessen the stress in my life so that every time my phone rings I don’t cringe at the thought that it is the school calling again to tell me what a horrible, uncontrollable child I have.

She has autistic sons of her own so she understands my frustrations and worries.

Since my son joined her class for autistic children, I no longer have to drag him to school and fight with him to go in.

Quite a few times I had to threaten my son that the truancy officer was going to arrest me if he didn’t go to school! Numerous times I couldn’t get him to go into the building so we just gave up and went home because the school staff wouldn’t help.

Now he happily gets on the bus in the morning so he can go see her. She has made a tremendous impact on my son and he just adores her.

He never wants to leave her class and to me that is wonderful, especially since even saying the name of the teacher he had before sends him into a completely violent meltdown!

About us

My name is Anna Pershing and I have an 8 year old son named Caje Grayson (pronounced cage) (yes, that is his first name). I played women’s semi pro football before I had Caje and was called the Beast, so what contains a Beast… a Caje.

He was diagnosed by the school with autism a month before he was three. He is a lively, happy kid who can be the most caring kid you ever met, but he also can have dangerous meltdowns that end with me tackling him and putting him in a pressure hold to soothe him.

He is supposed to be mainstreamed in school but his original 1st grade teacher tortured him daily trying to make him assimilate to her rules and class expectations, which led to violent fights.

We even put him on half days and finally got him into half day ABA but things kept getting worse at the school.

We eventually were invited to the Earlywood Education Center to their New Connections Autism Academy after the teacher continued her verbal assaults on Caje even after he was pulled from her class.

Now he is in a class of 6-8 boys all with autism who are learning to control their behaviors so that they can eventually return to the public school classroom, albeit another school away from that original teacher!

He is back in full days and graduated from ABA in July.

It finally feels like my son is being treated like everyone else! Yeah!

Written by, Anna V. Pershing

I am 41, a single mom, who has been teaching for 20 years. I have taught kids in a self contained classroom and mostly I teach preschool to low income kids at a Head Start. I have a master’s degree in special education and early childhood education. My hobbies include being with my son.. well that’s about all I do except work anymore! Lol

(Editor’s Note: This article was provided by Anna V. Pershing and is part of Cooper’s, ‘I’m Thankful For You’ Campaign.)

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