Retail assembly, building maintenance: This can't be his future

You know you've lucked out when your child regularly says, "I love school!" Max's transition to high school has gone incredibly well. He's made new friends, gotten into the swing of classwork and homework and is enjoying social events like evening parties and hangouts with teens from other schools.

The other day, I stopped by for an IEP review. We had one last spring, but needed to revisit it for the new school. I'd gotten a copy ahead of time; I always request it. I know some schools draw up IEPs during the meeting, but the ones Max has been in tend to put a draft together ahead of time and I find it far easier to have time to read, digest and react to it on my own time.

Most of the IEP tackled the usual areas: reading, math, social studies, science, occupational therapy, physical therapy, speech therapy, phys ed and health. But there was a section new to me about the school's program that helps teach students life skills and prepares them for jobs. Max seemed to be behaving well and focusing. But my eyes locked on the sentence that noted the tasks he's doing fall under the headings of Retail Assembly, Building Maintenance, Office Skills.

Close to fifteen years after having Max, my heart still sinks when I think about the limitations of jobs that will be available to him, even though I rationally know there might be options out there that don't yet exist—or that we could carve out for him. But I was surprised to see job types listed that largely involve fine-motor skills.

Max's usage of his hands has come along. He has achieved a rough pincer grasp—instead of picking up objects using the end of his pointer finger and his thumb, he grabs things by wedging his thumb against the base of his finger, along with lots of determination. His left hand is the more functional one, and he tends to only want to use that one. "Use both hands, Max!" is a phrase often heard around our house. Right now, we're working on getting him to unbuckle his seat belt, open the automatic door of our minivan and step out on his own.

As we all know, a job should play to your strengths. And I am pretty certain that work involving manual labor is not in Max's future, firefighter aspirations aside. I figure we might be able to find a way for him to pitch in at our local station or with a volunteer fire department, and then he'll have a another job, although Max is not yet convinced.

As we drove home from an event last night, we discussed exactly how he'd like to work in a fire department. He said he'd want to drive the truck, a new answer—usually he's said he would not want to be behind the wheel. Trying hard not to be a buzzkill, I pointed out that driving a fire truck might be a little hard for him and asked if he had other ideas. So then he said he could sit in the back of the truck, his usual response. To be continued.

Yes, Max is just a freshman. We have time before we have to figure things out. There will be other skills he will be learning in the program. And to be sure, there are benefits that come from "building maintenance" and "retail assembly" skills that would apply to all sorts of jobs, including focus and diligence. But I know that Max is a person who thrives on the confidence of knowing he can do stuff, along with familiarity. It seems like it would make sense to at least start thinking, early on in his young adult life, what kind of work could play to his biggest asset: his personality.

Max's charm, sweetness, smile and happy-go-lucky ways have won people over since he was a few months old and had the Early Intervention therapists wrapped around his chubby little finger. He's a people person, and that's exactly what I said at the IEP meeting. Max had come in by this point, and I explained to him that we were talking about jobs.

I acknowledged that he wanted to be a firefighter, and also noted that it would be good for him to have a job where he could be around a lot of people because he was so good at making friends and people liked hanging out with him. "Right?" I said. "Right!" he responded. The teacher consultant running the meeting was going to relay my message to the person in charge of the life skills program. I'm looking forward to hearing back.

While I can see Max doing some sort of office job, if he chooses to, "retail assembly" and "building maintenance": not so much. I don't yet have other thoughts about the kind of work Max might do, although one occurred to me over the summer. A new restaurant is opening in town and the owners live in our area; I met one at a party, and as we talked I started wondering if Max could be a host. But would he be able to grab the menus and present them to customers? (Probably.) Would he get bored after a couple of hours on the job? (Maybe.) Would he get tired standing on his feet for a while? (Definitely.) And then I was back to fantasy square one.

There will be plenty of school guidance, job coaching and brainstorming in years to come, I know. But I'm going to start beating this drum now.

To be continued.