My name is Laleh and I am a mother and a teacher. My son Daniel has autism. As you can imagine, it is every mother’s wish to see her child happy and successful.
Unfortunately, for many years my son suffered emotionally, because he couldn’t perform simple tasks and refused to cooperate, socialize or listen. As a mother, I wanted to help my son but despite searching for solutions, I was unable to help him. I spent many hours researching, talking to other parents, consulting with district representatives, engaged with therapists and attended a number of meetings with teachers. Unfortunately, I couldn’t get any help and the only word I ever heard was “sorry.”
I also took my son to several doctors to get accurate diagnosis and knocked on every door trying to find a way to empower and help him. However, nothing seemed to work and his frustration elevated and created a tense and emotionally painful atmosphere. Meanwhile, I was always told by my family and friends that a miracle can happen.
May Institute’s Bay School was the miracle for my son and our family.
The quality of my son’s life changed significantly after he was trained by the professionals at this school. Prior to attending this school, my son only ate one type of food. He refused to cooperate, listen, or socialize. However, after spending some time at this school and getting the full care from all the professional educators and experts, he turned into a different person. For the first time in my life, I saw the light of hope shining in his life and it brightened my life and our family’s life.
It is very difficult to portray the feelings into words but for a mother there is no greater gift than seeing her child smile and be successful. Now, I finally have confidence that this school will give the necessary training to my son so he can develop essential skills to function independently. It is a matter of survival for my son to be empowered to do things on his own, because he can’t always be accompanied by someone.
In conclusion, there are simply no words to describe my appreciation and my praise for this school. I as a mother and an educator will do everything in my power to help support this school so we can help other students and parents. We need to continue to build on this success to replace despair with hope.
Warmest Regards,
Laleh Sharafati
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