I had a long conversation with friends last night about some residual anger I have toward a member of my family...Still unresolved in my own head, it is the kids I stay for.
Today the discussion was about her younger son who has had a long hard 6 years in school. He was diagnosed with ASHD in grade one, and has been in a school that specialized in building skills in such children for several years now.
But...he (while intellegent), does not actually think he can get off the road he is on.
He had told a teacher to fuck off last week and when was confronted by his mom, told her that he " was at the bad kid school for a reason, and she should accept that as his fate".
So, she was looking on line and found a school that specializes in dealing with older ADHD students and found one that is a "millitary model" school.
She asks my opinion, but she really does not want to hear what I think.
I will post it here I guess:
1) Maybe that is a solution, or maybe this sending him away to another special school will prompt him to hate both his parents.
2) Maybe, she just needs a break
3) Maybe, if he is not emotionally ready to enter junoir high, she should just let him go to the regular school, and his bullying tendencies will be met with more agressive action from those who are larger than he (he is not a big kid) actual consequences.
4) Maybe, they should be fostering some degree of self-efficiancy for the kid. One of his chief complaints always is that he always has to do what others want, she fails to see that as a child your whole life is controlled by others, maybe he does not take any accountability because, he has no control over anything, and has learned that because he is ADHD, that he does not have to.
5) The kid was hated by his first grade teacher and associates being at school with being punished, and finds the whole thing incredibly dull...Some people are not good at learning in a classroom setting, I think this applies to the kid, maybe rather than trying to get him to learn in that setting, focus on other ways of learning the same things/skills.
I mean the kid hates to read, because it is "boring", but all the kid has ever tried to read is "assigned" and the mom is a little repressive, maybe some brutal action crime drama, or some non fiction about things he is actually interested in (music etc) might be the way to foster that enjoyment.
Fuck if all I read was boring school crap, I wouldn't have wanted to read either.
6) The expectation that he should go on to get a degree etc. seems really out of whack to me, What in his basic charecture makes her think he would ever want to go to University?
Problem, she has never been. It is all reading and sitting and listening, ans writting...none of which he enjoys. He likes working with his hands, making up fantastic tales, being physical, and creating drama. Work with what he is good at.
Lastly, when you are 12, you cannot know what the adult world is actually like, and he has been in many, many ways sheltered. Maybe the best thing would be a crash course in reality...Like If you want to be X then you need Y, or even if you want to make money (which he does like), how are going to do that? Or more importantly, we (parents) will not be paying for you after (18-21 ect.) you need to keep your options open, ans school is one of the ways of doing so...I mean give the kid some context, frank, honest, context.
SIGH
I do not know why I even try.
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He's bound to get a crash course in reality. As you say, its the road he's on.
ReplyDeleteI think you nailed it pretty much with (4). That's the one that sounds the most like a young teenager to me. Not really wanting to rebel because he's young, but for good reasons having to do with his life being an utter misery.
Winston Churchill used to say he understood the condition of men in prisons and penal colonies because he had been sentenced to eleven years at public and private schools. He was incorrigible, also. His father sent him to the military, believing young Winnie had nothing to offer the world except his body.
Mom has to back off, but she won't. She'll grind at the kid until he's 18 and his life is firmly fucked up.
You may chalk me up for a sigh also.