frustrated mom

Words of wisdom? I wish…..

Commiserate? Can do…

My first two boys, now teens, were very bright, talked early, tested gifted, etc, etc

Enter #3 who didn’t speak single words until age 3 and at age 12 is still in need of speech therapy(been in it since 22 mos) From one of your other posts, I suspect we have a lot in common. My pediatrician said I was overreacting-he was # 3 and we were talking for him, etc-I got the special ed folks to perform a hearing check close to his 4th birthday(since the dr wasnt cooperating)

Moderate to severe hearing loss in both ears!!!! Tubes helped tremendously-he woke the first morning alarmed by the sound of a flushing toilet(apparently hadnt heard it at night before)

Talk about guilt! Should have changed doctors-should have been firmer in my convictions something was truly wrong. Should have, should have…..

School is a struggle. We have a diagnosis of ADD inattentive. How much of this is from tuning out for alost 4 years because he couldnt hear anyway? Who knows?

I homeschooled last year for 6th grade. It was slow going but we made tremendous progress. I cant homeschool this year as my job no longer allows part time work.

I was in tears with his math homework tonight. He tests with an average to high average IQ. How can it be this hard? Its essentially the same problem over and over but he tackles each one as if hes never seen the material before.

I would think long and hard before holding a child back a second time. Research it on the net. There really is no evidence out there to support holding a child back. There are subjective reports of “he did better the second time in 1st grade”, especially from educators, but controlled scientific studies consistently show no advantage.

I too cant imagine this child in college. Academics are not his strength and college isnt for everyone. I have a college degree(deans list no less) and make a pitiful salary. I guarantee that I could be making a better living if Id stayed at the hardware store I clerked at at age 16.

It isnt for everyone and it doesnt guarantee success(and yes, I know money isnt everything but it sure does help)

Hang in there-I suspect the diagnosis wont provide all the answers(just a hunch ;)) But its a good starting point

Are you attacking spelling visually? See if he can snap a picture of the word-have him blink his eyes like a camera to encourage this. Writing the words never helped my son-its was as if he could copy on autopilot-his mind was steering a spaceship while his hand was writing the word-I might as well have written it!!!!

Some kids do better if spelling is paired with motion-bound a ball or jump on a mini tramp.

YOU write the word 3 times, 2 of them incorrect-chances are he will recognize the correct spelling. Its a starting place and it often helped my son to do this midweek before he had to use recall(recognition is ALWAYS easier, LD or not)

Somehow, someway, my son would show what we had worked on in spelling the next day. The day of??? Clueless. It was as if sleep somehow cemented the knowledge.

As kooky as that sounds I imagine there is some short term/long term memory explanation for that

So, dont despair-it may make sense in the morning

Hang in there-

Dear Laura,
Glad you found us (I feel a part of this community of parents). Hope we will be a source of information, encouragement and strength. First, try to not blame yourself or your son for this situation. Children grow and mature at different rates. As parents we do our best to nurture and push and hug and expect. You have given your son an extra year, “the gift of time”. Now, though, it is time to look for other avenues. Testing is a good source of information and will help you see his strengths, weaknesses and the direction his education should take. Get the testing done and see what services are necessary for him to be successful in school. He needs good instruction provided by a well-trained teacher. There will be things you can do at home and things that need to be done at school. In the meantime try not to cry over spelling! Pick out two words or five words that he can practice and try on. Cuddle up on the couch and read him a good story.

This is a year for action, to begin to understand his needs and to begin to give him the help he needs to learn and stay encouraged and happy and hopeful. No one can predict his future. It is yours and his to shape.

We have come far from a similar place. “They” said our son would never read, not graduate, could be a butcher. Well, he can read, he is filling out applications for college and if he wants to be a butcher he will, but right now he has plans to write a science fiction novel and own a video game company. We have struggled, but we have given our son a future. You can do the same. There is more and more understanding of how we learn and how to teach. Calmly and firmly demand help for your son (and that most likely does not mean another retention). Keep us posted.

Sorry about the spelling of your name, Lori. Ahhh, spelling!!

Lori — when a kid has fallen behind for whatever reason, you can’t jump over ten steps that were missed and suddenly do “grade level” (whatever that is) work. The spelling and math homework are first a waste of valuable time and second lessons in frustration and failure and hating school and parents — negative all around.

Here’s something I often ask and suggest and haven’t gotten much of an answer yet: what if you just quit fighting over the spelling list? If you just sent the kid to school and said “do the best you can and don’t worry about it”? Would the spelling grades be much worse? Would the teacher come to your house and punish you?
I happen to think that good spelling is an important skill, and yes it is teachable. BUT the usual list memorization is almost completely pointless (how much did it help your own spelling?) and for a kid who is behind, a real waste of time. There are other and much, much better things to do to spell better.

Similarly with the fights over mysterious unknown math homework — why??

Yes, teach spelling (and reading and writing) and math. Start where the child is, not where you think the kid is somehow “supposed” to be. Work up step by step and you will get there.

As far as going to college or not, there are people in the world who want to be scholars, and people who don’t. Right now it is difficult to find a good mechanic or electrician or carpenter or plumber, and these folks can always get a job and earn good money. So leave the college worry for later; right now work on a solid foundation of basic skills, and if college is the right way to go later these skills will be the right start.

I have been sending out copies of a lot of my posts to anyone who wants suggestions on how to tutor. If you are interested, just ask at [email protected]

Don’t give up! it is natural for you and he both to feel frustrated. After all, he is struggling with what comes easily to other children and as parents we often feel worse than even the child does over these problems. Do get him tested right away, not only for LD but also for ADHD (the easily frustrated part could be an indicator for ADHD). If the school won’t test him yet, pay for it yourself if at all possible. It is too important to wait. I believe the school should have tested BEFORE having him repeat. Don’t listen to the dire predictions. When my child was 7, we were told that, although his IQ is in the gifted range he might never be able to write at grade level and that he wouldn’t be able to learn a foreign language. He hated school, reversed letters, numbers, words, etc., produced almost no work and melted down daily. Well, fast forward 8 years and he is a straight A student, including in English and Spanish. How did this happen? First he got his LD and ADHD diagnosed early so that he could get the help he needed while he was still young. He spent several years in self-contained classes, but now he is mainstreamed in all honors classes. Addressing the ADHD was key — we really thought he didn’t have it because he wasn’t hyper or obviously spacy. The reality was that the impulsiveness was all internal and not easy to identify without expert help. WHen the ADHD was treated, all the other things we were doing to help him really clicked. Just one more story — my son has a friend whose parents were told when he was 6 that his IQ was low average (89) at that school would always be a struggle. When he was tested again at 12, his IQ was 116. The problem had been his auditory processing disorder. When that was addressed, his true intelligence was revealed.

Such wonderful advice has been given. Just want to add my 2 cents. As the mother of an adhd/ld daughter, now college student who never thought she would, there is always hope. I remember well those nights of stuggling with homework, spelling test and math problems. Sitting at the table for hours helping her study. Next day, no recall.
What I didn’t realize was most ld kids are about 2 years behind in emotional and intellectual growth.
Do get him tested, do insist on the school helping him and please don’t get upset with yourself or him. It does not help either of you. I am sure he is trying his best. Ld kids learn when taught in the proper manner. You just need to find out what that way is.
Give him lots of hugs and understanding. He will get enough grief from school, and he will need a safe place at home.
Lots of luck.

Unless your son was damaged because you took drugs or routinel drank while you were pregnant it is not very likely something that YOU did that caused him to struggle like he does. One thing that may or may not be significant is that from a medical perspective males tend to be more fragile than females (the Y chromosone is way smaller than the X) and there is a general tendancy for there to be more males than females in the Sped population because of this.

There are far too many possibilities for what was different with your 3rd pregnancy to assign blame, so let’s just say we live in a damn dirty world and focus on where do we go from here rather than blaming yourself for something that is almost assuredly NOT your fault. (Besides, there will be PLENTY of people who will blame you, no sense you doing so as well…)

Have you had him tested for Dyslexia or similar conditions? That would be where I would start.

And please do not hesitate to ask specific questions or whatever here. There are a lot of good and knowledgable people here who will be happy to help if possible.

Lori,
I to have felt the way you do. I haven’t been able to help my dd .
She passes every other spelling test. I have her write them say them and everything. I thought she was gonna be held back last year. But they passed her to the second grade and it is very hard on her. We finally got the school test her last year. I have friends that their kids were in her class and they were wanderful support for me. I also blamed myself.

Sounds familiar.

First, stop pressuring him and nagging him to try harder or get with the program and don’t take away his fun stuff because of his academic struggles. Don’t pratice spelling words. Don’t ask him 20 questions about what’s going on in the classroom and what kind of HW do you have and what grade did you get on this paper or that. (I’m not saying you are doing this, this is what I did to my child in 1st grade!)

Second, get an outside evaluation for ADHD and LDs.

Third, use medication if it’s needed for ADHD. You can’t deal with any academic struggles if the ADHD is not medically managed properly.

Fourth, get outside help. He needs to be taught how to read from the very beginning using a scientifically based multi-sensory approach. Chances are huge your school doesn’t offer this. Spelling and writing remediation will take longer probably than the reading.

Encourage any strengths he may have even if it’s video games. If it’s video games, buy the game guides with the games. My son learned to read using pokemon cards and video game guides. Whatever it takes.

Don’t hold him back again. That is a short term solution to a life long problem.

Read up on IDEA and learn your rights. Read books about dyslexia. Be informed.

Of course, don’t compare him to his sisters. I’m sure you don’t do that to him.

Good luck to you!

Lori,
wow! what you wrote just hit so close to home for me.
my daughter is in 2nd grade this year after being held back in 1st last year. her first year of first grade was horrible. she was still stuggling from kindergarten but all the teachers and even the principal i spoke with assured me that she would be fine in 1st grade. enter 1st grade. she was in a team teaching class (it was a 1st & 2nd grade combined) which i did not request but everyone told me how great it was. so i relented and i kick myself for that everyday since then. the classroom was two classes combined. there were 2 teachers and 50 students. there were not enough desks for all of the students so while the “youngers” sat at the tables the “olders” would sit on the floor and vice versa. there was way too much activity going on in that room for my daughter to function. she was left so far behind. because she didn’t catch on right away to the lessons being taught she would just come home and cry. She was put in reading recovery and did show improvement there but still not at grade level. I was assured once again this time by a committee made up of the teachers, principal and counselor that she would be fine in 2nd grade. By the way in this class she was diagnosed with ADHD. However, in her next school they said that was a misdiagnois. They did not see any symptoms. They blamed that on the previous classroom environment. She was all ready behind and having so much going on it was very easy for her to get distracted.
We were stationed overseas in Germany that first year so it was a DoD school she attended (Department of Defense). We came back to the states and enrolled her in a school here. I spoke with the principal of that school and what a surprise. He will hold a child back but first he will explore other options and examine all the evidence. In the meeting he asked me what level she finished at in reading recovery i told him 8. right there he told me that the students had to pass at at least a level 14 to pass on to 2nd. What a huge difference when she repeated! She woke up and actually wanted to go to school. However, as the year progressed and she started to get very frustrated. Now that she’s in 2nd grade she cries everytime i say it’s time for homework. Especially when it is spelling time. I’ve made flash cards. I’ve cut them up for her to rearrange. I’ve looked into tutors. I’ve had her write them numerous times. We make cheers for the words. But it’s just like you said. As soon as she wakes up the next morning it’s all just gone.
I’m so sad for her when i see her struggle. I blame myself over and over again. For not holding her back in kindergarten and it goes back to when she was born. I pushed for 4 hours just to have an emergency c-section because she was stuck. I wonder about the lack of oxygen.
She was in speech therapy from the time she was 3 to 6. She has overcome that disability with leaps and bounds. Every now and then i need to ask her to repeat what she said but that doesn’t happen like it used to. I’m always having her eyes tested so far so good there. Her hearing is something i question. Soon the school she is with will test all of the children’s hearing so I’m eager to see how that goes.
WOW! When i started i really didn’t think that i would say so much.
Thank you for listening!