Thank you so much for sharing! My eldest is finishing their first year of uni now. Last two exams today and Wednesday. I should write up a similar reflection, if only for them to look back on, we have had many chats over the last year.
This jumped out to me:
I asked if she could spell the baby words. She said of course not, but she figured that she wasn't going to be able to spell consistently either way and she could have been learning some more interesting vocabulary.
This is SO important, in so many contexts, not just spelling. We want them to learn as much spelling as they can, or math, or EF, or whatever that significant weakness is. But at what cost. What cost is acceptable? What do we remediate aggressively and what do we accept as something that just needs to be supported as best we can along the way?
I am still in the trenches with my youngest at the moment, preparing for a meeting where I am expecting an attempt to reverse a double acceleration. This is more to do with a change in school philosophy than especially personal to my child (who is none the less not without issues). I am expecting "Won't someone think of their social skills" and "Developmental appropriateness"(where developmental = age), their health problems "The work should be easier because they have health problems" and also EF "The work should be easier so EF can develop"...
I cannot think of a scenario here (not the US), where a child who was clearly coping very well with the level of work across most subjects, struggling with one and bored with others would face the suggestion they should be retained (or put back even further) because they have poor spelling, or are bad at math, or have poor EF or health problems.
We do things to 2E kids, in the name of "helping them develop holistically", that would never even be discussed as an option for children in lockstep placements who are struggling in a particular area, for any of the many reasons that can come up.
