DS15, tested PG at 7, a high school freshman, has had a struggling year this year. Although he is much better managing his homework assignments, he still struggles ( getting low Bs) across most of subjects, even the ones he is good at, such as English and history. For most of math and science tests, he gets high 70s. I went to talk to his math teacher and looked at his exam paper and found 80% of errors are due to careless mistakes ( missing negative signs, copying numbers wrong, reading problems incorrectly). But it is something he can not seem to overcome. Instead of trying to figure out a strategy to improve, He avoids the issue and developed a sense of " I am not good at math". He can not get himself to study or even work on his homework problems despite knowing at he is on verge of slipping to a C if he does not do well enough in next quiz.
he has had trouble with math since 7th grade, basically never learned how to study math or other subjects he is less interested in.
meanwhile, he has become a very capable debater, winning top awards at state and regional level as a freshman. With no coach, he and his club members work on their own to learn, design strategies, learn from mistakes and constantly improve. He can concentrate for a long period of time when working on debate research or practice. He also excels at writing and mock trial and has had a very successful year. he also participates actively in school clubs and activities and does not seem to have a social issue.
We are at wits end to figure out what is the underlying issue with his academics. We could let him take lower level classes next year (which he absolutely hates the idea) but I think this does not fix his real issue. We start to really suspect he has an undiagnosed ADHD that is preventing him to focus on less interesting subjects. By the way, he regularly falls asleep in Spanish class and his excuse was that there was a period of instruction so boring and he could not help falling asleep. Starting a couple weeks ago, he started to get up really early in the morning around 5:30 to "work on stuff", which I think 80% is non school related. I don't really know what he works on in the morning other than what he told me. What I do know is he is not very interested video game, but more interested social network and chatting online. I understand he needs privacy and not to be bothered but why would he need to get up so early in the morning. He does go to bed before 10:30 at night.
I know its hard to tell but should be get him to see a psychologist for ADHD or other issues? His IQ score from age 7 was 147 full scale with only low score in processing speed of 109. there wasn't any mentioning of issues in the report. His underachieving behavior and anger issue started in 4th grade. At 15, he gotten much better at controlling his emotions with almost no anger outbursts, instead he just stays in his room more than ever.
Thanks for reading...
