If he isn't happy, it isn't because he thinks it's just more of the same -- it's because it IS just more of the same. They do so much review at the start of the year, it's long enough to make kids like your DS give up and assume nothing new is going to happen this year, either. Which may or may not be true, but it's hard to convince them otherwise after shutdown.
We've always clung to that meeting a few weeks in, as a means of adding hope to the boy. "Hang in there, we have a meeting coming up and we'll figure stuff out then."
