NOt sure if it's yet a success story, but things are better. My son had a lot of difficulty around the time he turned 12. He was in 6th grade. It's complicated but the short story is 6th grade did not go well, he grades were in the toilet, and antagonized his peers, and teachers. Honestly I didn't really care about his 6th grades by the time that year was over. He was already in a honors programs, and there wasn't an issue moving on to the next grade.
DS is now 14 (almost 15) and a freshmann (9th) in H.S. He did get some outside help with a psychologist. He is doing a LOT better, but things aren't perfect. He has really enjoyed marching band, and is sad it's almost over for the season. He is in all honors classes. He still isn't getting the grades I'd hoped, and still "under-performs" but not as drastically. Big issues we deal with is it's still a challenge to get him to not procrastinate. And one of his biggest problems is he gets stuck and doesn't complete something when he doesn't have what he thinks is the "perfect" answer.
Preteens are going through a lot of emotional upheavals. My feeling is some of what helped in his situation simply maturity and moving out of elementary school. One of the things I did was make sure he was part of the solution and I listened to him about what he wanted. The other was to insist that despite his bad performance in 6th grade, he NEEDED to stay in the GT program the following year. (And legally in my situation they had to until 8th grade) I was lucky and had a school counselor willing to work with me who had a fairly good understanding of the situation.
Last edited by bluemagic; 12/10/13 09:48 PM.
