Originally Posted by eco21268
I think the thing I hate the most about all of this is how frustrated it's made me with my child, even knowing that so much of what's going on is beyond his control at this point. He has been entirely clueless about everything. When I talk to him about how his teachers perceive him, he looks so confused, and hurt.

Poor sweetie.

It is very hard to go around in the world and have people mad at you all the time and not know why. VERY hard. He may feel rotten about himself (unjustly).

I spend a lot of time teaching our teachers to simply be more informative with DS so that learning can take place. That is, for them to tell DS explicitly and calmly what other kids can infer. "When you do X it bothers the class; I need you to do Y." "When I say 'we are on page 42' I mean 'turn to page 42'."

They have a hard time with this (because "he's so smart he should know")-- but it's an important intervention.

Originally Posted by eco21268
It's awful when the adults seem to view the child as a "jerk" instead of having some empathy for his predicament, which I've done my best to communicate. I feel like I've been beat up this year.

Yes-- you can be the one who is left holding a lot of rotten feelings. If you can, do something nice for yourself.