Apparently his teacher had told the whole class that they would lose marks on their work if it was messy... The problem is that telling DS points are deducted for messiness is the wrong thing to say _to him_... How do we handle this with DS? Should we talk to his teacher (again!) and ask her about this?
There may be four elements to this:
1) What a teacher says to the class as a whole.
2) What a teacher says to your son and/or what he takes from the message given to the whole class.
3) Working with your son to understand the teacher.
4) Working with the teacher to understand your son.
It may be a simple matter to discuss with your son that if you understand correctly from his explanation, the teacher advised
the class as a whole about neatness. It would not be appropriate for the teacher to point out your son (and possibly others) to whom the message did *not* apply (or would apply differently) due to accommodations in place regarding neatness. You might then wish to help your son understand having a "filter" for what he hears so that he can appropriately determine whether a message applies to him specifically. This may encourage your son being able to develop a strategy other than worrying about what has been heard. Eventually he may be able to choose a quiet, private moment and ask the teacher if the message given to the class applied equally to him... hopefully he would hear that he is to do his personal best, just as each student is to do their personal best, and that the teacher understands that due to certain challenges his personal best might look a bit different from other students' work.
If this sounds like a plan and goals that might work for your family, then you may wish to talk to the teacher along the same lines, to get her input and ensure that you have a collaborative home/school plan which encourages your son to develop a filter, not internalize certain messages, feel comfortable talking to the teacher, eventually develop effective self-advocacy.
