DS10 started middle school 6th/7th grade this past Monday. He has had nausea (anxiety?) in the mornings and has been chewing his lip raw. He hasn't done that since 1st grade went so badly.
I am picking him up from school, having him go through each class mentally, fill out his planner/assignment notebook, go through his locker and backpack so he takes home what he needs to. (In 5th grade, he was lying to his teacher that he was bringing his homework home, and then coming home and lying to me that he'd forgotten it.)
He is struggling with the conflict between "knowing" material as a passing familiarity and mastering defined learning targets. He says his science class is hard. They're on mitosis and meiosis. Maybe it would have been easier if he had spent his 30 minutes of homework reading the material rather than flipping through the textbook skimming anything that looked exciting.
He has a minimum 5,000 word short story project in one class. He's already lying to me about what his teacher expects. I've been emailing the teacher, she is letting me know exactly what she tells him. <3 She wants him to write 300 words per day. Hah! Took him 2 hours to write 75 words yesterday. I suspect this assignment will end catastrophically.
I'm just now starting to figure out all the crap he pulled in 5th grade. Lying about packing his lunch, taking school lunch (without paying for it or having money in his lunch account). Oh my! The elementary school coddled him badly - it was a chief complaint of mine back in 4K! they don't let students experience natural consequences. Thankfully middle/high school is different. First thing I did was freeze his lunch account. Miraculously (sarcasm), he is "remembering" to pack his lunches. Of course! Stuff like this makes me think his ADHD is an elaborate scam or scapegoat for behaving badly. I'm thankful I have his neuropsych reports before and after ADHD medication to ground me.
He is getting behind on homework already in 3 days. He spent 4 hours on homework yesterday. Looked like 30 minutes doodling rather than doing his math homework. He didn't finish several assignments, didn't practice trumpet, didn't clean his room or put his dirty clothes in the hamper, and didn't take a shower. Yuck! He went to bed an hour late and then kept himself up even later singing and talking to himself.
I am completely exhausted. This homework supervision thing is more exhausting than homeschooling him. And picking him up after school to check his locker and papers takes a huge chunk out of my day, leaving me getting up earlier and getting sleep deprived. I'm not a happy momma.
What can I do to make this better?
