@Dude, I appreciate your response. I think I'll need to find a similar balance since my son does have obvious lagging skills. I'm okay with him failing, but heck, a B would devestate him. LOL! My little perfectionist!
He hasn't taken a test or gotten any graded papers back yet, but he is already very motivated by grades.
Regarding the 300 words per day writing assignment, I pointed out that would take about 9 hours (per day). He had a little indignant tantrum and boy did his pencil fly after that! He wrote out about 300 words in a half hour. He is writing again tonight, getting close to 300. I'm delighted because his success or lack of will be based more on his writing ability than on his behavior.
I got a login for the schools' parent portal. I LOVE THIS THING. We had a family meeting over his 3 days of data. He was late to a class, and went to the wrong classroom for resource one day. Excused absences, but boy, accountability is leaving an impression upon him!
He attempted to sort out his homework and supplies by himself after school and had it done before I arrived. His solution today was "I have a test in every class". (Not true), so bring everything home. Not the most efficient solution, but I noticed he tried.
We had a conversation about his taking school lunch issue in elementary school, since the parent portal listed all the changes to his account. He tried saying he "forgot", he tried saying he was being "lazy", he tried whining "I don't know". These are his ADHD excuses. I rejected those excuses and he confesses to eating school lunch to try to fit in. I'm not sure that's completely true since he started the year with a group of friends that all brought lunches. Perhaps some friendships changed. We are working on a restitution punishment. His lunch account was wrongly marked as free/reduced price. We calculated the amount that came from that and he'll have to earn it and give that amount to a charity that benefits children in our town. So far the only option he has for earning it is selling his fancy-pants backpack. That's heavy-hitting for a kid who is turning to possessions for a sense of self-worth.
He is struggling with wanting to use objects (including hot lunch, excessively large adulty scissors, and an oversized neon backpack) as status symbols. I suppose this is a normal human thing, but joining a new social group seems to be an ideal time to nip it.
He has a new crush. Girl is same age - also grade-skipped but a few years ago. She's out of his league, she's just got "it". He says adorably earnestly that he wants to be good enough for this girl. YES! For motivation!
