In the continuing saga of DS13, I am thinking of some seriously out of the box ideas. He has continually struggled with homework, grades and lying about these.
The latest: on Tuesday DS came home early from school due to dr appt with no homework but studying for a big algebra test. I got home from work and prompted him to study. I scribed every assignment in this chapter for him so I know he did the work and understood it. He had a review to work for studying with answers to check. He shoo'd us all out of the room to minimize distractions and told me he wanted to study without my help so that he can be sure that he can do it by himself. I asked him where his devices were? He had to have computer, iPad and phone in another room to prevent getting off track. He took his ADHD homework dose, ate a snack and started to work.
At first he was calling out questions to me in the kitchen then he became quiet. Instead of becoming suspicious, I cleaned the kitchen and did my evening chores. When I finally did check, after an hour and a half, disaster! He has secreted my old iPad and played with it without doing a single problem. Instead of exploding with frustration I really pushed him to explain why, why he would choose to do this? After crying and wallowing for a while, he finally sobbed that "It's like my nails (which are chewed bloody.)I just can't stop doing it."
DS' lies and deception are crazy-making and maddening. However, when I try to think about what is going on from his perspective, I can see maybe it's a desperate attempt to escape his misery. DS hates school. He changed schools this year and the new school is much, much more supportive of him. However, traditional school is torture for kids like him. He has long been diagnosed ADHD and dysgraphia but recently identified as dyslexic, with CAPD and visual processing deficits. Every Sunday he asks me to take his temperature to see if he has to go to school tomorrow. As he starts to think about school he is clearly dreading it, every week.
DS is immature with marked social problems. He has literally no friends and no social life, mainly due to impulsive and immature ADHD behavior. He is a clumsy kid, not athletic, with mild sensory issues that are a little odd at times. He is also very small for his age. He has not started puberty at all. DS is also slightly young for his grade due to widespread red shirting here.
DH and I started talking last night about what would happen if we took DS out of school for a year of unschooling. We could just put him in school as an 8th grader in fall 2015 and let him take a year off to detox from school.
Pros:
Our state homeschool laws would totally allow it.
Perhaps he could casually pursue some academic interests (architecture, ancient history) and try to rekindle a love of learning.
He now requires a boatload of therapies in light of his recent diagnoses (vision therapy 6-9 months, speech language therapy 6-12 months, dyslexia therapy ??? and serious work on executive function suggested by his tester.) We could have time to get these done without school overlap.
DS might get to actually do some extracurriculars, like musical theater troupe or even scouts. Homework takes pretty much all night, every night and he has no outside interests.
Cons:
It just feels weird.
I work so some, maybe a lot, of his time would be unstructured. Would this be a year of unabashed video game playing in the sly?
Has anyone ever heard of doing something like this? I really want to do the right thing for him and I feel that he is desperate. I am kind of desperate too. Am I giving up too easily? The school is really trying to work with us. Will he take the mythical leap to greater maturity and outgrow some of these issues?
Feedback?
