In the past two weeks, I've received 12 emails from teachers at my son's mid school letting me know he has forgotten, failed to complete, completed incorrectly or in some other way failed to do what the teacher expected him to do. These infractions worth emailing me have included not seeming to listen while other students are reading out loud from a text book in class, doing the odd numbers instead of the even numbers on a math paper, spilling water in his backpack from his water bottle thereby rendering his homework a soggy, unreadable mess, and not reading the directions correctly and only doing one of two steps for each problem on a worksheet.
The worst has been losing a packet for a book project of assigned poems that is to be sent to the publisher for the entire class tomorrow. He was given a new packet with no instructions as to what went on each page. With one day to go, I've received the instructions from the teacher with a note that if it is not all done including drawings for each page, he will receive a zero for the semester in her class.
While I understand that responsibility, following instructions, and being attentive in class are all reasonable expectations, I am very, very concerned that my son is receiving a litany of messages of how he is a disappointment, not normal, and a failure. That is an awful thing to have reinforced on a regular basis.
We have an IEP in place that allows for late assignments, reduced work load, etc., but I'm finding as the year rolls to a close, the teachers have lost a lot of willingness to make exceptions for him and think he is being coddled.
I have made a request to have him re-tested by the school but think I will have to figure out how to pay for some private testing, because I am thinking there is a working memory issue or something beyond dysgraphia/dyslexia.
So I guess my question for you all is this: how do you advocate or create positive experiences for your 2E child when they're having a lot of negative feedback, much of it probably earned.
