Hmm.
Well, your DS
did get to choose the last year's option.
How's that working out? What is your DS' explanation for his performance? (Is it realistic? Or is it more like 'excuses' why the world doesn't 'understand' his needs?)
(I know what my own adolescent is likely to come up with as explanations why she doesn't do things that she is SUPPOSED to be doing, let's just say.)
In other words, he
does not yet possess sufficiently mature JUDGMENT to be making the decision.His refusal to cooperate in working out what to do now is clear indication of that, I'd say.
but he has had exactly the same issues as in hs
Ahh. I'm going to be blunt, because it sounds like the kind of situation where I'd probably be pretty blunt with my own adolescent. Tell him that it's time for him to put up-- or shut up. You
did give him an opportunity, which he squandered. It's not entirely clear what you thought would be better about that kind of placement. (I don't mean to say that there wasn't a good set of reasons, just that on the surface, I don't see what they are/were.)
HS guidance counselors may have felt that he NEEDED to fail in order to admit to the shortcomings that they knew existed. They probably
knew that he wasn't going to fare very well without the structure of HS, but felt that he (and maybe you?) needed to SEE it in order to believe in the magnitude of the problem.
Ex also agreed (though he later said that he hadn't understood the plan, and wouldn't have agreed if he had!
Hmm... has he said WHY he feels this way? Which one of you is most like your adolescent in personality and strengths/weaknesses here? I'd let that parent take the lead here-- they're likely to have the best insights into what he actually needs.
Personally, if I had a child who had clear executive deficits and was bored/unmotivated/uncooperative in the strong (?) private school s/he was attending, I don't know that I would be too keen on a 'part-time college/part-time unschooling' program, either. Full time college,
maybe. What is your co-parenting relationship like, here? Is that getting in the way enough that you want a third-party helping you as a family?
Now, you as parents have determined (er-- or it sounds as though you're headed that way, anyway) that he needs more maturity before he does ANYTHING else. Public high school it is, then?
No, academically it won't be 'teaching' him anything. But he clearly lacks many of the other skills that he needs in order to succeed at much of anything. He can work on managing his anxiety and his time and other executive functions during that year-- with more supports than he's at at the post-secondary level-- and at the end of it, you can all sit down and reevaluate.
I'm not seeing how you have a better option which will help him to build much-needed executive skills, honestly. Why do you see that as "punishment" out of curiosity? NO, he's not going to thank you for the experience while he's there, for sure... but I'm not sure that there is a better option.
If you allow him to 'unschool' then he's not going to work on any of his deficits the way he needs to. If you send him back to community college, he's just going to rack up more F's that will follow him and possibly destroy future options in higher ed.
