We have a DS16, one thing we have learned, And its hard to remember is that they somtimes value themselves for their intellect rather then their work effort. As things in life become more about effort and less about itellect, they back away and say they are dumb. We found no easy fix for this. The best thing for them is to overcome things on their own. For them to gain self worth by moving past a difficult goal. Our DS16 is learning some of these lessos the hard way. We made him retake two classes during the summer and one class this year. Now that he has retaken them he is starting to see that he wasn't dumb, but that he wasn't trying. We keep drilling effort over product. I only wish we had started in 1st grade. The good thing he is maturing a lot. We don't know if it's because he is older, or that we are great parents, LOL. It's hard to be 15, your supposed to be some bright kid that never fails, and should know what you want out of life. They view most everyone else as kids with no problems, and they are very self absorbed in their own lives. Sometimes it helps if they help someone else, it helps change the focus.
