I have to say that over the past couple years, we have made a tremendous amount of progress getting accomodations for our son (9-4thgrade) in the public schools. I am sincerely grateful to them for all that they are doing. At the same time, DS is getting more and more unhappy with school. The only subject he still likes is math, the one that he is subject skipped into a class with older students and a different teacher. DH and I do talk about home schooling but DS is very against the idea. He is very social and has on the surface a good network of friends in his classroom. DS won't even consider a full grade skip since it would mean not seeing much of his friends. I am also concerned about being his primary teacher. We have knocck out verbal battles just over his current homework assignments on a regular basis.
Some of the issues that we are seeing:
First DS's grades are dropping. Instead of bringing home mostly A's, his assignments with the exception of Math are more in the C and lower range. (not concept errors, spelling, handwriting, coloring, neatness etc.) Although he is getting an A in spelling...
Second, he tells us that he's stupid and can't do anything right. In fact, he has asked to be put into lower level classes because these are too hard.
Third, his emotions are all over the board, he won't eat much, and he is sleeping more than normal with nightmares at night.
To me he sounds depressed and or stressed. However, at school he is apparently still cheerful and class clownish. I wrote to the school to tell them what is going on. I think that they are going to try to see if they can get him to talk to the guidance councelor.
This is the first time in a couple years that DS hasn't talked to DH and I about what is bothering him. If this is a prelude to the teen years, I think I'm going to go nuts!
