I've written before about DS7 - 2nd grade with pretty much no accommodations at school. I'm concerned about his obvious inability to work through things that are challenging for him, even in areas in which he's interested.
Example:
Several weeks ago, we attended an event where DS got to play chess against a GrandMaster. He literally cried because he wasn't able to hold his own against her. He asked me to leave the room with him, so she wouldn't see him in tears. I explained it was a good thing that she was so good -- that if he were better than everyone there, he'd be less likely to learn something. Before we attended, we'd discussed how this event was not to see how good DS was, but to try to learn some things.
And yesterday, we attended a local chess club for the first time. DS had been excited for weeks about it. It turned out to be just folks playing chess, whereas DS had hoped for someone to teach him strategies and tactics. (I know the rules, but that's about it.) DS was able to hold the experienced middle-schoolers to stalemate in every game, which I thought was pretty good. But now DS says that maybe chess is too hard for him. This from a kid who understood how to play at 3 years old, and wanted to talk about nothing else! At home, DS doesn't want to practice end games (like on chessmagnetschool.com) unless it's the easy ones he already knows how to do. And if he is playing a full game, he will try to abandon it if he's not winning, and then won't want to play for a day or two.
So, I'm perplexed with how to get him past the "I can't do it!" attitude. Over the past several months, I've seen a bunch of examples of things he's excited over, but then turn out to be "too much work", and he just goes back to reading a book (granted, a fairly advanced book, but still...).
Between the bus rides and school, he's gone for roughly 8 hours a day. Part of me feels like that is enough time for him to spend doing something someone else makes him do. The other side of me knows we have to teach him this skill. Any ideas would be appreciated!
Sorry for the long post. As I've mentioned before, brevity is not my strong suit!
Happy holidays to everyone!
