Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Learning Environments Send ds BACK to high school after year of college?

I'm having a disagreement with my ex over our son. Last year, ds (then 15), asked to go to community college the upcoming year, instead of heading into 11th grade at his private school.

I asked for a guidance meeting at his high school to ask what they thought, and was surprised that they were for the plan! Ex also agreed (though he later said that he hadn't understood the plan, and wouldn't have agreed if he had!

Ds has been taking only 1 or 2 courses at a time over the past year, and (supposedly) homeschooling 11th grade. His "admission test" scores got him invited to the honors program, but he has had exactly the same issues as in hs-- learns the material in a snap, then forgets (or "forgets") to turn in work. He's only passed half his courses this year.

So, ds, ex, and I all agree he needs something different this coming school year. Ex has declared by fiat that ds will go to public hs (private is no longer possible). If ds goes there, he will have to "repeat" 11th grade. It is a HUGE school, and he has social anxiety. It's a pretty good school, but there is bullying. He's still going to have the issues of an incredible learning capacity and nonexistent executive skills.

Ds is no help-- he says he doesn't know what he wants, but he doesn't want any of the choices! I don't know what to do. Suggestions for how to handle a 16 year old who won't DO anything, and his father, who wants to send him back to high school as a "punishment" for it?

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.


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.



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.

Is a boarding school an option?

Thanks for the insights, HowlerKarma! I was trying not to write an epic, and I think I left out information/didn't express myself very well. I'm not against ds going to ps, per se; I just want to make sure we (ex, ds and I) know all sides of the issue.

I think your positing that the faculty of his hs wanted ds out because he was a pain is unfair to him and to them. Ds was not a big problem. In fact, they liked him and wanted him to stay. Also, these people are dedicated educators who wouldn't send a kid off to fail just to make their lives easier.

I knew full well what the consequences could be if ds was not ready for cc, as he thought he was. It was a failure, but a well-reasoned one! Also, I don't see going to public hs as a "punishment;" that is how ds' father presented it to him!

Maybe public hs is the best option. Thank you for helping me think it out.

Not unless I win the lottery!

Sorry if I implied that the school staff 'wanted' your DS out-- that's definitely not what I intended. More along the lines of what you've stated-- that they wanted what is best for him, and that strategic failure might well have been it at that point in time.

I hear ya about boarding school. Still-- probably doesn't hurt to examine the possibility and see if there is financial assistance, right?

Ahhh-- deeply unfortunate that one parent is seeing PS placement as "punishment" for malfeasance as opposed to "a better placement for right now."

Maybe HS can offer him dual enrollment-- though he may well have shot himself in the foot there with his recent performance.

luceinte, has your ds always struggled with executive function, or are the ef issues this past year something new/situational? If they are something that has always been an issue, I think I'd try to focus on which school setting you can best address them in for the coming year - and by address, I don't mean get by easiest, but instead, which school setting offers support and the opportunity for your ds to learn/improve his ef skills? If he has a challenge with them, and simply returns to school without some type of focus on getting him help with them (or accommodations if necessary), I'd be concerned that in 1-2 years he'll be headed off to college the next time and have the same thing happen all over again.

If it's motivation more than executive function, I'd be inclined to put him in the public school and have him repeat 11th grade - not what he wants and maybe not the rock-star best solution for a bright kid, but... he had an amazing opportunity to get what he wanted (cc) and he didn't live up to what he needed to do to be there. NOTE - I would only let it go at this *if* I, as his parent, was certain that the lack of turning in homework and the bad grades were related to not trying when he had the full ability to do well. Be sure, if you're seeing it as lack of motivation, that the lack of motivation didn't happen because of giving up due to challenges with ef skills.

Gotta run, hope that made sense!

Best wishes,

polarbear

ps - why can't he go back to the private school? Are there any other private or charter options in your area?

There is always the option of getting a GED (which he could presumably pass when asleep) and then doing some "real-world" activity that necessitates stepping up his executive Function.

Be sure to check out state law/guidelines on that one, though-- where we are, you can't sit for a GED until you are 18. It's part of the state code on the subject.

Maybe an "unschooling" experience more like a job would be something to think about, though-- maybe a volunteer position with a local non-profit-- food bank, office, animal shelter, library, etc.

That might be a chance to work on the soft skills, executive deficits, and maturity. It does run the risk, though, of him deciding not to go back-- and the closer he gets to 18, the more that would worry me.

I totally agree with this.

It would also be worth seeing someone qualified to evaluate if there is ADHD or Asperger's going on here. If there is, you'll find a strategy for dealing with it; if not, then at least you know.


And in a young adult, it is very hard to know whether it's really an EF deficit that underlies a motivation problem. By this age, if a person has trouble accomplishing what they want to accomplish, they have learned to expect themselves to fail, and so motivation seems like a problem even though it may still not the main problem.


Yes, that is what I mean.

DeeDee