Sigh.... My poor, sweet Aaron. He has a heart of gold. He truly has the biggest heart of all 5 of my kids. He is also, one of my hardest kids. He (and therefore we) has ADHD and some OCD tendencies. The doctor warned us that junior high was going to be really tough for Aaron to adjust to. The freedom, the different teachers and more demands for his attention. We prepped. We talked all summer about how different it would be. We tweaked meds and did whatever we could. A few months in, he's not doing so well.
I got an email today from his science teacher asking me if he had a nervous habit of taking apart and reassembling his mechanical pencil in class. Ummm, no, it's an annoying habit and I promised to set fire to all of his mechanical pencils tonight and send him with normal pencils from here on. :)
His grades are a roller coaster. 4 A's, 3 F's. He is extremely bright, but ask him to TURN IN homework? What is wrong with you? Ask him what his assignments are??? It has been a battle every day. I am lucky because the teachers post the assignments online so I can look it up. And his twin brother is on the same team, so I can check with Kevin to see what is going on. But Aaron needs to take the wheel. He needs to learn to own it. I've told him I can't turn in his homework, his teacher can't take it out of his backpack. It's all on him. The good news is that as of today, he is only failing one class. I see glimmers of effort on his part.
There are days when I just want to shrug it off and hold his hand and say, "do this page and this one...". But what is that going to get me or Aaron? It's easier now, but where will my sweet boy be in 5 years, drowning in high school... Billy and I always have these long conversations after everyone has gone to bed about whatever is the crisis of the day. And whenever Aaron takes center-stage (which has been often this semester), we commiserate about how hard it is, but we never want to make it easy for him. Because in the end, we want to raise a productive member of society. A child that won't "need us" when he's 30. My brother "needs" my parents and he's 43. No ADHD, no diagnosis or anything. But my mom never wanted him to suffer consequences. Never wanted him to fall down. He went to 3 different high schools because he couldn't/wouldn't conform or follow rules. He would do something stupid or not fit in well and my mom would yank him out and let him start over. I'll never understand why she did it, but I watch him today, unable to conform, keep a job, and expect my parents to fix it. (usually just with a check) So I know what I don't want to happen to my child. We will do the hard stuff now. And he will succeed. :)
No comments:
Post a Comment