Hi y’all, here’s an update of sorts. Or maybe just more information?
Thank you all for your comments and concern, I’ll try and fill in a little bit. It’s hard to write since every time I start I begin ranting or go off on a tangent and it turns to mush.
Let’s see:
This isn’t really a new situation, we’ve had issues of some sort or other for a long time. My son has decided that he is in charge at school and can participate, or not, depending on his mood. Naturally his teachers feel otherwise. This has led to conflicts in the past and we have tried a variety of techniques to work through it.
We thought things were improving. He has good days and bad days.
And for the record, that isn’t his picture below, that’s his little brother. I need to find a good one of him to match up with this story.
His teacher is awesome and the reason he didn’t blow up sooner. She has two or three grown children who faced similar issues (ADD, mostly) and has worked and worked to help him, but my son insists on testing the rules and limits to see what will happen.
Also, I did not manage to get drunk nor watch Snicket last night; sadly - I fell asleep. Maybe tonite?
It is a done deal, he has broken certain rules (he threw things when he got mad, one too many times) that require the school to put him at the alternative campus. Which isn’t as dire as I make it sound, it’ll basically him being in a cubicle doing his work while watched over. But no recess, art, PE, music, no seeing his friends. This close to the end of the school year I’m not sure he’ll be coming back to his classroom - he has to have ten consecutive days of “good behavior” (I don’t have the details yet, but I assume that means not throwing chairs around) to come back. We only have about four weeks of school left, and he can’t even start at the alternate school until Friday, so doing the math - if he’s great and never gets in trouble he’ll be able to return to his classroom for the last week or two of school. But one “bad” day resets the clock, and he has to get ten more consecutive good days. The odds are not in our favor.
As for me - and this is part of why it is hard to write / talk about - I don’t know that this is a bad thing. Bad as in devastating. Here’s what I see — he is very, very smart. Too smart sometimes. He is constantly testing to see what rules are, and what applies to him, and how to work any exceptions in his favor. This is at home as well as at school. When he wants to work he is great at it. He has a gift for language and can remember minute details when he wishes.
So what I see is that he has played the system all school year - he has been sent to the office for acting up before. He does his time there, and gets to go back to the classroom, and is good for a while (weeks, a month, whatever) and then something else happens. The things that happen are trivial but all have to do with control issues - a teacher asks him to sit down so they can continue class, and he’ll look her in the eye and say “no.” Defiant. Maybe it’s time he goes to a place where he can’t have the fun parts of school and just the work, where he has to follow the rules. I don’t know.
That sounds harsh, reading it, but it’s really hard to describe the situation unless you are here. Or him. He is such a sweet, smart child. But then he has another side, that can be mean as a snake, and that is what he is using right now.
Thanks, again, everyone for the comments and support. There’s nowhere else for me to go to share all this BS, so I’m glad you are listening. I’m sure there will be more to follow.
(oh, the title? At some point last night I woke up and wandered into the family room and The Karate Kid was on, right at the scene where he was polishing Mr. Miyagi’s cars)
