If you let your child fail...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DC with ADHD is in high school and combative, insulting and just angry about having to do any work at all. I am driving myself to the ground trying to help in every way possible (tutors, talking with teachers and staff, and spending hours helping 1:1 with work)

OP what 1:1 help are you giving your DC? Are you holding them accountable or are you hand-holding and propping up their grades? Is your DC combative with their tutors and teachers too?

[Anonymous]

I have an 11th grader with dyslexia and executive functioning deficits, and we’ve backed way off. For my kid that doesn’t equal failing out, but does mean a D here and there (usually pulled up to a C- the last day of semester), a few Cs, and a bunch of Bs. This year he started doing a bit of homework in the evenings, unprompted. When we try to help - with calendars, systems, reminders, tutors - he gets stressed, snappy, silent, and just all around unpleasant and unhappy. So we stopped. We used the old “I love you too much to argue about homework” line again and again (to ourselves) to remind us to drop the rope and just love him instead.

He’ll be able to go to a four year college, though not a selective one. I can’t say your kid will end up on the same path, OP, but I had the exact same fears you do when my son was a 9th grader and into 10th grade.

[Anonymous]

My sister left high school after just not going. My mother couldn’t get her to get up and go. She had stomach aches starting at an early age related to school.

She got her GED and went to a two year private school. She’s been a successful small business owner for years and is good with money.

It’s not the end of hope when a teen struggles. It is tough while it’s happening though, I get it.