Okay, I let him write about me peeing all over myself in the kitchen and then having the dog lick it up. I think I’m owed this post.
If you haven’t been to Bryan’s site today, he wrote last night about something that plagued him since last Wednesday, and this same issue has been a struggle since last year. The Boy HATES spelling.
I chose those words carefully, because he is not bad at it. When he can hunker down and focus, it actually comes quite easily to him. But “spelling” has been the name we applied to this issue because it has, for a year now, been the catalyst that sets off “the child that we don’t know”.
And here’s my frustration: I CAN’T DO ANYTHING ABOUT IT. It’s VERY frustrating to me. As someone who grew up around teachers, who is a big sister, who mentored children growing up, it is INCREDIBLY hard to not fix this. It’s not my place to set up a conference with the teacher. It’s not my place to check his grades online daily. It’s not my place to do any of these things. But I would. Were it my place.
Not that I have an answer, obviously. But that’s my frustration for the day.
If the boy is growing up in your home, there’s a lot of things that “aren’t your place” that are your place whether someone else agrees or not. How many times have we heard the line “As long as you are living under my roof?” It’s your roof, whether or not it is your child.
Easy to say that, I know. But we need to remind ourselves often as the battles can become quite exhausting.
Are we thinking the problem is behavioral or a learning disability? (I hate that phrase.) If it is behavioral, it might behove you to look into family therapy (for all adults that are raising The Boy). All it will really do is give his parents tools to help diffuse the unwanted behavior. Also, a if you opt for a psychologist and not just a therapist they will be able to diagnose any learning “difficulties” The Boy might have to help his parents help him more effectively. You can also consult Sylvan learning centers (they teach in many different ways)
I understand that you may feel (forcibly) like you’re stepping on toes by mentioning anything, but at the end of the day there is a Boy who needs a little help and he doesn’t know how to nor is he capable of asking for it.