I have a son, he is 7 years old and full of life. He spends his time with various things, video games, cards, books, toys, etc.. I am not sure of his true intelligence level because I swear he hides it from me. He started reading things at 3 years old. Not like he picked up a novel and finished it, he would read things off of various signs or even web pages on the Internet. I didn't make a huge deal of it because I wasn't sure if he was really reading it or if he was just memorizing the words he has heard before.
Now at 7 I am pretty sure he was reading, like I said he hides it from me at times. He is an average little boy, likes to cause trouble, get dirty, play with cars and ride his bike. He also spent a year at 5 years old obsessed with the weather, looking up anything he could find about tornadoes, hurricanes, floods and asking every question he could. At 6 the weather obsession calmed down and another one popped up. This time it was aliens, to which he did the same research on. Now it is the Titanic. I watch him every day after school get off the bus and run to the computer to look things up. He is glued to it for the hour he spends at my work looking things up and showing me his finds. From the beginning I talked to him like he was an adult not a child, using words that were in my vocabulary not his. My mother's words still ring in my head "Don't talk to him like that he wont understand you!" He did, and he still uses words that most children his age are not used to. Don't get me wrong, I baby talked him too.. I am a mom, coohing is natural to me.. :o)
What brings me to tears is this little boy who is so egar to learn in so many ways spent a majority of 1st grade in trouble and being sent home. I would cry in frustration.. What is going on? Why can't he get it together enough to finish his work and not get so frustrated at school? I told the school to ask him what was wrong when he got frustrated and I can see now that no one every really did. I spent time away from my job at meetings for him between the teacher, counselor, and myself. I would get bombarded with all of the things he was doing wrong from his teacher. "He puts his head down on the desk and cries, he wont finish his work, he wont do anything fast enough to go out for recess." I was beside myself. I made suggestions on how to curb the behavior, I even made a behavior plan for him. Which failed for lack of implement. We readjusted it many times and it would work for a short period of time and then again fail for lack of implement. I was to my wits end. The whole time this was going on the teacher kept suggesting to me that my son had ADD ADHD or Depression, and that this could be the only answer to the problem. I made suggestions time and time again to get my son under more control in the classroom. At home this was not a problem, yes he would get frustrated and cause a commotion but one trip to his room would fix that. The only thing I demanded was he come out when he was ready to behave. He would do just that.
So why was it such a problem at school? Every meeting I had involved the teacher repeating her infamous statement "I fear for what he is going to grow up to be." My heart hurt every time I got a call from the school. He was no longer able to go on a field trip without me attending. He was losing privileges at home too. Nothing was getting through to him. The only answers they were willing to give me at the school was that he needed to be medicated. I REFUSED!! I will never take away my sons ability to learn coping skills because I think he is active. What normal kid isn't! The last meeting I went to with his teacher was the last parent teacher meeting for the year. Again the same routine, her bashing my son and telling me how she was afraid of the person he would grow up to be. This time I couldn't hold it in any longer. "ME!" I yelled at her, "HE WILL GROW UP TO BE LIKE ME!" I was an active child too, who couldn't be trusted to get the mail because I would come back 4 hours later with a jar of bugs and no mail in my hands or in the mail box. I didn't like school until it became challenging. Above everything I now run a business, have a photographic memory, and have been labeled "the reliable one." So yeah I am not afraid of what he will grow up to be, not unless you medicate him and he ends up with a drug addiction or worse because of it.
To end the school year with a good feeling I gave up on. Until the day last week when my son was sent home again. He was sent home just after recess, he came into the classroom agitated and was unable to pull it together. His teacher threw him out and he ended up in the counselors office to where he still could not compose himself. I sent my boss to get him from school because he was in that area doing service work. He picked up my son and took him on a repair call for a washing machine. While they were working on it (yes my son helps) my son finally opened up to someone on what was going on. This whole year he was being bullied by a boy in his class. It happened only at recess which explained why out of the blue he would turn 360 and have a terrible day half way through. This boy waited for him every recess, to hit him, poke him, or say nasty things to him like "Fuck you bitch" or "I am going to have sex with your mom." I wanted to cry!! This boy was the same age as my son, he was a trouble maker and the school knew it, but his punishment was always staying after school for seventh hour because no one would come get him in the middle of the day. Mean while my son was sent home repeatedly because I would. When did the school system become so messed up???
