Let Them Fail?

The hardest part in getting help is letting your kid's problems show.

A 9th grade single mom called me, distraught. “I know my son has attention problems,” she said, “and I don’t know what to do.” She went on to describe a history of rat-nest backpacks, forgotten homework, impulsive decisions and other familiar-sounding struggles.

The sooner you can let him fail, the sooner you’ll get the help you need.

— Kristen Caven

My mind went back to those desperate ninth grade nights, when the red marks would start showing up on the online grading system. Until then, we’d believe our son was doing just fine. All the teachers would just tell us what a pleasure he was to have in class, and for the most part, he liked school and understood what he was learning. But in spite of his good attitude and a good work ethic, his world was crumbling around him and he couldn’t see it. He wanted to take care of things himself, but when we’d open his binders, it was like peering into the abyss. We’d help by sorting papers and trying to triage the problems. There were plenty of pep talks, but the feelings of overwhelm drained and distracted our whole family.

Enzo passed ninth grade only because he had two parents involved on his side in The Big Struggle—pushing through feelings of blame, shame, and resentment. I tried a few times to wake him up at 4am to finish his homework like Obama’s mom did for her son, but I couldn’t wake myself up—we all needed our sleep to prepare for the marathon of constant do-overs. Every single marking period was a white-knuckle ride, made worse when overworked teachers didn’t sound the alert until a few days before the end of the term. Every single report card caused a family blowup as our high expectations of our GATE-identified child were challenged again and again. We began to whisper, then say out loud, maybe he’s just a C student. By tenth grade we were much less hopeful...and completely exhausted.

“The reason that our son got a 504 plan,” I explained to this parent, “is that his grades were spiraling downwards, and we couldn’t keep him on track by ourselves anymore.” Other parents we knew had brought paperwork from specialists showing a learning disability, but their students were stonewalled from getting help—because in a public school, B students do not appear, mathematically, to need accommodations. This mom’s bright young quarterback had been to a private middle school on a scholarship, where differences were not seen as disorders. The teachers there had bent over backwards to help her charming son succeed—and not because they had a legal obligation to do so.

I gave her the best advice I could. A letter from the private school would help, but the sooner she could get her son a referral, the sooner the school would be on her side. “Tighten your seatbelts,” I said—hating what next came out of my mouth, but wanting to save her the pain we’d felt—“the sooner you can let him fail, the sooner you’ll get the help you need.”

Next Blog » The Fluid of the Brain

Previous Blog « Guess What?! (Ta-Dah) You’re ADD!

Navigating the Ability Gap

When motor skills don’t match up with intellectual ability, what path do you take?

When Enzo was pushing five, he was excited about going to kindergarten. He wanted to learn to read, and was so ready to become “a big kid.” But when he took his kindergarten readiness test, I was shocked that his teacher, GG, recommended another year in preschool. She showed me his abstract skills test, consisting of some squares drawn stacked upon top of each other. “He’s way ahead,” she said. “He’s thinking conceptually like a six or seven-year-old.”

I was tremendously confused, weighing the mis-match between his intellect and his weak hands.

“So,” I offered, puzzled, “we should start him in second grade?”

Then she showed me Enzo’s “Half a Man” test, where the teacher draws one side of a stick figure and the child is asked to draw the other. He had completed the head, and the body, and the smile, but there were some missing face and body parts. “Look here,” she said, pointing to some scrawly marks where the pencil had barely touched the paper in some places. “His fine motor skills are those of a three-year-old.”

I was tremendously confused, weighing the mis-match between his intellect and his weak hands. “Can’t he just do more drawing over the summer?” I asked. “Motor skills build from the outside-in,” she said. “He’ll always be behind the other kids a little, it’s just who he is,” she said.

Now get this: I loved this woman. GG was the best teacher ever. She let the kids go flying down hills on big wheels. She would make poop jokes and let the kids run the CD player. She taught us how to see problems simply: “I want what you have. What should we do?” What should we do? Enzo was revving his engines; he wanted to go. “It’s a judgment call,” she said sensing my struggle. “He’ll be okay, but his handwriting will probably be terrible. Kids like this also tend to fall behind in about eighth grade.” I got angry. How dare she lay such a heavy prediction on our bright boy?

I had faith. I knew we’d figure it out. I knew we’d SHOW HER!

And we did, for the most part. We will forever be in debt to his second-grade teacher, who recognized that his hands could not keep up with his mind, and urged us to teach him to type. (Note: small and frequent squares of a chocolate-flavored energy bar can help a kid stick to the most difficult learning tasks.) After fifth grade (and more sweet rewards for trying cursive), his handwriting got much better. But when he hit eighth grade, GG’s prediction did come true.

Falling behind in 8th grade, however, is also a red flag for ADHD. We didn’t learn this until half way through 10th grade, of course. And even now, on the hard days, I find myself arguing with history: “If motor delays go hand-in-hand with ADD, why didn’t GG think to tell us that?” And, “What if we had taken her advice? Would things be easier now, or harder in different ways? Would he be bored instead of challenged, and acting out instead of stressed?” In hindsight, another year of preschool would have been heaven.

If I actually could rewrite history, I’d have myself and my husband get over the shock and the stigma and hire a learning specialist to give Enzo the occupational therapy he needed. (Oh, and to do that, I’d also rewrite the economy so my teacher-husband got raises in that decade rather than pay cuts.) But we were keeping most, if not all of the balls in the air, and chose to move forward. Enzo was mostly fine, and the truth is: Kindergarten was free. And in our public school, he didn’t stand out as a problem learner. On the contrary, his teachers all loved him. Maybe GG just wanted to keep him for herself...?