Fran,
You're so right - It's a such a huge relief to see my difficult children move forward! It is wonderful to know that difficult child 1 is capable of fully supporting himself, of giving back to society, not just taking from it. I feel like the most tremendous burden has been lifted - I know that he'll be OK when husband and I are no longer here.
difficult child 2 has gone farther than we expected he would and for this, we are grateful. While like your difficult child and difficult child 1, he wants his independence, and has made tremendous progress in this area, he still has a long way to go. At this point his goals aren't realistic. He wants to work with primates, traveling to exotic lands, making megabucks, just as he did when he was much younger. He is still just as vague in how he is going to accomplish this as he was then, totally without a viable plan. He took a college level primate class on line over the summer and found it to be very difficult. He had to watch videos and explain what the primates were doing/ thinking. He couldn't figure any of this out and was very frustrated. However, instead of throwing in the towel like he would have done years ago, he asked for extra credit work to make up for his failing test grades. The professor allowed him to complete enough extra credit to do well in the class. I'm very proud of him for this!! However, all of the extra credit involved memorizing facts only. This is something he excels at. He still has lots of difficulty attempting to apply what he knows facts-wise to real life situations. While I'm always optimistic he'll continue to progress in this area, it is a major stumbling block for him, one I'm not sure if he'll ever be able to overcome.
I can visualize him being a perpetual student, maybe some sort of teacher? In this way, he could continue to take classes, memorize facts, be at the top for once instead of at the bottom, and most importantly, feel safe. Feel safe because chemistry formulas don't change the way everything else in life does.
It's beyond wonderful that our kids have come as far as they have and I really believe that someday, hopefully sooner rather than later!, your difficult child and difficult child 2 will have paying jobs!
Got to get going. I'm still in my bathrobe! SFR