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<blockquote data-quote="Marguerite" data-source="post: 75208" data-attributes="member: 1991"><p>Kjs, you said, "How, why does he think the rules aren't for him?"</p><p></p><p>It's not a matter of him thinking he's beyond rules. In fact, it's highly likely he is intensely law-abiding - his own laws, that is. These will be based on a combination of what he has been taught, tempered by what he has observed and analysed.</p><p></p><p>But I've said before, these kids learn a different way.</p><p>Example: I was good at maths when I started school. In Grade 3, our teacher introduced cuisenaire rods. These are supposed to be used as a tool to teach basic addition/subtraction skills. But for me, it was a retrograde step. Because I was already working on an abstract level with maths, I flunked cuisenaire rods. Badly. I just didn't 'get' what we had to do. Kids who needed this, did benefit. But I couldn't wrap my head around it. We had a worksheet where we were supposed to use the rods to solve maths problems - in the end I just gave up and answered the blanky things just on the paper, and got into trouble.</p><p></p><p>Your difficult child is like this. He needs to find a different way to demonstrate what he can do, and to learn what he doesn't already know.</p><p></p><p>He is in the wrong place if they can't adapt. He needs to find his own way of accepting his problems so he CAN be helped.</p><p></p><p>You got upset with him - it really doesn't help. You're also playing right into difficult child and husband's attitude that nothing is wrong with HIM, it's all you. Because from their point of view, if you didn't yell at him, he would be fine. He has extreme anxiety - getting upset at him even a little bit makes this a lot worse. A major tantrum from you (which you would punish, if it came from him - but this is part of his own 'rules' that he has learnt by observation) will really undermine your authority and your ability to help him.</p><p></p><p>So often we think that if we only yell enough, loud enough, often enough, they'll finally hear us. But in fact the more we do this, the more we deafen them to what we are trying to say.</p><p></p><p>But it is going to happen - you will slip up and yell again. But when you do, recognise that you have just undermined a lot of good progress and not achieved ANYTHING positive.</p><p></p><p>Hey, it happens to all of us. But you have to NOT get angry with yourself (beyond, "Oh, I am an idiot, I did it again") but instead pick yourself up, dust yourself down and begin again. The more you beat yourself up over it, the more time you lose that you could be putting into good progress.</p><p></p><p>He CAN do well, but not like everybody else. He is very different. HE must recognise this but will be reluctant to, while the 'HE' that he sees in your eyes is triggering your rages. he must see that you value his differences too, so HE can learn to recognise and value what makes him special.</p><p></p><p>You need to change your mindset, so he can change his. You CAN do it, but it is an ongoing process requiring vigilance and a great deal of patience.</p><p></p><p>He MUST accept support in some form. If he can't in a classroom setting, then threaten to home-school him for a while. He will HAVE to accept your support then, and he won't have classmates to distract him or to make fun of him for having an aide. I know you're cringing at the thought, but he is motivated to learn. If you can find some correspondence school course for him I think he would do very well and maybe catch up on what he seems to be missing academically. And if his fears of victimisation at school are real, then you should act fast here and demand difficult child be supported sufficiently to accept the help he needs. It's all very convenient for the school right now- difficult child has funding for an aide which he isn't even using, so the school gets this extra money, extra staffing, all to their benefit. They won't fix what they don't consider to be broken. YOU have to step up to the plate, for your child. And to H if he says he will be embarrassed - if he cooperated with using an aide, there would be no need for you to get involved.</p><p></p><p>And on that issue, of him being more interested in being popular than in using every chance to do well - you get this sometimes, in bright kids. There is a conflict set up, especially if they are a bit socially inept. They are faced with two mutually conflicting paths to choose - they can be popular with the other kids, help them out a bit maybe but not show off being bright; or they can be unpopular but high-achieving nerds.</p><p>I went through this especially with easy child 2/difficult child 2, because she was deliberately doing badly so the other kids wouldn't tease her for knowing it all (or accuse her of trying to make them look bad) - I said to her that kids who deliberately hold her back, or allow her to hold herself back, are NOT true friends and never will be. They have poor standards which she would never be happy to follow and she would always be out of place because you can't hide a good brain, it would 'break out' in some other way. I also said that when she is an adult, she would never see these kids again. So why hold herself back now, for people who will mean nothing to her for the majority of her life? I also made it clear that teachers are there not only to teach, but to keep her safe. ANY problems at all with teasing, it is actionable. The school staff have a duty of care, but they have to KNOW about a problem before they can help. The teachers would be horrified to learn that something they were not doing meant she was deliberately not learning, in order to feel safer. The flip side of this is, if he tells you that kids are hassling him for needing help (or even just using help) then he HAS to be supported in this until he DOES feel safe. If it is deemed to be just good-natured banter and he has to 'get over it', then it STILL must stop because ANYTHING which makes us feel sad or uncomfortable, we have a right to have stopped. Even something said in fun - if it hurts, it's not funny. If it IS funny, then he needs to learn the joke, so he can appreciate it; and the jokers have to stop teasing him until he DOES understand and can handle it. </p><p>These are basic human rights. Without them, he isn't doing well. And why should HE suffer, just so other kids can feel free to make him feel bad about himself?</p><p></p><p>Anxiety is already a huge issue for him and you really do need to cut back as much as possible on whatever is aggravating his anxiety. But while you are emotionally unstable around him, his anxiety will be 100 times worse. And I'm not exaggerating here - husband sometimes rages at difficult child and honestly, I could bang their heads together, because I KNOW that it will set difficult child back weeks in our progress, for just one rage. And easy child 2/difficult child 2 will also rage at him, especially first thing in the morning or when her medications have worn off in the evening. And if I try to step in, she is impossible to deal with for the rest of the day (or longer) and cannot be reasoned with over it. And SHE is an adult. That also damages our progress. We do get back on track but I have to expect that it won't be a smooth day for the next few days, until difficult child 3 has calmed down enough to work again.</p><p></p><p>You keep thinking of difficult child in terms of being stubborn, deliberately defiant purely for its own sake, and generally a disappointment. I know deep down you don't feel that way, but HE feels that you feel that way. So part of him tells himself, "Why should I even try?"</p><p></p><p>As things stand, he can blame all his problems at school, on you. He is wrong, but he's just not ready to understand that while you keep providing him with such a convenient scapegoat. For your sake and his, you HAVE to learn self-control. Bucket-loads.</p><p></p><p>You can do it, I know you can. And he IS worth it.</p><p></p><p>Marg</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Marguerite, post: 75208, member: 1991"] Kjs, you said, "How, why does he think the rules aren't for him?" It's not a matter of him thinking he's beyond rules. In fact, it's highly likely he is intensely law-abiding - his own laws, that is. These will be based on a combination of what he has been taught, tempered by what he has observed and analysed. But I've said before, these kids learn a different way. Example: I was good at maths when I started school. In Grade 3, our teacher introduced cuisenaire rods. These are supposed to be used as a tool to teach basic addition/subtraction skills. But for me, it was a retrograde step. Because I was already working on an abstract level with maths, I flunked cuisenaire rods. Badly. I just didn't 'get' what we had to do. Kids who needed this, did benefit. But I couldn't wrap my head around it. We had a worksheet where we were supposed to use the rods to solve maths problems - in the end I just gave up and answered the blanky things just on the paper, and got into trouble. Your difficult child is like this. He needs to find a different way to demonstrate what he can do, and to learn what he doesn't already know. He is in the wrong place if they can't adapt. He needs to find his own way of accepting his problems so he CAN be helped. You got upset with him - it really doesn't help. You're also playing right into difficult child and husband's attitude that nothing is wrong with HIM, it's all you. Because from their point of view, if you didn't yell at him, he would be fine. He has extreme anxiety - getting upset at him even a little bit makes this a lot worse. A major tantrum from you (which you would punish, if it came from him - but this is part of his own 'rules' that he has learnt by observation) will really undermine your authority and your ability to help him. So often we think that if we only yell enough, loud enough, often enough, they'll finally hear us. But in fact the more we do this, the more we deafen them to what we are trying to say. But it is going to happen - you will slip up and yell again. But when you do, recognise that you have just undermined a lot of good progress and not achieved ANYTHING positive. Hey, it happens to all of us. But you have to NOT get angry with yourself (beyond, "Oh, I am an idiot, I did it again") but instead pick yourself up, dust yourself down and begin again. The more you beat yourself up over it, the more time you lose that you could be putting into good progress. He CAN do well, but not like everybody else. He is very different. HE must recognise this but will be reluctant to, while the 'HE' that he sees in your eyes is triggering your rages. he must see that you value his differences too, so HE can learn to recognise and value what makes him special. You need to change your mindset, so he can change his. You CAN do it, but it is an ongoing process requiring vigilance and a great deal of patience. He MUST accept support in some form. If he can't in a classroom setting, then threaten to home-school him for a while. He will HAVE to accept your support then, and he won't have classmates to distract him or to make fun of him for having an aide. I know you're cringing at the thought, but he is motivated to learn. If you can find some correspondence school course for him I think he would do very well and maybe catch up on what he seems to be missing academically. And if his fears of victimisation at school are real, then you should act fast here and demand difficult child be supported sufficiently to accept the help he needs. It's all very convenient for the school right now- difficult child has funding for an aide which he isn't even using, so the school gets this extra money, extra staffing, all to their benefit. They won't fix what they don't consider to be broken. YOU have to step up to the plate, for your child. And to H if he says he will be embarrassed - if he cooperated with using an aide, there would be no need for you to get involved. And on that issue, of him being more interested in being popular than in using every chance to do well - you get this sometimes, in bright kids. There is a conflict set up, especially if they are a bit socially inept. They are faced with two mutually conflicting paths to choose - they can be popular with the other kids, help them out a bit maybe but not show off being bright; or they can be unpopular but high-achieving nerds. I went through this especially with easy child 2/difficult child 2, because she was deliberately doing badly so the other kids wouldn't tease her for knowing it all (or accuse her of trying to make them look bad) - I said to her that kids who deliberately hold her back, or allow her to hold herself back, are NOT true friends and never will be. They have poor standards which she would never be happy to follow and she would always be out of place because you can't hide a good brain, it would 'break out' in some other way. I also said that when she is an adult, she would never see these kids again. So why hold herself back now, for people who will mean nothing to her for the majority of her life? I also made it clear that teachers are there not only to teach, but to keep her safe. ANY problems at all with teasing, it is actionable. The school staff have a duty of care, but they have to KNOW about a problem before they can help. The teachers would be horrified to learn that something they were not doing meant she was deliberately not learning, in order to feel safer. The flip side of this is, if he tells you that kids are hassling him for needing help (or even just using help) then he HAS to be supported in this until he DOES feel safe. If it is deemed to be just good-natured banter and he has to 'get over it', then it STILL must stop because ANYTHING which makes us feel sad or uncomfortable, we have a right to have stopped. Even something said in fun - if it hurts, it's not funny. If it IS funny, then he needs to learn the joke, so he can appreciate it; and the jokers have to stop teasing him until he DOES understand and can handle it. These are basic human rights. Without them, he isn't doing well. And why should HE suffer, just so other kids can feel free to make him feel bad about himself? Anxiety is already a huge issue for him and you really do need to cut back as much as possible on whatever is aggravating his anxiety. But while you are emotionally unstable around him, his anxiety will be 100 times worse. And I'm not exaggerating here - husband sometimes rages at difficult child and honestly, I could bang their heads together, because I KNOW that it will set difficult child back weeks in our progress, for just one rage. And easy child 2/difficult child 2 will also rage at him, especially first thing in the morning or when her medications have worn off in the evening. And if I try to step in, she is impossible to deal with for the rest of the day (or longer) and cannot be reasoned with over it. And SHE is an adult. That also damages our progress. We do get back on track but I have to expect that it won't be a smooth day for the next few days, until difficult child 3 has calmed down enough to work again. You keep thinking of difficult child in terms of being stubborn, deliberately defiant purely for its own sake, and generally a disappointment. I know deep down you don't feel that way, but HE feels that you feel that way. So part of him tells himself, "Why should I even try?" As things stand, he can blame all his problems at school, on you. He is wrong, but he's just not ready to understand that while you keep providing him with such a convenient scapegoat. For your sake and his, you HAVE to learn self-control. Bucket-loads. You can do it, I know you can. And he IS worth it. Marg [/QUOTE]
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