Anypne ever have POSITIVE changes in middle school?

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It is also difficult to get our kids to read books they find boring.

My son is doing great with reading, but I recently realized that all his big gains came with the same teacher: 3rd and 5th grade, the man who basically let my son get away with almost anything, as long as he would stay engaged in wanting to learn.

That's the key, isn't?

I think that the average NT child wouldn't want to be in an advanced class unless he was working at that level. He wouldn't want to be part of discussions he can't follow. But the opposite seems to be true for my son. He thrives in that environment, as long as there is nothing to discourage him in the way of frustrating assignments.

I'll trade A's for C's if that means my son is excited about the material. It is so upside down from what schools and parents generally expect, but I think that is what works for my son. Now, selling that to the school ... hmmm ....

Oh, and I discovered at Back to School night that I am not the only parent frustrated with the grading grid at the Middle School. They actually have a task force on it. They'll be getting some notes from me! The non-content items should NEVER be able to knock a grade down more than one notch, IMHO. 90% of the grade should be about grasp of the material, not whether you answered in complete sentences, put your last name at the top, or used your best writing.

I am sorry your son is having issues with reading. I would bet he just isn't interested in the material.

although you may see the work he's doing in this reg ed class as appropriate & not too difficult, and you may see that being behind the others in class as ok..........well this might be the very reason that he's shutting down. my son would find it overwhelming to be behind others in class & the more he gets frustrated, the more likely he is to totally shut down.
yes, we need to make sure our kids are challenged, but at what price ?

Middle school stunk for me; I was always and still am very mature, but middle school was awful for me; it seemed like my peers became a lot more obnoxious during that time, and I wasn't officially diagnosed then, so the sensory overload got even worse. You're very lucky; middle schools are usually very awful.

DW a mom- glad to hear your son is ready for the challenge. glad to hear you've got a backup plan just in case.

I'm just interested in how different all of these kids are (and I guess I shouldn't be so surprised). DW_a_mom, your son actually choosing an advanced class and WANTING to prove to you and others that he can pull it off is so pro-active! I can't even imagine my son doing that. At least, not right now.

and ster, I'm with you in that constant push-and-pull situation of how to challenge a child, without putting too much pressure on them. It's the skinniest tight-rope walk in the world! I think that my son enjoys getting good grades (when he does), but boy, if he doesn't get a good grade, even if he's got A's in everything else, a bad grade on one test in one class can have him talking about how stupid he is for days. We spend LOTS of time pointing out that his older sister often does the exact same thing, and it doesn't matter that much -- we all just plug along and try to do better next time.

I am a perfectionist by nature. I believed that anything worth doing was worth doing well. It may be true that many engineers don't need to write or spell well and do just fine-but what a headache for the people who have to read work full of misspellings, atrocious punctuation, fragments, run-on sentences, etc. I was a proofreader for my local newspaper for almost two years, and one person's spelling was so bad it literally gave me a headache. Yes, a grasp of the material is important and getting the bigger picture is crucial, but the little things are important, too.

I have seen enough bad writing to last a lifetime. There are the obvious cases of the functionally illiterate individuals whose writing is all but unreadable and, at the other end of the spectrum, the pompous ravings of literary critics whose words all seem to be in the right place, but make no sense. They have "a diarrhea of words and a constipation of ideas."

I learned right away to pay attention to details. I lost a point on a English assignment on the first day of school for forgetting to put my name on the paper. Duh! I never did that again!

I think people need to pay attention to style and content. Both are important. I was told that I cited too many details in some of my work and didn't put enough emphasis on the feelings in the stories I was writing about. I got good grades, but I learned important lessons about seeing the whole point.

9Cat, my husband is actually with you, he thinks that the standards applied are fair, assuming they take into account the IEP, because life IS about a lot more than content. When my son gets a zero for illegible handwriting, and handwriting is an IEP item, I don't think they are accounting for the IEP, and that is one of my issues ... but, even with that, my husband feels that if you are missing a necessary life skill, your own fault or not, then when shouldn't a grade reflect that? I say for a step or two, but not from A to F. I am going to ask that the IEP allow Ryan to respond verbally for every answer that cannot be read. He has SEVERE physical issues with his hands - this is no minor thing.

One of the tests my son flunked he actually told he thought was fair. He said it's taught him to check his work over, check the instructions, make he has followed them, etc. He thinks he did all of that with the second test he just had, he says he really paid attention, so it will be interesting to see how that turns out. It one bad grade advances important life skills, it is well worth it. But what if with all that checking he still can't dot the right i's and cross the right t's for the teacher's pleasure?

As Schlep said, we're walking a very, very fine line. A child needs to feel he is succeeding, that he CAN get a good grade with enough effort, and not that the bar is either unreachable or set so high in comparison to his skills that he simply gives up trying. And that can trip in an instant, that sense of frustration that leads to, "I give up."

The one thing I don't have with my AS son is OCD perfectionism. My NT daughter has that one, and it is a huge relief that we're not dealing with both in one child. My son wants good grades, but he is more likely to attribute poor grades to silly expectations than to himself - he has A LOT of confidence in his own intelligence. Too much, maybe, lol, but I'm not going to fight it. He hasn't turned that into the "rest of the world is stupid" like some AS have, so as long as his confidence provides a positive perspective, it is better than the alternative.

through the years we've constantly run into the perfectionist problem with both son & daughter ( not NT son, though).....if they don't get an A, then it's HORRIBLE. And according to both of them, The A doesn't count If they got it on a test/project that was "easy"- " because they should've gotten an A"
son has gotten somewhat better at this since he's gotten older. daughter still really struggles with it. although i've tried with both of them to point out that others have gotten comparable grades, or that others have done worse than them, it doesn't seem to matter. they both reply that that has nothing to do with them. or that the aforementioned person is "stupid"
at times, i've been able to use the angle of : " what do you think you could do next time to make the situation better." this only seems to work, though, when it's only a minor disappointment in their eyes. on those occasions, i'm able to help them see that maybe studying more, adding more specific details, writing neater, and/or checking their work before they hand it in would help them get a better grade.

grade school sucked
Miggle school ok
Highschool sucked
college ruled!

Dw a mom,

It is a balancing act, for sure. I tend to be an exception to the rule. I was very sensitive to correction and determined not to repeat the same mistake again-if I could avoid it. I wish you and your son the best. It's really difficult to know how much to intervene.

Writing was an area of strength for me. Math, on the other hand, was difficult. I understood what was going on, but got nervous on tests. I wish someone had worked with me more on that, instead of assuming I wasn't interested.

I suspect I am both AS and a perfectionist, a very difficult combination.

I hope that the teachers don't disregard the IEP in the future. I hope your son can find a way to express his intelligence.