Repeat after me: I will not strangle the teacher, I will not......

[LittleDudesMom]

Lovelyboy, my issue is the exact opposite! My difficult child is practically a typical teen at home - it's school that creates the issue for us. The majority of his teachers this year (with the exception of 2) are "inside the box" and see a kid that doesn't really participate in class and often shuts down. His anxiety and confidence issues prevent him from fully experiencing school. His executive functioning issues present difficulties in remembering assignments and that is often perceived as a kid who doesn't give a fig. In two of his classes, his teachers are understanding and supportive and he participates and enjoys the classes and his teachers speak of him in the positive.

It's amazing the difference a teacher can make!

Sharon

 

[Kathy813]

Isane, yes, I was talking in the general sense.

However, if your child is so fatigued that he can't make it through a school day, how will he possibly function in a work setting . . . even one focused on his high intelligence? I agree with Janet, I think there must be a medical reason that this is happening to your child. I suggest working on finding the cause of his fatigue.

Also, can it be depression? I know that people that are depressed need to sleep a lot. I would certainly be looking into all of the possibilities.

~Kathy

 

[buddy]

And that is another issue you may be dealing with - our difficult children have day by day mental fatigue, but also week by week and term by term. We would find the burnout factor greatly increasing the further we got into the school year. And teachers burn out too, and get to the "I can't cope, make it all stop" stage. Even the best of them.

If I understand, they just started the school year in Jan. This is a totally new teacher. They have been in school a whopping month.

Where possible, I always did better when I succeeded in educating the teacher. Not always possible, but often more possible than you realise. Some refuse to learn, but most really care. And even if the teacher doesn't get it until the last day of the school year, then at least the next difficult child that comes along will get a better hearing.

sounds like this could be part of the problem. From day one she has tried to give the teacher information and the teacher has dismissed her by saying things like, you need to let him be. You can't control everything, let me do my job type of attitude. She acts like she already knows everything and pushes mom away when she tries to be proactive.

 

[buddy]

My response to that teacher would be, "I understand you care about my son. I also understand that you believe I have been suckered by him. I need to assure you, I know this child well and also see the level of mental exhaustion he gets each day. I am glad he does well in your class- that says really good things about my child, and about his desire to please you. But it takes a far greater effort for him to do this, than for the average child.Once he gets home, he knows he can relax his vigilance, and tat is why we have the fallout If I clamp down hard on this behaviour, it all becomes too much for him. He cannot maintain his semblance of perfection for too many hours at a time, something's got to give. It is like a swan paddling on the lake - to the casual observer it looks serene, the image of tranquility. but if you look beneath the surface, there is a lot of furious activity required, to make this picture look so tranquil."

I love this.

 

[Marguerite]

Depression is a likely possibility, Kathy. And it would aggravate the fatigue. Also, for a lot of difficult children, depression simply because they know they're different and hate it, is a very common finding.

Teens do sleep a lot more - it's the growth hormones and a lot of other things. But CFS is a different matter. It's a physical exhaustion coupled with feeling generally unwell, weak, tired (not necessarily sleepy) and also mentally "foggy". We used to have CFS "in" jokes - "what do you call someone with CFS who sleeps 12 hours a day? A: an insomniac". (note - this joke was written by someone with CFS, so it's not someone else being mean). A kid with CFS is unlikely to physically hold things together for the whole school day. Most teens I've known with CFS were much more severely affected than adults tended to be. CFS seems to hit kids harder. I've seen kids with CFS who couldn't even hold their heads up.

A kid who is able to cope for an entire school day and hold it together, especially a difficult child - it's not a physical illness. But the emotional effort and mental effort of trying to maintain for the day is something a lot of us have seen in our kids and in one another's kids. I don't see this as unusual (sadly).

Marg

 

[lovelyboy]

All smiles all round this side!!!!
So I got an email from teacher today......saying how great kiddo is doing in class today...that he is almost his ' old self' again......and dont worry about EEG tomorrow, he can catch up whenever he feels able and I can come and pick up his homework, if I feel so....WOW!
Amazing how suddenly my difficult child could stop manipulating me when he has less seretonin in his blood ( because remember it was actually the fact that dr increased his medications to much and we started cutting back to get the seretonin lower in his blood)! Lol!!!!

 

[TerryJ2]

Well, at least you've gotten her on board for a day! Best of luck.

 

[buddy]

Yipee mommy! Glad she heard you this round... most of glad your little guy is feeling better. Q got so much better off the prozac.

 

[tiredmommy]

My difficult child is rather episodic but she had a real problem with the rigors of homework in the younger grades. She wasn't assigned a huge workload but had trouble keeping up with the workload and was (and sometimes still is) exhausted at the end of the school day. She had a twofold issue: first, she no trouble forming letters/numbers but the physical process of writing was hard on her due to her hyper mobile joints in her hands/arms/neck/torso. She just couldn't do any more writing at the end of the day. The second thing (and we hit on this much later) is that she was plain done in due to sensory overload. This school year in particular has been much more successful at home because she now has three days of physical activity within an hour of school dismissal that allows her to process some of this overload. So... I would look for a physical reason such as low muscle tone & hyper mobility as well as possible sensory integration problems.