conundrum and hope

It's a quandary. A quagmire. A conundrum.

I do not know this Eldest person I gave birth to. I do not understand her. I do not understand how to help. I cannot conceive of why this kid has to be one huge heartbreak for me. The questions shouldn't be about me and my feelings; but they are. Sometimes.

Mostly it's just Why? Why must everything be done the hardest possible way?

Truthfully, I kind of think I know the path for me. I think I know (and by choice of this language, which is poor, but which I will not change because it shows my doubt) I have to take the path of tough love. I just don't understand why she's making me do this.

She's failing again. Her geometry grade is something like a 47%. Why? Oh, not because she doesn't understand the math. I could understand if it was that simple. It is because she hadn't turned in assignments, the teacher got tired of waiting and finally entered zeros in the grade book. So once again, she has no social life. She's sat at home in her pajamas all weekend. Doing nothing but very little homework, napping and talking on the computer to people.

That's a sinking house.

I have remained calm. I am not yelling (which is how I would have reacted a year ago). When we talked, I just simply reminded her that if at the end of the school year she failed anything, she would be leaving Pricey Academy. I told her we would simply have to try something else because this small school isn't working. I also used the phrase, "You can fail for free in the public school."

She said she hadn't made up HER MIND about where she wanted to go next year (oh, the gall of her!) I explained that I understood she didn't know what SHE wanted, but that if she didn't pass, the choice wouldn't be hers. She would be back in public school and we'd try and see what they could do there.

I am really, really afraid that the public school will be a total failure. That I will lose her altogether. That this will push her into the place where bad kids go. Her friends in the public school are good kids. They are better people than her Catholic school friends by a mile. But I'm not sure she can academically succeed there.

I've talked about it a little bit here but not much. Eldest has some fairly significant learning disabilities. She's super bright; certifiably, tested smart. But...

• She's got ADHD.
• The experts call it different things but she's either got a pretty severe nonverbal learning disorder or she's high-functioning Asperger's. That's one step away from Autism, folks. One. step. away. This means she has some pretty big social issues (that's another post). But it also means that there are some things that her brain just doesn't do like everyone else's. Her problems are mostly in spacial and temporal processes. She doesn't get how space works. Example? She could not draw a map of the house she has lived in for the last 13 years of her life. She also doesn't get time. Example? At sixteen, she still doesn't get that an hour is divided into fourths. She doesn't understand what I mean when I say "At quarter-after we'll go...." She'll say, "Mom! Minutes please." Also, she can't create a timeline. I've watched her try. I've tried to help. Her brain doesn't get it. She can sort-of do it in A.D. time. But give her a B.C. timeline, where time goes backwards? Forget it. And I'm not coddling or exaggerating on this one. This stuff just isn't there. At least it's stuff you can live without.
• She's also dysgraphic. Dysgraphia is a cognitive impairment in writing (like dyslexia is a cognitive impairment in reading). Her handwriting looks like a second graders. Again, I'm not exaggerating. I can't read it. Teachers can't read it. But worst of all, SHE can't read it. Think about trying to succeed at school if you can't read your own writing. What's your homework? What is that algebra equation you're suppose to memorize?

So unless she does everything on a computer, school is a special-kind-of-hell. She can't read what her homework is. She can't take readable notes. She just Can't.

Now of course, with a list of challenges like she has, the law provides all kinds of protections for Eldest. She could carry a computer from class-to-class. She could have an aide to help with notes and tracking homework, etc. But will Eldest take any of that help? Not on her life. She has honed chasing off educational aides to a fine art. She can make them hate her and leave her alone in the first week of school. Easy peasy. Carry a computer to class? Nope. She's not going to be DIFFERENT. God forbid. God happened to make her different. But God didn't make her willing to accept that difference. She is going to be like everyone else in that school. And, even if that causes her to fail, that's okie dokie by her. (Of course, failing will make her different too. But this difference is one she's willing to accept.)

So in public school, the problems we have in the private school will be compounded by the lack of a computer. The computer--and its small size--was really why we picked Pricey Academy. It provided the perfect work-around for difference without making her different.

So here I sit, convincing myself and probably you, that I should cave to my fear that she'll fail in the public school. Her therapist--who has now become MINE because Eldest refuses to see him anymore (he's just another adult who tells her she's making bad choices)--has recommended the public school option. He thinks that Pricey Academy is coddling Eldest. Basically, she's getting away with murder.

And, she is. On a recent parent meeting there they asked me if we wanted them to focus on her education or her emotional well-being. I sat there in shock, thinking, "What the hell, people? You are the SCHOOL. That's about edu-fucking-cation. We've just been talking about how she's playing teachers and parents against each other, about how she's completely USED the I'm-so-sick-thing, and you're asking this question?" Literally, I could not speak. (And that is VERY odd for me. I can ALWAYS speak.) Eldest's head-of-house looked at me and said, "Because if you think the school-work is too hard for her, we can back-off." And again, I was speechless. She's got a 136 IQ. She's not even in honors courses. Too hard? She read Shakespeare, voluntarily, in the 5th grade. Too hard? Oh. My. Hell. (Yes, Geometry may be too hard. It doesn't work inside her particular brain. I'd accept failure there if it was too hard. But she's failing for not doing the work. She's failing because she's not doing the work.)

So I guess I'm going to do the hard thing . . . I guess I'll pull her out of Pricey Academy if she fails. I guess we'll give the other a try. And that other is a really, really good school. Truly, it's probably a better school than Pricey Academy. I just wonder if it's the right place for her.

Yesterday this silly Frito ad reduced me to tears. Tears. http://www.madeforeachother.com/love_and_sockets/ I was a gushing ball of goo. Because it seemed to personify Eldest. Not in the can't find a "partner" way, but in the can't-fit-in-kind-of-way. Because she can't seem to get comfortable inside that different skin in which she was created. Because she is drifting and seems so lost. Or maybe she's just lost to me right now . . . maybe she'll come back in a few years. I hope.