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Maybe insight into the brain of a frustrated LD teen might help?
Most of your kids sound exactly like me. For a second I thought some of you were my mom, just using pseudonyms. I'm 17 and having major academic problems. I always follow the rules and am polite and respectful and all, but high school's killing my spirit and I feel completely incompetent. I go to a private school and every year of high school so far has been worse than the last. I've had to give up the activities I love because I'm so bad with managing my time, and it hasn't even helped. No matter how little work I have, it seems like it's always too much. When I have lots of details to remember or small assignments to do, I completely shut down.
I'm taking AP English and the teacher doesn't believe in learning disabilities. She's a really wonderful teacher and I love her, but she embarrasses me in front of the class a lot. Whenever I forget a book or am unclear about a deadline. It's awful. And she told two of my friends if I didn't get my act together she would kick me out of AP. Anxiety builds to the point where I feel like I can't go into school if my work's unfinished or I'm unprepared for a test. Consequently, I miss an inordinate amount of class and the teachers get all pissy and malicious. I really care about my grades, which is the worst part. I know I should be getting A's and I held it together the first trimester and got straight A's, but it's been downhill ever since. All I can think about while I'm in school is how much I hate school. Every day's another reminder that I'm someplace I don't belong in an environment where I can't thrive.
You know what makes me maddest? I don't think anything's wrong with me. I function differently from most people, why does that have to mean I function wrong? The way I see it, learning disabilities aren't excuses for students, they're excuses for the school system. "Oh, no, we're not marginalizing everyone who doesn't function well within our narrow narrow boundaries. It's not that our system's flawed, those students just have a flaw in their brain chemistry." I'm tired of people losing patience and I'm tired of letting everyone down (most of all, myself) and I'm tired of being frustrated and I'm tired of having no time to do the things that keep life from becoming dull and icky and I'm tired of being called lazy and flaky and I'm tired of being made to feel like I can't succeed anywhere just because I can't succeed in high school and I'm tired of feeling discouraged. Most of all, I'm tired of caring.
For about a month, my parents were showing me unconditional support and it made my whole life so much more bearable. For the first time, I thought maybe they could accept me even though I'm a failure. Then they got frustrated and withdrew a lot of their support. As a result, I feel hopeless and alienated and I'm really really sick of this homogenization factory called high school.
I also hate Adderall because I can't function without it and I don't like the idea of being dependent.
I don't like being this bitter and feeling like everything exists to make me fail. I know that's not true. I want to be rainbows and sunshine and kittens and flowers. But it's difficult to be kittens and flowers in a world of vampires and goblins and arsenic-coated lollipops.
Anyway, parents, I can't stress enough how important your unconditional support is. Your children are frustrated enough with themselves. And teachers don't tend to be the most understanding. High school is a flaming hoop we all have to jump through. All you can do is limit the flammability of your child's clothing and keep a fire extinguisher nearby. It's a flame-covered hoop for every student, but AD/HD students tend to trip on it a lot more than the average student. Even if you don't see improvements when you offer your support, trust me, you're helping. Even if you're not helping your child improve her academic performance, you're helping her understand that you can accept, love, and believe in her even when there's no reason why you should. It's called faith, parents, and it's very very important to the struggling teen. High school will torture your child, but you can keep it from killing her spirit.
Sorry for talking.
hugs,
Jill
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Last edited by ScatteredGirl : 4 Mar 2008 @ 11:42 AM.
Reason: typos
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