Ok, here's my problem. I made my son take a class that is designed to help kids be more organized and get into college. He's getting A's and B's in all his other classes (all honors courses) and he's getting a D- in this class. Originally, the teacher told me that my son wasn't turning in required materials, so we've been working on that. I've also requested a meeting with the teacher to find out what the three of us can do to try to turn this around. The teacher has agreed to a meeting but also says that my son's problem is that he's lazy, and it doesn't matter what the learning disability, he (like all teenage boys) has to overcome the lazy problem.

I'm flabbergasted. Obviously I'm not going to have my son take this class again. Whatever good intentions the teacher may have, he's just going to require tons of education on the nature of ADHD. However, we're too far along in the year for my son to switch to another class, so we've got to work with what we've got for the rest of the year. I'd like to go to this meeting armed with some information for the teacher about the difference between lazy and ADHD/disorganization, but I'm not sure what I can bring. Sure, there are tons of books, but he's not going to read a ton of books. I'll be lucky if I can get him to read a handout.

I have to admit that I'm freaking out. I really wish I had other people I could talk to about this, but I don't have that around here.

Ok, what do I want from this meeting? I want to find a way for this class to teach my son what he needs to know, but do it in a way that respects that there is no one size fits all answer. (Example, the teacher wants the kids to organize their binders in alphabetical order. So, if your first class starts with a Z and your third class starts with an A, the first class in the binder would be the third class of the day and the last class in the binder would be the first class of the day.) My son likes to organize his classes by color and have a different binder for each class. What I want is some way for my son to get his homework and projects home, finished, and then get turned back into school on time.

Please, does anyone have any ideas or suggestions on how to handle this teacher and the meeting?

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