My son just turned 8 early March and is in 2nd grade. He is a very immature student in his class and looking back we should have not sent him to KG when we did, but he would make progress at times and we though "Alright, he's got it lets send him on!" But then he would start something new and struggle again. He is an only child of parents who struggled with infertility before him and after him. He is probably our only child so we may be to blame for his immaturity as we sometimes treat him like a baby just to hang onto what we used to have. His family Dr. also told us he has ADD, not the H, just innattentive. He can't focus or pay attention to save his little life. He also suffers from specific learning disabilities. He doesn't remember math sums or processes from one day or week to the next. He is at the end of 2nd grade but reading level is the end of 1st grade. We have finally mastered adding with regrouping when he should have known that months ago. He's always been a year behind it seems like. He is in the special education department with an IEP and makes B's, but he's out of his regular classroom most all day. 3rd grade will be even more. Will he catch up on his maturity and start talking like someone his own age or will he continue to talk like someone 2 or 3 years behind him. His teacher asked if we've considered retention. I don't know what would be more traumatic to him. Holding him back but possibility of him making A's without having to go to the special education room all day; OR sending him on to 3rd grade but being in special ed for most of the day because his class is so big that he can't be in there with 26 kids and learn anything. He is against retention or even switching to a private school for smaller classroom size. Why is he so afraid to change and how can I make him see that it might benefit him? If he is happy with staying at the same school and going to special education for everything should I be ok with it? He just wants to go on to 3rd grade.

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