Ups and Downs

The past several weeks have been a series of ups and downs where Monster Man is concerned.  School starts this coming Thursday.  For Monster Man, that doesn't just mean a new school year; it also means a new school.  Monster Man will be moving up to middle school this year.

At the end of last school year, he was so excited about the new opportunities that lay ahead.  He was eager to join the band, attend after school clubs, and go to his first school dance.  Most of all, he was looking forward to having a locker.  Middle school would be filled with exciting changes!

Then the anxiety hit.  Kids in middle school can be mean, as Angel Baby so nicely informed him.  Middle school comes with more responsibility, and he suddenly realized that the school work would get harder too.  Just the thought of harder work alone was enough to bring Monster Man to tears.  He began to have panic attacks at the mention of middle school and the start of a new school year.

I was in between a rock and a hard place.  On one hand, I wanted to be able to stay at home and homeschool Monster Man again.  I wanted to be able to hold him back and protect him from all the things he found so frightening.  On the other hand, I knew that sheltering him from the things that scared him wouldn't help prepare him for the future.  I also knew that my own busy school schedule wouldn't allow me to be home to homeschool him.

Just when I was about to give up my own classes to stay home with him, he decided he was excited again.  Over the past couple of weeks, Monster Man has continued to go back and forth on the issue. One day, he's excited about going to school.  The next, he's back to being scared.  His backpack is packed and ready to go now.  We meet his teachers Tuesday night.  Thursday morning, I hope to be able to get him on the bus without his anxiety building up too much.  If it comes down to it, I will drive him to school to give him more time to calm his nerves.

I am sure he will be fine.  I can't wait for Thursday to get here so I can hear how his first day of middle school goes!

Goodbye Elementary School

Monster Man's birthday is September 6, just a few days after the cut-off date for our school system.  As a result, he started off school a year behind most of the kids his age.  While this may have benefited many other kids, it wasn't the case for Monster Man.  He taught himself to read before pre-k, catching on to the reading lessons I was giving to Angel Baby.  By kindergarten, he had surpassed his sister's reading level and was actually reading (and understanding) books from the Harry Potter series.  His skills in math were advanced, as well, so he quickly became bored in school.

Last school year, we made the decision to pull him out of school and homeschool him using Georgia Cyber Academy, which allowed him to work at his own pace.  Since he was already advanced, GCA allowed him to complete both the 3rd and the 4th grade at home.  He returned to public school this school year in the 5th grade.

Prior to his diagnosis of Tourette Syndrome, and before he started having so many problems as a result of his TS, we had no doubt in our minds that we'd done the right thing for him.  As he started struggling more with short-term memory, numerous tics, and his OCD leading him to believe that he was doing poorly in school just because he wasn't getting all A's, we began to question if even being back in public school was the right thing for him at all.  Thankfully, he had teachers that were more than understanding and were able to work with him in just the ways that he needed.

I am pleased to announce that Monster Man completed both the 5th grade and elementary school on Thursday!  We are working on ways to improve his memory or to overcome the issues he was having with forgetting things (sometimes even forgetting to turn in work he had completed), such as writing more down in order to keep track of what he needs to get done.  He is looking forward to starting middle school in the fall!