<p>Glad to hear from you, DTE. Yeah, you probably are on the worst weight loss plan of all.</p>
<h1>theorymom, does your son know any upperclassmen in his area? Sounds like he needs a good dose of war stories - as in, “Oh, I sucked so bad at ___ class. I had to have a tutor and my parents took away my spending money until I had a passing grade” or “I’ll do anything to avoid Prof. __. He can’t explain his way out of a paper bag.”</h1>
<p>^^^
Freshman dorms have their problems</p>
<p>Another sliver of hope for all of you. My son the college jr called this am. He has been back in class 4 days. He wanted me to order a couple of textbooks online that he needs. In the past the more difficult books to order would have skipped his mind till it was too late.I asked about classes. Mentioned he needed to make an appointment with the disablitlies office to get his accommodations sent to his professors. Well he floored me by telling me he had already done that. Had the meeting and accommodations were being sent to all his teachers.
He misplaced his apartment key over the break. He had already arranged to get a replacement. Freshman year he went a whole semester without a room key.</p>
<p>Good news day for both Ds! D1 just notified about making Dean’s List and graduating at least cum laude. D2 just picked up email that she was accepted to her first choice transfer school! Cheers to all!</p>
<p>mom60 - indeed, it does send me hope. THANKS</p>
<p>NM
FABULOUS news</p>
<p>happy that some of you are getting good news these days. truly am, it does give me hope</p>
<p>NM- congratualtions</p>
<p>p,S, I am anurse ans have seen way worse. although I fell of the curve and didint do as normal. I am almost done.</p>
<p>Shawbridge
Taking a year off will be part of the discussion, but if he does pull it together, we will be hard-pressed to convince him of the idea.</p>
<p>Congratulations to both NorthMinnesotaDs. What a happy day for you, NM.</p>
<p>Downtoearth - Just because I care about you, doesn’t necessarily mean I am happy about sharing my Tim. 
But I will, anyway.</p>
<p>Interferon is another weight loss plan that worked for me…</p>
<p>We have had similar issues with S2 in the writing dept. over the years. Had informal accommodations (mainly keyboarding) through middle school, we did PT, etc. Verbal scores through the roof (42-point spread between verbal vs. performance on WISC-III, for you psychometrists out there), visual-motor skills in the low teens, fine motor skills in the 2nd%tile with his left hand, 1% with his right (he’s a righty…). Used to have him dictate his HW to me. Once he got to middle school and everyone was expected to type all their assignments, he was more comfortable about keyboarding and picked up some speed.</p>
<p>Executive function issues still reign and show up on major, multipart projects (like Extended Essays)…</p>
<p>NM, wonderful news. I am so happy for your D on the transfer and your older D on making cum laude.</p>
<p>Congrats NM and Family! Albeit academically hugely successful, her first semester speaks volumes to fit, especially when you play a sport. And… the BF? After all, it’s always something! :)</p>
<p>H is finally home after being out of town all week. While he usually does travel somewhat, I actually missed the guy (and no, it wasn’t just for carpool, but I’d be lying if I didn’t say it was nice that he is currently picking up D16 from Bball practice. The downside is that I am cooking tonight. I am trying to increase flavor via spice and reduce the whole fat thing. However, somehow vegetables just taste better with butter.</p>
<p>Range of normal: Academics always came kind of easily to son. However, large motor skills were not exactly his forte in the early years; he could barely walk and chew gum. So we made him play soccer in Kindergarten. He hated it. We made him play basketball starting in 3rd grade and he hated it. And in a word, he sucked. He picked up football after that and lacrosse in about 5th grade. He liked being with the boys, but he still wasn’t all that good. Those early years were a little rough for him, but he persisted. Then in about 7th grade, it just started to click. Think about it: he sucked for nearly five years. He really had to work hard at it. He wasn’t a natural in the least. And so when I was asked last year in our student/parent questionnairre thing about what accomplishments we were most proud (college recs), it was his hitting that game winning basket, that first touch down and the way he beamed. The dean’s awards, the good grades and test scores… that was something that came with effort but not true struggle. He struggled mightily to become a good athlete. So when he did very well with the awards last year as a senior some other parents would say things about his being a natural athlete… and I would have to correct them to say, there was nothing natural about it. His size works in his favor, yes. His drive, intensity, work ethic surely worked to his benefit but to go out and keep doing something you know you are currently not good at is to dig to a deeper place. Nothing easy about that.</p>
<p>This is what you need to tell your son #tm. Nothing easy about it. It takes a great deal of humility to try really hard at something you’re just not good at and yes, you still risk not doing well. But persistence is a gift you give yourself …eventually. Nothing about intelligence or ability is set in stone. Is he going to be the next Updike? Probably not. But that doesn’t mean it won’t start to come a little easier but he has to suck it up and put himself out there to try.</p>
<p>Congratulations to your daughter NM!</p>
<p>It sounds like a lot of our kids passed each other in the Academic Advising Office (which DS was amazed to learn was on the first floor of his dorm complex)! DS somehow “missed” meeting with his advisor last term and wound up in all the wrong classes for his major. I think he’s on the right track now.</p>
<p>Then he lost one of his fillings and got to learn what the student health center can do.</p>
<p>So help me, I’m beginning to feel optimistic.</p>
<p>FFScout, our kids are at a tough school, when you add to that their individual learning issues, youch. But I just know they can do it. Their school must have thought so, it admitted them and gave them money, so we should believe it too.</p>
<p>Modadunn, you are absolutely correct, but I have to tell you, we have said it already and I think maybe too many times and he is going to have to either decide that we had/have something worthwhile to say, do it on his own, or fail. These are the 3 choices.</p>
<p>As a kid who was so brilliant in some things and embarassingly inadequate in others, I have to concede, it has been hard on him. We did not do him any favors by moving to the rural place we did, he never got the help he should have had nor the respect. So now it is catch up time and now he is a young adult with a plethora of his own opinions, and now it may be too late for his Dad and me to have much influence.</p>
<p>Our only leverage is financial. But I won’t pull the rug yet. We have given him fair warning that it WILL be pulled if he can’t figure out how to do what it takes to stay there. I hope he does not crumble under the pressure. I hope he figures it out. That is all I really have - hope.</p>
<p>DTE, as a poet I just love your description of falling off the curve. Glad you are doing better, almost done</p>
<p>^ I agree! BUT until recently he wasn’t dealing with all the facts!! Hard to not be boneheaded if you KNOW you’re smarter than most of the room and completely frustrating to not be able to show it. He shuts down. (I know that feeing and I’ve experienced that from older D). Honestly, you and I haven’t “known” each other very long, but long enough that I know that in the spring he was shutting down with papers due etc. He KNOWS he is smart, and now it’s time he really prove it by using what he now knows! He has an incredible intelligence and he has been smart enough to compensate for some things he’s not good at. In fact, he sucks at. But now that you know this, that’s at least HALF the battle. So even though you’ve told him a million times before, now you have absolute proof that what you were telling him was true!! Anyway… you’re right he has the options as you lay them out, but to do nothing about it now is just not using his 99th percentile!!! :)))))</p>
<p>yep
what we are sayin’</p>
<p>maybe he will listen</p>
<p>you are right on</p>
<p>Congrats NM.
Shawbridge, you asked about improving scanning. This is purely a WAG (wild-a**ed guess) but I had McSon try an experiment after midterm exam issues when he said he was having trouble “remembering” the material. I’d read somewhere that it was helpful to write a summary on a recipe card after EVERY page read of dense material to train the brain to “pull out meaning and increase recall.” He did it, and while painstaking, it dramatically improved his final exam scores (except music theory, of course).</p>
<p>I regularly taught McSon to “edit” in HS (because I used to be an editor; also a j-school instructor for a spell and know daily writing and editing is what trains that skil) and today he is a markedly better writer (though still slow-ish, but comparatively much faster and better.) I am wondering if a year or two of constant summarizing on a page by page basis might help your son become a better scanner/extractor. It is a learned skill, to my mind. – Just a thought.</p>
<p>And re: using bibliography from books to source original material - heck, I think that’s a very savvy and time efficient strategy; one I often resorted to in university for time management or at least to get a direction developed ; )</p>
<p>NM–oh how wonderful for both of your D’s but esp. happy to hear about the 1st choice transfer school!
I am following along but need to reread some posts. My wonderful news is that they found THE 5th root that has caused so much pain in my tooth. Of course :), I knew the first time they went in that he had missed something…but it takes months…oh, never mind, I am happy it is resolved and now nursing myself with pino grigio.</p>
<p>NM, what great news!</p>