All these thoughts…

Well, so, just like anything in parenting, we have our ups and we have our downs, and often they come in rapid succession.  Just yesterday I was fawning over my son’s genius, basking in the glow of his awesomeness…   And today, I was sent crashing down from Olympus with astonishing velocity.

His teacher called.

She said he’s a mile a minute.  She said he is clearly very intelligent but either won’t or can’t do his work.  She said he distracts other children.  She said she really wants to put him in enrichment programs but cannot because he has no “sticktoitiveness.”  She said he’s just not like other children.  “He doesn’t even walk down the hall like other children,” she said.

She said she has tried various strategies and pulled out all the tricks she had up her sleeve, but she didn’t find anything that was consistently successful.

She also said that he has told her in so many words: “I have all these thoughts and I’m distracted.”

I’ve also looked at my son, and thought he’s not like other children.  My heart doesn’t hurt for my daughter the way it does for my son; she’s little, but I feel more secure about her.  She does her own thing and seems happy.  When Munchkin was her age, he wasn’t like that.  And he’s 7, and things I thought should resolve with maturity just haven’t.

Now my heart is hurting more than before; feeling a little broken.  I mean, he’s been so naughty, and there has been so much yelling, disciplining that didn’t work, tantrums.  And  I am the wise person who wrote that whole big post full of all the feels about depression, and how it can’t be controlled by sheer will.

I don’t like to think of my kids’ struggles.  I don’t want them to struggle at all.  I especially don’t want them to struggle because they want to be good but can’t because they have all these thoughts and are distracted….