My Tavis

I love this boy.  With all my heart.  And that is why his struggles are so painful to this Momma.

He is an extremely smart boy, but organization is not his thing.  I feel fairly certain it isn't in his vocabulary.

6th grade has been very rough on him.  Very high stress.  He struggles with math and he is going to have to work very hard at that.  Besides math, his biggest struggle is getting his homework from our evening of working on it, to turning it into the teacher.  I think we would all be shocked if I actually went back and re-calculated his grades by removing all the "late offenses".  They don't mess around in 6th grade and late points taken off.  Sometimes he has 20 or even 30 points off.  Argh!!!

Last night, he had to re-write a paper.  It was the third time he was asked to re-write it.  He could accept the 40 he received as a grade, or try again.  Jason and I have been on the verge of losing our minds for weeks.  And this particular re-write and other homework issues pushed us beyond the edge.

Sometimes, I fault at being the opposite of a "helicopter parent".  I think it is so important for a child to live, fail and learn.

Unfortunately, Tavis has not been learning.  He has just been failing and producing more and more self-doubt.  And being more and more frustrated with himself.  And hating school.  And feeling like a failure.  All very painful for a Mom to watch.

Jason and I have had some different ideas of how to handle this situation. Honestly, I get too emotionally frustrated for Tavis, and it has been best to let Jason to handle homework.  And he does an incredible job.  But last night, I lost it.  Tavis was trying to write his paper and he was crying, so I was crying and Jason was obviously stressed.

I won't go into all the details, but after this melt down, I sent a very emotion filled e-mail to the head teachers of 6th grade. Writing is the best way for me to express my stress, and get it all laid out before tears take over my words.  I wrote the e-mail, and re-wrote it and chose my words properly and re-wrote it again.  I immediately got an e-mail back from one of the teachers (at 10:30 PM).  He said he could feel the emotion in my e-mail (not sure if that was good or bad?) but he would meet with the other teachers and they would get back to us.

This morning, I told Tavis that I sent the e-mail and we were going to come up with a plan.  All of us - TOGETHER!!!

When Tavis got home today, he was like a different person.  Jason even noticed it and asked me why Tavis was in such a good mood.

I honestly think he was relieved that there was "help on the way" and that we would all be working to help him.  We aren't against him.  We want him to get and to be successful, but up until this point he has felt overwhelmed and alone in this fight.

So, I ask, if you think of us and this situation.  We have a long road ahead of us.  I do not know what will work for Tavis or how to help him.  I pray that the teachers can help us with some things that will help Tavis now and for his next six years of school.  I don't want a band-aid, I want to help him learn tactics that he will use the rest of his life.