Hi folks. Completely new on here and have only read bits, but, deep breath, I/we need some advice and maybe support. Please forgive me if our problems seem trivial to those with far more serious issues to deal with. I wish you all luck with what you have to deal with.
Our 11 year old son was diagnozed with Meares Irlen Syndrome 18 months ago. This a dyslexia spectrum problem that has all sorts of weird visual effects on the words on the page. He has coloured glasses which we got from a special place in London after much testing. They helped to start with but I’m not sure whether they do any more.
He and his older brother (who has a milder case of teh same MIS)are privately educated and this may be where the problems come in. He seems to be genuinely depressed.
I have been away working for a few days, just back this evening and my wife has been dealing with all this, but he says he feels really sad and he is crying a lot more than usual. Usually not much at all unless he bumps himself.
He plays a musical instrument at which he is really gifted, but he says he wants to give that up. He dances absolutely brilliantly but did not do his ballet class today. All these things have been organized at his request, we are not pushy parents!
I feel that the school work is getting him down. He is clearly bright and very good orally, his teacher says, but the school are working for SATS right now and they are applying pressure to them. He has passed a mini common entrance to get into the senior school, but I know it took a lot out of him and we all said that he could relax a bit after that, but then come the frigging SATS.
I also suspect he may be being bullied. He is very forthright and outgoing but most of his football-at-break-time-buddies are achieving better results at school than him and they all know it. There has been nastiness and the school have been trying to deal with it.
Basically my beautiful son is clever, musical, a wonderful dancer, a hilarious character, an amazingly loving soul-particularly with senior citizens and he is terribly terriby insecure and unhappy right now.
Has ANYONE here been through this before? Can anyone lend us a shoulder to cry on? Right now that’s what I really feel like doing.
TIA and all best wishes and thanks to you all that bother to read this,
Nick
Very upset child
Well, with respect to the Irlen Syndrome, the close work has clearly been stepped up due to SAT testing, and he may need visual exercises to keep pace. Has he seen his vision therapist lately? Also, he may well be getting headaches from all the extra close work.
With respect to the other stuff, he’s at the age at which many boys challenge the sexual orientation of boys who play musical instruments or who dance. Are these hobbies done through the school (which can make them modest pluses?) If not, is there a school somewhere in town where these talents are respected? Is he, in fact, any good at football, wrestling, or other manly sports or does he just enjoy kicking a ball around? If he is small and agile which I rather suspect given his prowess in dancing, then he may be better off doing something like swimming or fencing, which would be respected by his peers, but is something at which small, coordinated, quick people can excel. And frankly, if there is no swimming or fencing team there, I would go and organize one. That’s what my mother did for my brother in a similar situation. He too was small, smart, quick; an excellent violinist, the possessor of a really beautiful, well trained, soprano voice, and was a gifted dancer at age 12. None of these were social assets. My mom moved him to a school attached to a cathedral, where singing was respected so that the voice was neutral at worst, instead of being a major negative, got him fencing lessons since it was clear he would never be gifted at the existing sports at his school, and then when he’d been taking lessons for six months, set up a fencing team at his school with him as captain by default. (After all he was the only one who knew how to fence.) He did very nicely there.
Hi Nick and welcome here!
Perhaps he is ‘seeing the glass half empty, rather than half full’? Focusing on what he can’t do, rather than feeling proud of what he can do?
Yet it could be down to bullying, as you mention? Which can be both physical and verbal.
Along with the upcoming Tests?
Maybe it’s the convergence of number of things at the same time, that are making him feel overwhelmed?
Perhaps he is taking life too seriously?
Geoff,