momtogo

In My Own Words

Hello, I'm a working mom and parent of 2 boys, ages 11 and 13. They both attend public schools in the area. The 11 year old is in the gifted and talented program in the school system and has no learning disabilites -- thank goodness. The 13 year old, besides going thru adolescence...., has a reading disability and consequently struggles with writing, editing, punctuation, spelling and grammar, memorization and study skills. He has a questionable diagnosis of ADD and it has been the suggested he leans towards Asperger tendencies. Both have IQs. My youngest enjoys tennis, soccer, basketball, piano, computers and his friends. Social issues are not a problem and is outside interests vary. The eldest is primarily interested in more lone activities and does not have any desire to be enrolled in an sports that are competitive in any fashion. He does have many interests that he explores and talks about to exhaustion (e.g. high speed RC cars, wood turning, gardening). Due to his high interest in certain areas, he becomes quite knowledgeable in the topic but the persistent discussion of these topics ad nauseum is exhausting. A typical day for me is getting my son off to middle school at 6:30 am and then getting myself ready for work and the 2nd child off to the elementary's schools child care program by 7:30 am. I work 4 days a week as an Oracle software developer and get home about 5:00. I am interested in learning how to better help my eldest deal with life and school. I worry for him constantly that he will not acquire good study skills to get him through high school and college. I worry about his reading and writing skills and although I try to stay in contact with his teachers to elicit information and support; I would like to know what I can do to better help him now and in the future. As he ages, he has been less open to listening to us and I'm less aware of what is going on with him.

Parents I'd Like to Meet

I would like to meet other parents who have children similar to my eldest (i.e. reading and writing disabilities, study skill issues, ADD and Aspergers. I would like to hear more about children with Aspergers to understand how this manifests itself in various children. I would like to know how parents deal with it as well.