Grade Cards the day before Christmas....

God bless my son! I learned to say that after living in the South for 12 years. It is always followed by something that you are going to say bad about someone...or you can talk trash about them and then say "God Bless 'EM" and that makes it alright!

So, God bless him...he got his first grade card since diagnosis with Asperger's and all sorts of "special" accommodations from school, and group therapy to the tune of $50/week. All this extra help was supposed to make our lives, better, easier....like the old show Bionic Man. What he came home with were the worst grades of his life. For the quarter, he had an A in gym (for showing up)...3 D's and an F! For the semester, he wound up with an A, 2 C's and 2 D's....thanks in part to the B's he had from the first quarter, when we were doing it by ourselves with no diagnosis.

I thought getting him diagnosed, and having him learn about Asperger's was going to help...but no....since he has been going to group therapy...he's now really starting to ACT like he has it with no effort to fit in or act "neuro-typical".  It isn't that he is trying to use it as an excuse...so maybe I am just uber sensitive and finding out all these traits, since I am doing research and I am realizing more and more what used to be just odd is now officially "Aspie".

His step-dad says he is lazy. We have made efforts to leave work early to pick him up after school, because he seemed to think it was easier to do his school work at school than at home. I emailed all of his teacher, who assured me he was "doing just fine". WTF? Do they think D's and F's are acceptable in my house? Did they not listen to me at the team meeting when I told them if you tell him he is doing fine HE THINKS HE IS DONE AND QUITS WORKING! He told me to back off and let him do it his way several weeks ago...so I did. Not a single assignment was turned in since that day! I explained in advance...no scholarship...no college money from Mom.

Ok, I know a lot of parents of kids with Autism and Asperger's would be happy if their child even had a hope of college...but this is a kid with an IQ of 130 and he is almost 17...there is no reason for him not to excel. The fact that he managed to pass all his classes (yes, I guess the D's are passing by some parents standards) without doing a single assignment for the semester is AMAZING! His classes are Honors English (which this year he loves because it is literature again), AP Psychology (which he loves but doesn't do his study guides so he is bombing....and he wants to be a psychologist when he grows up??), Trig (math...yeah!), Spanish II (he hates and will never take Spanish again), and Gym (which for the first time ever he seemed to like). Typically, I would have expected him to be able to pull off B's in Trig and Psychology and a B or C in English and a low C in Spanish II...so what the heck happened this quarter?

My great friend's daughter died after injuries suffered in a car wreck about a month ago. My son was raised with this girl...they went on family vacations together, they went to school together, they did community theatre together....they told people that their moms were BFF so that meant they were cousins. We moved out of town, but saw her last spring for my son's surprise 16th birthday party down south. For a week, we were here...waiting for news. I am sure he couldn't concentrate very well at school after finding out about the wreck. Then after she passed away....off we went on a 16 hour drive to be there for the visitation and funeral. We were gone a week. We came back just in time for a two-day week and then a 5 day Thanksgiving break. I emailed his teachers...they said "don't worry about it"....I asked them to prepare all his assignments so that he could work over the 5 day break. Most of them didn't give him any. I emailed repeatedly...and have back confirmation from all of them that he had turned in "most" of his missing work and was doing well with the material and had "caught up". So, why are his grades the worst in his life?

I don't know if:

1. The teachers now expect less of him because of his diagnosis.
2. He now has an excuse to do bad because of the diagnosis.
3. The death of his friend, and change of routine was insurmountable because of the diagnosis.
4. He is now so obsessed with Dungeons and Dragons that he doesn't do work anymore.
5. The amount of make up work was so great that his anxiety caused him to shut down and just not do anything anymore.
6. Some combination of all of the above.

So, he is going down south to his dad's for Christmas. There we were, the day we are supposed to be celebrating our family Christmas Eve...and I am yelling at my son, asking if he is truly as lazy as some people think...because it appears he didn't even TRY! Not a single assignment done...no make up work...no new work...no assignments I asked about and was told were done....not the take home test that I made special arrangements with the teacher for him to turn in late. NOTHING! His response, "You're right, Mom. My way didn't work. I guess we can do it your way next semester."

My way is this. I am trying to arrange a meeting with all his new teachers and the guidance counselor and director of "Special Services" at the beginning of the new semester to adjust his schedule a bit to lighten his load. I want an email at the beginning of the week from each teacher (no exception...the class he failed, the teacher never once replied to an email). I want him to come straight home after school (no sneaking around with your D and D friends when you promised me you were doing all your homework). He will come home, shower, shave, and brush his teeth until his step-dad gets home at 4 pm. He will then sit at the kitchen table in silence doing all of his homework until it is inspected and certified as done by his step-dad. He is then free to hang out with us and watch tv or read in the living room, but he is grounded from any computers, video games, ipod (not a biggie...he lost it a few weeks ago anyway), and his brothers rooms for the quarter. If this doesn't work...we do things his step-dad's way...which is he sits and studies each subject with him from 4 pm until bed with not breaks.

What I just don't get is why my son could do this a few years ago...but not now?? Everything I have read points to Asperger's symptoms getting better as they age...not worse. He has more symptoms in the last three months than ever before...so I am back to the question, "Did diagnosing him make him worse?"

Merry FREAKING Christmas...Mom's done yelling at you so lets go open some presents! God bless him!