I Hate Report Cards

Looking at my youngest son's grades, I am amazed at how my attitude toward grades has changed.

I relied on those trusty A's and B's with my oldest son.  Throughout elementary and junior high, Michael brought home As sprinkled with Bs.  Then came high school.  My son went from Valedictorian to schlep, a GPA from 4.3 to 1.78 roughly.  He got lazy, but I still demanded A's and B's from him, which he slowly produced.  I thought that as long as As and Bs came home, my son was learning and progressing as he should.

Not true, but I would not learn that until he was out of school.  I'd learn with my special needs kids years later.

"Do you want competitive grades or not?" asked the school psychologist. I didn't understand the difference.  The explanation equated to competitive grades are comparable to classmates on the same grading scale.  Otherwise, the teachers would give a grade based on the skill of my child.  Still not sure I understood the difference because there was no definition of what would that grading scale be?

Then there was the idea that report cards could hurt the self esteem of kids, so the school changed the grading scale from letter grades to number.  A "1" was low, and a "4" was high.  So kids just made a chart that 1 = F up to 4 = A.  Yeah, that solved the self esteem issue.  NOT.  My kids knew they didn't want 1s.

I learned to ignore the grades eventually as I was more interested in what my kids could tell me.  I wanted my kids to learn. We soon found that my sons could remember facts and stories from years prior as they told us these.  I realized that my sons could not relay information in the format that teachers wanted, expected, or accepted.  Hence, report cards and grades did not indicate their true mastery of skills and knowledge.

I take report cards now as one simple indicator of how my sons are doing.  Standardized tests take even a lower priority.

I value the results when my sons can tell me about history when a subject comes up.  I love when they laugh and tell me I am doing the math wrong.  I get pleasantly annoyed when they say, "Don't you remember when we read that?"

They demonstrate solid knowledge of many subjects through daily tasks and conversations.  That is better than any report card.

Help Us Get A Job To Pay for Your Social Security

Stuart and girlfriend

Last night my son, Stuart, texted me, advising me that he needed to go to mass with me in the morning.  He normally attends a later mass, geared for teens and young adults.  Let's just say early in the morning draws the "wiser, more mature" crowd.

I found out why when Stuart stood up at the end of mass to make an announcement to the congregation.  He spoke eloquently, coupled with humor.  As is Stuart.

He made a pitch to the congregation to help support the scholarship fund by buying a ticket for a fundraiser.  He received a scholarship a few years back from this fund.  He outlined how he benefitted from the money.  He graduated from the local community college with his degree in business.  Now he is attending the local university, majoring in finance.  Impressive, albeit normal plea.  My guess is that someone wrote the script.

Then Stuart improvised.  Stuart spoke from the heart for a few seconds, expressing his appreciation for not having to work full time that first year while in school.  Touching.

AND Stuart ended with his humorous side while illustrating how buying this ticket would actually benefit the crowd, who is slightly older than Stu by 40 or more years.  Stu logically cited that by helping to build the scholarship fund, that would help the graduating seniors to get a job which will help pay for their (the congregation's) social security.  Laughter!!

Many of the seniors came to me after mass, expressing that Stu has a great future in public speaking.  Considering Stuart was diagnosed with a speech delay in his youth, this is a great surprise!

I Can Do It!!

Cam

I love hearing my sons say that.  For too long my sons were hampered with sensory issues and lack of coordination, symptoms of autism.  Years of therapy have yielded young men who are capable of doing--doing what they want.

Stu--at the end of the day

Simple things like holding a pencil or crayon or running without falling were difficult or impossible.  Now my sons are doing tasks that neuro-typical teens do without thinking twice about it.

This is not to say that my boys don't have sensory issues.  They still do.  However, they are not as sensitive.  They know how to handle and resolve those issues.  That is powerful.

Over the weekend we started painting.  Usually, that would be a project that I would tackle alone. This weekend the boys all joined in the fun.  They had paint on their hands (tactile zing), in their hair, on their clothes.  One even stepped in the paint and lived to tell about it.

It became a family affair.  Grandparents, husband, kids, and I.  We finished the job that day.  The boys cleaned up.  They stuck with the job.  Incredible!!

God, Family, Work

Via my distant cousin/relative Nick Ball:

Our family is a classic one of hard working immigrants, who got the "American Dream" by putting God, family, work in that order. Then working everyday to make it happen.........no one gave our family anything. Everything they got and passed to us, was not luck but hard work.

I wish every history and social studies book in America had that statement engraved in the front pages.  Life has no guarantees.  No handouts either.  Government entitlements can be given.  Or taken away.

I tell my sons with autism quite often that they can't count on federal or state funded programs to be available forever.  Budget cuts, bad economies, political polls, etc can determine what becomes important and then switch within seconds.  My sons must be able to survive ultimately by their own devices.

So while it's hard to see them struggle through life's hardships, it is a necessary lesson.  Again, my cousin states the lesson well:  

Everyone wants to help their kids. I see no problem in this, but making it easy for them just makes them dependent on Mom & Dad or the government instead of themselves. No one likes to see their kids struggle. But it is in the struggle that the true character of what they learn from home comes into play and benefits them in the long run...........Doing too much for your kids handicaps them in life and since things come easy if given, the incentive to work hard is destroyed......why work? ...there is always Mom and Dad or Uncle Sam!

This applies to all kids, so it's that much harder for our kids with autism to face life, or as my son Nick (not to be confused with cousin Nick) puts it, he has to face the real world.

Thus, the priorities are set:  God, family, work.