I'm sorry the school has not communicated well with you. That's frustrating! I'm concerned that they are not following the federal law. Are you in the US? After you request evaluations, they are required to meet with you and have you sign a form. Either it would be a form denying evaluations, because they do not agree there is evidence of disabilty, or a form on which you as the parent agree to the evaluations and check off what areas will be tested. They are required by federal law to do this within 30 calendar days of your written request to the public school. Are you dealing with a public school or private? Also, your signature should have been on any 504 document before it was put into place. In order to insist that your school district follows the law, you will need to educate yourself on the federal IDEA laws, as well as any state guidelines. You should be able to google and find the information, to start. You can also read books. It sounds like you are going to have to advocate hard for this child. The public school absolutely does test for learning disabilities, and I can't figure out why it hasn't happened yet if you made a written request. Did you send the request to the special education department of the public school, or was it to a teacher? If it was posed as a question to a teacher, that was not sufficient, and you will need to send it to the right person. If this is a private school, you need to send your request to the local public school, because they are the ones with the mandate to evaluate. I'm not sure why testing hasn't happened yet, but you can follow up and make sure it happens. Everything that the school does is supposed to be documented in writing, and parents are equal members of the decision-making team. It is absolutely astonishing that he has a 504 without your knowledge. That is not even legal.

I think it's a cute idea. But will you actually do it? I personally have a lot of fabulous ideas that I never actually accomplish, so I'd try to resist. I'd end up putting them in a box or bag and would never get to it. Or I would do it halfway and add it to my pile of half-done cross-stitch projects, where it would languish for years. But if you have an actual plan to get it done, and if you are the kind of person who can take on a long-term project and finish it, I'm sure your daughter would appreciate it.

I have to run to get my kids from school, but don't rely on a family member to "diagnose" without evaluating. My mother in law constantly reassured me that DD12's reading was fine. She was a reading specialist at an elementary school, but she had never worked with DD and was not a dyslexia specialist. It was just hopeful thinking on her part, and probably meant to reassure me. But it was not helpful. You don't have to medicate someone with ADHD, although medication can be a great help for many. It is a personal decision that you can discuss and research. There isn't any reason to wait to evaluate. Your pediatrician should be able to either do the ADHD evaluation him/herself or send you to a pediatric psychiatrist. Gotta run. I'll try to respond more later.

I have never been on Facebook. I do consider joining, because there is a lot of information posted there -- from organizations, family members, and friends -- that I miss. But I find it creepy how much information Facebook collects and tracks about its users, so I haven't been able to make myself do it yet. I would like to see photos of my nieces and cousins. And reconnect with my long-distance friends who used to send newsy Christmas cards but now post their updates online. I still care about them, even though they have chosen to communicate via social media instead. So I may join eventually. But I still find the creep factor to be equal to the ease-of-communication factor. And I'm glad I miss all the marketing ploys and skipped the unpleasant political posting around the election.

You've gotten a lot of good suggestions about how to help.Because you mentioned that it seems like a kind of disability, I just wanted to chime in and agree with OneStep that this is a problem with Executive Function. https://www.understood.org/en/learning-attention-issues/child-learning-disabilities/executive-functioning-issues/understanding-executive-functioning-issues Someone with EF deficits benefits from scaffolding and help, so I'm glad you are working on this with him.

Stephanie, :grouphug: :grouphug: :grouphug: We did the same thing with my mom's clothing. She was a clothes horse and had beautiful things. I was fortunate to have my sister to help me. I also felt the waste. I had trouble buying things for myself for a few years afterward. I also consoled myself with the thought that others would love finding her things at GoodWill. It's so hard. I'm sorry you've had to go through it. I'm glad you got through it! :grouphug:

By the way, I am totally assuming that she is not dancing on pointe. Because there is no way she should be at that age, and a reputable teacher would not put kids that age on pointe.

She could be over stressing them with the ballet. How many days a week is she dancing? If it started when she started lessons, I would think the two are linked. It may be that she has an injury, or it may be that her autoimmune issues are making it more difficult to recover from the new movements her feet are doing. My daughters have both danced ballet. DD15 is an advanced ballet dancer; she says feet may be tired after class but should not hurt. DD12 used to take ballet around your daughter's age. She says her feet would sometimes feel a little tired and sore after class, but she never complained to me, so any discomfort was temporary. In addition to talking to a doctor, talk to the ballet teacher. They should be alerted to the problem.

About the 8 year old.... sometimes kids can learn to read with context clues, such as looking at the pictures and guessing what the word should be. DD12 was like this, because she has great comprehension ability. But her decoding ability is poor. High comprehension can mask poor decoding in a young reader. It sounds like this may be the case for your son. From what you write, there are red flags. I think it may be wise to have both of them tested. I'm sure that's not what you'd like to hear. But when we know more, we can offer better help, so evaluations can be worth it.

I wouldn't second guess it. Letting him take it was fine. As for your title question... We kept a crib mattress and keep it underneath one of the regular beds. We've had occasion to pull it out and use it on our bedroom floor when a sick child needed to camp near us for the night. We've been glad to have it for that purpose. But for saving for a someday grandchild? No. If for no other reason, safety standards will change between now and then.

DH danced with Brooke Shields. Briefly. At a college party. They attended the same university, and at a school concert/dance, she sidled up next to him, put her arm around his shoulder, and swayed for a minute or two, before disappearing into the crowd. Of course, DH's friends were not paying attention and missed it.

While living in Boston as a graduate student, I waited at the T stop (public transportation) with Michael Dukakis. This was in 1992, so just a couple of years after he lost the presidential election. Evidently, he was known back then for riding the subway, even though he was the former state governor. It was very early in the morning -- 6 am, I think -- and we were both on our way to the airport, which was about 45 minutes and three subway changes away. We were the only two at the stop while waiting for the first train, and he was friendly and chatty. I was glad when someone else showed up, because I'm shy, and I was glad that he had another passenger to talk to for the rest of the trip.

Unfortunately, I completely get it. :grouphug:

SLD means Specific Learning Disability. It's the current term that schools use. A child with dyslexia would be given the SLD Reading designation by the school, instead of using the term "dyslexia." Or SLD Mathmatical Calculation instead of "dyscalculia." It doesn't mean that the terms dyslexia and dyscalculia, etc., are incorrect. They are, however, not the terms that schools use, generally. I agree that there could be an undetected phonological weakness, even in a seemingly good reader. But I also agree with OhElizabeth that it could be something else. When someone like my DD12 has a severe enough phonological problem, it is dyslexia. Nothing that I did as her teacher gave her dyslexia. She was born that way. Learning to read was very, very hard for her. She can read on grade level now (mostly, still some glitches), but her spelling is still poor and always will be, most likely. (She attends a dyslexia school now). But someone could have a minor weakness, enough to trigger spelling glitches, and not have dyslexia. Going through a strong phonics program may be enough to help that person, especially if phonics was not a big part of their reading lessons. My older daughter, DD15, is not a great speller, but she is not dyslexic like her sister. She actually was an early reader. But then, because she was an early reader, and because I had three younger children to work with, I believe she did not get enough phonics instruction. I relied on her to be an independent reader, and she was. But I think her phonics instruction was not strong enough to teach her to be a good speller (she did phonics workbooks as independent work, but she could have used more targeted instruction). In her case, I think she would have ended up a stronger speller if I had taught her differently. So, yes, teaching can matter. But don't blame yourself!! We do the best we can as teachers, and there is time for you to find new ways to help your daughter.

We discovered that my paternal grandfather was listed as his father's stepson on a census. Grandpa never knew this (he died before this information came to light). I don't know how he would have felt, but I feel a little sad on his behalf that he didn't have the chance to know. My opinion may be influenced by the fact that we are an adoptive family, and my children have always known they were adopted. It doesn't change our parent-child relationship. It does make me wonder what we might find out if Dad and I did the DNA testing. We have a mystery on my mom's side, as well. My grandmother was born out of wedlock. She was raised by her grandparents, and she never knew her father's name. I'm sure it was pretty scandalous in 1904! It would be interesting to fill that hole in our family tree with a name, although I don't really know if Grandma would have wanted to find out who it was. She grew up in a small town, so it's possible that she knew her father without knowing that they were related.

Yay!! For the record, I vote to test and not wait.

I agree with taking two pairs, old and new. We've had shoes develop problems unexpectedly, so I think it's always good to have a back up pair. Maybe you can have him wear the new pair for a day or two in advance and on the trip down, to get used to them. Then you can help him decide which ones to wear during your long days of walking. You probably already have this covered, but we always take some moleskin and a small pair of scissors, so that we can cover any irritated areas on our feet. I also take plenty of bandages and also a small stick (looks like a tiny deodorant) of a chafing relief product. We cover any tender spots immediately, before they turn into blisters.

:sad: It can be difficult here in the USA to figure out how to get testing and how to address learning disabilities, even though by federal law public schools are required to evaluate those suspected of LDs. Schools don't often offer the kind of help that dyslexic children need, and schools do not technically diagnose dyslexia --- they will just say it is a learning disability in reading. So there are still challenges. Which is why there is a market for private evaluations and private schools for dyslexia and other learning disabilities. Students can still get pegged with the "lazy" label. Every school district handles special needs differently; although they must provide help, the help really varies. For example, we are looking at moving to a different school district to better meet my other child's needs when he reaches high school age. Some schools are definitely better than others. I hope that special education improves eventually in NZ. I am not well versed in all of the history of special education here, but I think changes came over a long span of time, in response to advocacy and lawsuits by parents. Even with systems in place now, parents really have to keep advocating. I hope your little friend is able to get good help somehow. His school's attitude is unfortunate and sad.

You might do some research to see what really might be required on a transcript for college. I assume it varies by state, and likely by university as well. DD12 attends a private dyslexia school that goes through high school. They do not offer foreign language classes. Evidently, around here, if a student's school does not offer foreign language classes, the students are exempt from fulfilling the college foreign language entrance requirements. This is both an advantage and disadvantage for students at this school. The advantage: they can attend college without having taken foreign language. The disadvantage: students who would like to take it do not have the opportunity at our school. It's great that your child has the goal of learning Spanish to communicate with family. I think it's possible for him to pursue that goal personally without doing it as a class that would show up on his transcript. I also think it would be possible to find a way for him to learn Spanish without doing a Skype class. Could he, for example, do some book work (we found Getting Started with Spanish to be a good intro, though not enough to be a full Spanish 1 course) and Skype or FaceTime with his Spanish speaking relatives? Would they be on board with having some basic, simple conversations with him as he begins to learn? I know some relatives may not be able, but others might be thrilled. The goal of that interaction would be to develop the conversation skills, so you could let the relative know some of the conversational phrases he is learning, and they could just practice a bit. I do think that after that, it would be totally fine to list that as a credit on the transcript. You could call it Beginning Spanish or Spanish 1, and you wouldn't have to sign up for an official course or go through the anxiety of one-on-one time with an instructor. You'd have to then evaluate to see what he might do for Spanish 2. Another idea is following the Easy Peasy Homeschool schedule for learning Spanish. https://allinonehighschool.com/spanish-1/

Yes!! They specialize in dyslexia but also accept students who have ADHD and some (but not all) other learning challenges. We love it. When I was homeschooling, I found I didn't have enough time and energy to meet the various needs of each of my kids, so we appreciate having a school we can use. It's expensive, though. There are other schools like it in our state and around the country, but there are plenty of people who do not live close enough to one to attend. Some kids who go to our school travel an hour or even more to get there each morning. We are very fortunate, because we live less than ten minutes away.

I'm no longer homeschooling. My four children are enrolled in three different private schools. The boys are at a K-8 private Christian school, where one son in particular benefits from the tiny class size, individualized attention, and intervention services (he has LDs). My oldest can't go there, since she is in 10th grade, and the boys' school does not have a high school. So she attends a different private Christian school, which is a great fit for her. And my youngest, who has dyslexia, goes to a private dyslexia school. And I spend much of my time driving them around, because there is no busing. But they all are doing well in schools that are a good fit for them, so it's worth it. I still hang around here, because the Learning Challenges board is an amazing support system for me and functions as my online group of friends. I also like to pop in to the the other boards.

When I was in eighth grade, I saw an ambulance go by while riding home from school on the bus. I turned to my friend and asked, "When you see an ambulance, do you ever wonder if someone you know is inside?" She gave me a strange look and said no. When I got home, my mom called to say that my grandfather had had a stroke and had been taken in the ambulance to the hospital.

And one more about friends. My roommate went skiing and broke her leg. We happened to live across the street from the hospital at the time, and while the friends she was with were walking back to our house after the ER visit, one of them fell in the street and broke his arm. The same group of people had to turn around and go right back to the same ER again.

Not a story about me, but about someone I once worked with. One of her kids ran into the house to tell her that her son had broken his leg out in the driveway (compound fracture, so everyone was frantic). She spun around and dashed toward the door, but tripped over the cat and fell against the counter, breaking her own arm.

I agree with other posters. Having a diagnosis may help you prepare for what may be to come, as her caregiver, but at this age, it's questionable whether meds would help enough to be worthwhile, and they can have some unpleasant side effects. Anxiety meds may be helpful at some point, however. I was reluctant to start them for my mom, but when she went into the nursing home, they put her on them, and it made a positive difference for her. You may want to look into whether there could be a urinary tract infection. It's common for that to affect memory, for some reason, and it's a simple, non-invasive test.