Son accidentally knocks something off a shelf and it’s smashed. Son is mortified but I try to reassure him that it’s fine. These things happen to everyone. But he’s not happy.

“It’s because I’m stupid. It’s the same as why I am in the bottom set, it’s because I’m stupid. It’s the reason the teachers don’t spend much time with me, it’s because I’m stupid.”

Poor kid. It is so difficult for him. His logical mindset cannot fathom out school politics. He can see kids he consistently gets higher marks than sitting in sets above him. He can see teachers focusing on other children in class – often the disruptive ones. He hears me and the health professionals complaining to school about them not recognising his potential – but nothing happens.

Today homeschooling is looking a likely option. Practicalities still to be worked through. Finances will be a challenge. Maybe looking for a switch in the summer. This allows for one final push with school. Months to sort out the details – plenty of time.

Piece of cake. Talking of a piece of cake.

Our Prime Minister is still telling us that we can do Brexit in a few weeks. Really.

She assures us that they have the best people handling the process. Really.

My Dad wouldn’t have trusted them with a stick of rhubarb never mind the keys to the country.

But our Government does have it uses. They give us so many examples of real stupidity. I told our son about how our Government had decided that we needed extra emergency ferry capacity. The Government decided to give the contract to a company which has never run any sort of transport service and unbelievably doesn’t have any ships….

When our son heard that he smiled and said “Now that is properly stupid. Maybe I’m not as bad as I think I am.”

Son you are brilliantly gifted. Unfortunately the Government is not…..

86 thoughts on “Being stupid”

  3. Oh, those negative thoughts – they really hit when you hear them. Especially when you know you he has such a wonderful mind and great potential. I loved it: ““Now that is properly stupid. Maybe I’m not as bad as I think I am.”” Right on! 🙂

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  9. My daughter-in-law had to homeschool a couple of my grandkids also. My granddaughter was a slow reader, but excellent in comprehension. Because she didn’t read as fast as the other kids, they made her stay in at recess. She felt stupid because she couldn’t read as fast as the other kids. She started homeschooling and did great. Also her self-esteem went way up. They were teaching our grandson a new kind of math that didn’t make sense. My son is an engineer and said, NO WAY! So she began to homeschool him. If you homeschool, you can be assured that your kid will learn better than he will at public school.

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  11. Wow ! It’s a tough decision to home school when you are a single parent, and it will be hard financially. I do hope you can make it work. I spent a year in the UK seven years ago and as far as I could see, your schooling system is the same as in any other western country. Skills taught in primary school, content taught in secondary school, and teachers at each type of school trained for those specific purposes. So secondary school teachers are not trained to teach reading and writing to those children who still need it after primary school. Nor do they see enough of each child to recognise individual children’s abilities and strengths. Home schooling will help your son enormously. I hope there is lots of support for you and that you can make it work.

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      1. We have only just started to see a programme aimed at dyslexic children in the primary school my great nieces attend. The dyslexic one seems to slog quite hard, but she is progressing well with her reading writing and spelling. I am dealing with her problems reading and writing maths after school one afternoon a week – the girls have busy schedules ! Primary schools usually do this sort of thing well before secondary schools get on to it.

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      7. Oh dear ! I thought parents were getting better informed these days. Still the ones who do get it are getting the others started with their example. Certainly our secondary system here seems designed for the system, not the children.

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  12. He would make a better Prime Minister. He would make a better President.

    I wish I had been home-schooled.

    Is there an Autism/Dyslexia chapter in your area that can assist? Help with lessons, connect with other parents in the same situation?

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  15. I have friends who Home School their children. They are doing really well but, and there’s always a but, it takes a huge amount of time and commitment to do properly, as well as really good networking with others.

    As for the government…

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  17. No ‘Maybe’ about it! From the little I have read of your son he is a Genius, his four word descriptions and the personal observations (mostly of his dad) are brilliant! :-). Most Geniuses (Genii?? Geniae??? whatever – i’m obviously not one!) are much misunderstood by other less talented members of society. As far as being a Dad goes you’re outstanding and are going far beyond what most dads ever do raising there kids.

    I just hope that you can instill in your son the understanding to NEVER compare yourself to other people and to appreciate that different does not mean ‘bad’ or dumb’ or ‘stupid’. None of us are the same and most of us would ‘fail’ if we tried to compete with the best of everyone else while we fail to see their worst parts as well. We all have our deficiencies but we try to hide them from everyone as we show off our good points.

    Schooling may not be doing him much good if he is not getting the appropriate support he requires, but it is a cheap child care method while you have to work. Maybe you can come to an agreement with the school whereby he does the homework you set him while at school and you give him the support and curriculum learning needed to pass his exams when you are home together? Just a thought.

    The problem with schools (apart from not having enough teachers, or money, or time, or flexibility, etc) is that they teach in a standardised fashion to meet pre-set goals and targets – basically it is a numbers game! As long as they hit their targets, or get close enough, everything’s ‘fine’. Obviously for those who don’t quite fit into the standard mold there is no real incentive for a school to spend any extra resources giving them the teaching that is most appropriate for them – it sucks but what doesn’t in our ‘system’ these days?

    And then there’s the (your’s and mine – and i suppose you have to chuck in the Yank’s) politicians…

    Bring on the Revolution is all i can say!

    ( I tried really hard not to mention the ‘B’ word!!!) 🙂

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    1. It’s a balancing act for everyone. Ideally we get school to shift. But failing that some way of a bit of home, but of external teaching and a bit of school teaching would be ideal. Anyway will use next few months to check options. The revolution has to come. Too much pressure is building up in society. Let’s hope when it comes it leads to a better world not just a replica of our current failing system.

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  18. Do you have an elective home ed officer in your area? I think that’s what they are called. When I de-registered my children from school our local one got in touch and although we didn’t need much help it was helpful to know he was there. He was also looking into things like flexible schooling – only going in for certain lessons, and using local schools and colleges for sitting exams, and college courses for high school students to attend. He had lots of details of groups and help. So if you’ve not already done so, may be worth having a chat.
    Home schooling is like anything – pros and cons, ups and downs. You don’t have to study a particular curriculum or take exams.I if you do take exams, you can do them when you want. Son did his at 16 – normal school age. Daughter is studying for English and Maths this year – normal school age, and then doing 3 or 4 more possibly next year. For the first couple of years we mainly studied Minecraft – lol! I wanted my children to find and do the things that interested them. Daughter got into Anime – Attack on Titan. And whatever the kids got interested in, I got interested in. Because I could. Minecraft ran its course and other things rose up. Son is now in college studying for A levels and hoping for uni in September. Daughter continues to have regular melt-downs over Maths and the thought of exams, but she’s determined it’s what she wants to do and sticks with it.
    So it can be costly. I suppose the main thing you have to work out is income. Home schooling doesn’t have to be expensive, but as far as I can tell, we still need money to live.
    But, there are many ways of earning. And something your son could get involved in too.
    One of the biggest pluses for my daughter about home schooling is not having a whole load of people to compare herself with. We are not part of any groups but we do have a large family, mostly in the area. And daughter has piano lessons with a friend of mine who home schooled her own children to ‘A’ Level.
    But like we say, there are more ways than we realise of getting to where we want to go. And to be honest, I think we concentrate too much on where we want to go, or think we should be going, and don’t spend enough time just doing what we want to right now.
    I hope things begin to fall into place soon.

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    1. This is really interesting thank you so much. Going to see who our home ed officer is. I was talking to a head of a local dyslexia charity. His kid is dyslexic and he can’t get the required support. Just not available in our local system. They do most of it at home. Budgets squeezed to far. Going to check out all the options. Maybe it will end up with a bit of home schooling, but of external teaching and a bit of formal schooling. It will give me time to look at my income options to. The plus is that my current part time role is flexible enough to work round home schooling if it came to that. Just the money isn’t great.

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  19. Are you kidding me?! Kiddo, you are so incredibly smart; don’t allow anyone or anything to make you feel otherwise! I have learned so much from the facts shared in these posts. I feel like perhaps I need to go back to school. Your knowledge is beyond incredible.
    Oh, and keep up the great work, Dad!

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  21. I am in love with your son.,☺️ My daughter has homeschooled four of her eight children. The youngest, 12 and 16 year olds are being schooled at home with the area schools not acceptable and wayward students. (We moved from one state to another.) They are doing fantastically well! Her two older daughters both received full ride scholarships, one now becoming a doctor and the other a sophomore in college. Two other children have college scholarships, one a disability. It does work. There are a lot of different curriculums available. Or maybe a tutor? Here, different states have different scholarships available. Good luck.

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  22. Schools really are, for the most part, far too far behind the curve and fail such gifted children such as your son. If you do consider home schooling as a serious option, I’d hope that Mr Google will be invaluable there for thoughts and ideas on it all. I’d imagine there will be Facebook groups and the like too, so maybe you could find a parent or two who can share their personal experiences with it all.
    I think we’re a total laughing stock with our government now, who would have thought Brexit could have been botched quite this badly…
    x

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  24. Oh heavens, that is one of the great tragedies with public schooling. And you can tell him I felt the exact same way about the Whole30 nonsense with corn. I felt so stupid for not reading carefully enough. In the end, your son and I are NOT stupid. We make mistakes. We learn. We grow. And that is why we are never, ever stupid, for we will never stop growing. xxxxx

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