Dear Emmett,
I am not sure how big your struggles with school will get after 1st grade. I don't know if you will have to work extra hard all your life to catch up and stay afloat, or if you will just excel academically with a little extra help. I think being the first born, the oldest child, is always tough because you have such big shoes to fill and so much is expected of you. Also because parents are learning how to be parents at every stage of your life, and your firsts are our firsts too.
You are currently in the middle of 1st grade and it is the week right before Spring Break. This is the year you began learning how to read and write, and it's been a huge learning curve for you. We believe it was because you needed so much help with your speech and articulation, but there are also some other factors that make the odds be stacked against you. You have not received an official diagnosis for it yet (but will be evaluated soon), but it is very likely you have ADHD. You have a lot of difficulty staying on task without constant redirection. You are also very forgetful, so much that you often do not remember what you read at the beginning of a sentence by the time you get to the end. It is CHALLENGING. To top it all off, you also have dyslexia.
I didn't sit down to point out all your flaws, or to vent about how difficult it has been to get you to learn how to read and write. I sat down to tell you how proud of you I am that you still wake up every day, go to school, and try your best. At the end of every school day, you meet me at the sidewalk outside of school, take my hand, and say "Mom! I did good today!". Some days you don't say that and I can tell by your silence that something happened... it is usually that you were unfocused and you didn't get to finish all your work. Or that Mrs. Rice had to move you close to her desk so that you'd finish.
I woke up this morning wondering if you are doing too much. Yesterday you woke up, went to school, then I picked you up and took you to piano class, then dad picked you up and drilled you all the way home about the days of the week and the months of the year (which you still can't seem to memorize), then you helped dad clean up the back yard to mow the grass, then we did your regular homework (spelling words, read the weekly story, answered questions, reviewed math), then dad took over and went back to the days and months, then we had a quick dinner, then I took you to Activity Days, then we hurried home for you to shower and go to bed. You barely had time to be a child.
Not all of our days are like this, a lot of your weekends are spent lounging in front of the TV and playing with Greyson, but I still wonder if I'm doing this right. Thank you for your overall positive attitude and willingness to try, I know most academic things do not come naturally to a dyslexic ADHD 7 year old boy, but you are hanging in there and getting a little bit better every day. I know persistence and resilience will take you a long way in life, and even at this age you should be proud of the progress you have made.
Love, Mom.
PS, This past weekend dad went to help Paul build an office at the Nivo warehouse and you wanted to come along. You got to drive a forklift around.
