Reading old school reports and fretting about DS' future a bit.

[solidgoldbrass]

My mum gave me a bundle of my old school reports she'd found while clearing out. They were sort of amusing but sort of took me back to being a miserable stressed teenager again, and now I am worrying a bit about DS, who is very very like me, and hoping he won't be miserable and struggle the way I did. OK, his current school has already picked up on what they think is mild dyspraxia and are aware of it (brilliant school, no issues there) whereas one thing that shows up in my old reports is that I clearly had/have a touch of it too only it wasn't recognised at the time. But it's the negative stuff about 'immature, egocentric, eccentric, ^insists on having own opinions no matter what her peer group think, must learn to fit in with peer group' that worried me. I don't think having a different opinion is a bad thing and I would hate for DS (who is very much his own person) to be bullied and belittled like I was.

[AMumInScotland]

I'm about the same age (44 for a little while longer yet) and I think the way teachers are allowed/expected to behave has changed beyond belief over that time. Frankly we were on the receiving end of a regime that was often bullying, from the top down, though we wouldn't have described it that way at the time.

I don't think you need to worry that your DS will encounter the same issues - schools are different, and parenting is different. Your mother colluded in the bullying, by making it your fault for not fitting in. The school won't do that to DS anything like what they did then, and you won't do the same to DS.

[solidgoldbrass]

Mind you, I have just realised something else that's reassuring: I was the youngest in my school class, all the way through my school life (so some of the 'immature' labelling was due to me being younger) whereas DS, with his September birthday, is one of the oldest.