ADHD

Cursive was a mistake

"Rats is chugging along in second when he should be cruising in fifth". I've had countless reports like that but that one stuck with me, probably for being so much more creative than the others.

I think it was the year following that report that they stuck me on my own desk facing a corner so that "you won't keep getting distracted by other students". I guess that teacher just really liked euphemisms. At least I always had a set of stationary for myself lol.

I just had parent rage remembering how my oldest's 1st grade teacher wanted to hold them back just because their handwriting was "awful", and their 2nd grade teacher decided to put all the talkative kids away in their own section so they "wouldn't disturb the good kids" because THEY ALL TALKED TO EACH OTHER! This was also the same teacher that wrote "did you even study?" on a second graders spelling test when they came home with a D (that particular week had been so hard).

Sorry for ranting, but this was prior to oldest being diagnosed with ADHD, dyslexia, and dysgraphia. Sometimes the teachers just see flaws and lable the ND kids as trouble makers or lazy instead of thinking they need extra help. Occupational therapy helped so much with their handwriting, medication and psychotherapy helped with the ADHD, and blue light filters helped with the dyslexia.

I'm sorry you went through all that as a child.

Sadly... probably not much different if you got the help. My kid has all the help there is, since we know what it is like. The help isn't very effective until they reach the age of reason.

3rd grade was apparently the only one where you didn't have a teacher with an awful handwriting.

Teacher preparing to write report cards: Gets out the "Could work harder" stamp and a large glass of red wine.

My second grade teacher managed to get away with this gem on one of my report cards: "Getting Armored to read is like having teeth pulled without anesthetics" lol

Now I kind of want to look at mine again. Mostly their main complaint was that I didn't do my homework. I did well enough on tests to mostly compensate for that. My grades suffered but this wasn't really seen as a big enough problem (read: I am inattentive not outwardly hyperactive) to do anything about. It was only in my final semester of undergrad that I was diagnosed after college broke me. "Congrats you now have accomodations! Shame your degree is basically already completed anyway."

Some of my teachers thought I was "mentally retarded" (they still used that word back then) and others wanted me to skip grades. Sometimes literally in the same subjects. I'm still traumatized.

I thought I was reading my own report cards for a second lmao. I got help in the 90s but it didn’t do much for me. None of the meds they tried helped at all. I basically just had to try and learn habits for keeping notes/journals (off and on for years, even today in my early 40s) and other things to try and keep me engaged.

Eh, don't worry too much about what "would have been". I was diagnosed at a young age and still struggled.

Other than tying shoes those comments could have come from my report cards.

Apparently I've forgotten how to read cursive