Memories

For my birthday, I got myself a good photo scanner and have been inputting old family photos. Of course, the memories are flooding back, and as I often do, I'll write about whatever those memories are. The one attached to this blog today is of Daniel, somewhere around 9 or 10 years old. He's doing homework, and in the set of his dejected shoulders and his hand on his forehead, there is a microcosm of what every afternoon at our house was like.

Daniel has ADD, which we suspected at the time, but diagnosis was much more difficult then (late 80s, early 90s). It was still a "suspect" condition, one that far too many parents and teachers sought, for various reasons, or so the idea of the times seemed to be. So every afternoon, Daniel had homework AND often unfinished work from his schoolday. We'd have to force him to sit there and do the homework. He'd be frustrated. We'd be frustrated. He'd cry. We'd get angry. It's no wonder that the poor kid would fight tooth and nail to avoid doing it. We tried everything, and nothing worked. He'd lie and say he'd done the work. Even when he did do it, he often wouldn't turn it in the next day. (Chances are, he'd be daydreaming when the teacher asked for the work to be passed up to her, so he never even heard her call for it.)

There are so many things that I wish I could change about how we treated our second son. Stephen had been so easy. He was a good student. He did his homework without being nagged. We ourselves had always been good students. Thus, we simply weren't prepared to deal with a kid like Daniel, for whom academics was agonizing. It had nothing to do with his intelligence. We knew then and know now that he is of above average intelligence. It was his inability to focus and concentrate, a condition called ADD Inattentive. He could focus avidly on video games. He could focus on music. If it captured his interest, he was as focused as a laser beam. But the way most subjects are taught (or were taught) back then (listen to teacher, read the book, etc.) did not capture his interest.

He'll be 29 at the end of August. I was 29 when I had him, and now I'm 2 x 29 (58). He still isn't in charge of his own life. He's divorced, living with his brother, sleeping all day, and roaming around town at night while Stephen and his wife try to sleep. My greatest wish is for Daniel to find himself.