8 yrs. Grade 3

Last year, my son would constantly complain that he was too sick to go to school. His stomach would hurt, and we would always agonize about whether to send him to school or not. If we kept him home, he always felt better. We suspected that he had dyslexia, but the school completely ignored our concerns. They blamed us as parents and told us he had a behaviour problem. We finally paid to have a psychoeducational assessment. He was diagnosed with dyslexia, dysgraphia, and school-related anxiety. As a parent, I felt guilty for sending him to school, where he was constantly set up to fail, where every day teachers ignored his needs. I realized at that point that school was not a safe place for him. It was a place where he experienced failure every single day. He did not have a behavioural issue before we took him to school; it developed because of being at school. We fought hard with the school and the district to get him the accommodations he needed and invested heavily in private tutoring (since NO instructional supports were provided through the school). With all our efforts, the anxiety has all but disappeared and he does not have a behavioural issue.