It's been ages... "in my head"

So while I sit and wait for my new furnace to be installed - I sit by the fire (duraflame), and give you another exciting episode of "what's in my brain".

Quick brain dump first: Thank god my phone wasn't broken. Finally got the dogs to eat their pumpkin... just had to pour a little meat juice on it, duh. My songlist for the xmas cd is coming together. Now to just narrow it down and find a couple more musicians maybe. I notice a lovely pattern with myself, and music. I've been up since 5am. My abs are killing me from Kyle's workout. Mmmm latte. Not sure how I ended up with this new search engine on my computer... Alot? I think its called. I kind of like it.

So, I have two things at the top of my mind this morning. The first thing being my son. For the last few years we've had to work with him as consistently as we could... to keep him focused for school. His teacher tells me he's struggling again. Struggling to stay on task, and now struggling to even get started on some things. I myself, do not like to use the term ADD. I think it tends to lead today's society into immediately thinking "there's medication for that". Yes, there is, but I will not put my child on it. There are other ways to work "with" that challenge. In past years we have really monitored hi diet, and kept him off sugar as much as possible, which really made a huge difference. We also try and limit his gluten and dairy - which again, I think have helped. We've also made him conscious of his food choices, and he has become aware of how his body and his brain react to certain foods. That in itself is a huge step with a 10 year old.

My big concern is that next year he will enter 6th grade, which is a whole new ballgame. Changing classes, 7 different teachers that have way more students to focus on. So I feel like this is the year we really need to set him up for success, instill some sense of resposibility in him for his own work, in recognizing when he's struggling and how to combat it.

I remember as a child growing up, my younger brother struggled with schoolwork, always. And I also remember my mom always being there to scoop him up and do what I thought she believed was helping him, but I think in the end it just made it easier on her, not having to have the fight with him everyday. In essence I believe much of the time she ended up just doing the work for him. Janelle has pointed out to me a couple of times, how my son has a tendency to do that - but in a very non assuming way. We have to talk him so far through a problem that eventually we get to the answer which he writes down. She's right - this does happen. And I don't want to continually give him the answers.

The flip side of this is, when he gets frustrated with a problem or set of questions, he has a tendency to shut down, get very upset, and then a 20 minute homework page turns into an hour and a half ordeal.

I know we're not the only parents that deal with this...but I guess I'm looking for some other ideas, options, different angles these things have been approached at. He is a smart kid with a huge desire to learn, and I don't want to ever have him feel forshadowed becuase learning comes so easy for his sister. So this is a big one for me right now. I welcome other parents to chime in...