So this afternoon, the X and I met with the educational psychologist who assessed Son#2 a few weeks ago.

The assessment was done because he didn’t pass Grade 8 last year and both the school and we, as parents needed to know exactly what was going on with him – to see if there was possibly some underlying learning disability that’s contributing to an otherwise VERY bright child not performing to his academic potential.

Turns out there is.

Son#2 has problems with reading and writing. At the age of 15, he is only able to read and write at the level that a 10 year old is able to. This obviously impacts on every area of his school work and that is why he’s been struggling so much.

So … we’ve been given the names of 2 ladies who specialise in dealing with young adults experiencing problems at school as a result of these disabilities and we’re going to get him in to start therapy with one of them asap. It’s going to mean many months of therapy and he’s going to have to work really hard to get up to speed.

This isn’t great news, of course. But in some ways I’m really relieved because the underlying problem has now been identified (and it’s nothing as sinister as I had imagined) and we can now start with a solution!