medicated

Twice now, the Ubergoober's teacher has mentioned medicating him. I'm not sure why, and when I press for details, I get a rather Gallic hand wave.

"Oh, you know. Nothing specific. Just a general..." She says before trailing off and shrugging.

So far, I've been able to discern that Goober can be easily distracted, sometimes fails to follow directions and has a damnable tendency to dig in his heels and tacitly refuse to do some things. (He gets that last part from Nature Boy.)

But it's not all the time. And she can't give me a specific incident or behavior to support her assertion that his behavior would require medical or psychiatric attention. Nor can she isolate a time of day or a consistent pattern for his behavior that would allow me to investigate the situation further.

So I don't know what to do.

I'm a little confused because he's doing well in school. He's pulling all As and Bs in the *special class* and he seems to understand all of his homework. Oh, sure he's not getting straight As, but I'm okay with that. He's in third grade right now and I'm more concerned with him getting a good foundation for learning than I am with perfection. Plus, he's a bright and talented kid who usually succeeds on the first try with anything he puts his mind to, so failing is good for him. He needs to learn early how to deal with these things or college is going to be a real bitch. He's had some behavior issues in school, he's been bullied and he's bullied, but we deal with it just like we dealt with those same issues when Ty had them. In fact, the main difference we've found between Goober at this age and Ty at this age is that Goober's vocabulary is much better.

When I told Nature Boy about the teacher's suggestion of medication, his answer came fast and easy.

"Fuck, no!"


For better or worse, we've kind of placed Goober's behavior under a sort of "boys will be boys" category because, well, it's what we've noticed as being normal. Not just with our own kids, but with Goober's friends and with our friends' children.

I know my next step will be to do some homework. My first thought is to talk with some of Goober's classmates' moms and see if she's made similar overtures to them. I also want to talk with Goober's previous teachers and see if they share the current teacher's thoughts about medication. Since it's never been brought up in the last five years that Goober's been in school, I don't know what to think.

Do you?