I am writing this post because I didn’t want to feel alone in my situation.
Being a grandparent to a young boy of fifteen with Tourette Syndrome is a learning process. He has come to live with my husband and I on a month-to-month basis. His home life with his parents is very stressful now, and I don’t know if it will change. I am concerned for his future, I am home schooling him now. He is having a lot of difficulty with staying on task and passing tests. He also has ADHD. The medicine he takes does not get rid of his tics. The school that he had been attending tested him to see at what level his capabilities were and he is as low as you can score before being recognized as being disabled. He is between a rock and a hard place, he struggles so hard with school work, but doesn’t qualify for help academically.
I want to find out more about how his condition will effect his ability to have a happy and productive life. It was my understanding that children in his situation will need micromanagement their whole lives. If anyone can talk to me about this, I would really appreciate it.
He absolutely qualifies for academic support in the public school. Both ADHD and TS are listed as disabilities in the Americans With Disabilities Act, the ADA. Go to his school. Give them a letter saying you are requesting an IEP (Individual Education Plan) and be sure to ask that they stamp the letter with the date received, and have the person who is accepting the letter sign it as received. And have them give you a copy before you leave. They have a set period of time, I think a couple months, to test him. You will be invited to a meeting. You can tell them if the date and time they give you is not good for you. Anyway, you can find all this on line. Google “how to get an IEP meeting”.