<p>dec51995 - You may have already done this, but the 2014-2015 Oberlin catalog is online and is a wealth of information regarding requirements and courses. Being armed with this information will help in your discussions with the school. My son is a 2nd year comp major at Oberlin. You are welcomed to pm me with any questions.</p>
<p>Have you considered add with executive function issues or elements of odd? My ds16 is just like yours. Smart. But needs loads of support to finish tasks. God. He turned in tons of assignments late, refused to take his meds. His gpa dropped below 3.5 even with an easier class load. We are terrified of sending him away. He wants to study in Brussels. Ha! Not until he can get from a to b without help. His cello teacher is really pressuring to have him stay to study with him and though it’s a small lac might be the best option for our son. His teacher sees our son’s immaturity issues and is willing to work with him. </p>
<p>Also. Maybe look at schools with academic coaching. Ccm. And other schools offer it for free. If you can get your son diagnosed the schools will work with your son and can help prevent a complete breakdown. We’re sad too. We wish wish wish we’d held our son back because of his immaturity. Hugs. I’m not there yet. Next year will be tough saying no to a dream school because you know they probably will fail </p>
<p>Hmmmm. Cc did something weird. I’m sorry if I sounded redundant. All 7 pages did not show up when I was reading. I’d also ask your test to check for adhd. You have to be somewhat impulsive to do what your son did.</p>
<p>Hi again. Those of you knowledgeable about theory sequences–thank you for your astute observations. The conservatory also feels that a midyear start is not a good idea, for exactly the same reasons you cited. </p>
<p>Compdad: thanks for your offer. I may take you up on that–if I can get my head around looking at the curriculum. Spent much of the afternoon looking for therapists today.</p>
<p>
Ha! I’ve had a few music teachers “diagnose” my kids, as well, although usually they took longer than half an hour. </p>
<p>About the social piece: my oldest daughter, who was perfectly happy to live in her head as a child, had few same-age friends in childhood and almost no same-age friends in high school. I’m sure this information will be greeted with disdain from some, but to make a long story short, at age 11 I finally allowed her to try unschooling, experimentally. By 13 she was a non-matriculated student (only 1 or 2 courses a semester) at an Ivy League university and took other classes at community college. Although socially awkward among high school students, she was always at ease with adults. Her college professors generally had no idea she was a young teenager. Most of her friends were adults she met on the internet in discussion forums specific to her particular arts interest. And this was in the early-mid 2000’s.</p>
<p>At 17 she went to college where at last she found her peer group. (She went to an LAC not unlike Oberlin, probably a bit more competitive and intense academically.) Ten years later she is very happy, successful (on her own terms–not a millionaire), has a good fulltime job, is an arts entrepreneur, and is married and a homeowner. Many well-meaning friends and relatives were quite critical about our choices in raising her, but their frame of reference was different from mine and they just didn’t get it. </p>
<p>So many people were sure that I had “ruined” by daughter, but you could hardly say that she is ruined today: she is happy and thriving. Friends of mine whose children had golden high school careers, doing all the stuff that generated conventional approval, now have kids on a different path. Some of them became successful in the expected way–high paying jobs, etc., and some have hit terrible rough patches. </p>
<p>I only say all this because it’s hard to give a full picture to people who want to support you, even when those people interact with you in your daily life and have known your kid since birth. They have only their own experience for frame of reference.</p>
<p>My very socially competent daughter has similar feelings about orientations, peers etc. Not a problem. But yes some professional once tried to make it one. She’s absolutely fine. Made good friends selectively, carefully and deeply, just as your son probably will.</p>
<p>However, she does have facial blindness (prosopagnosia), which Oliver Sacks just wrote about. In her small town growing up it was not as evident but it became more obvious when she was at college. Returning from vacation people would say hi across the street and she had no idea who they were. Part of the package with this is getting lost. I finally got her a Smartphone and she follows the blue dot. She also has a visual ability (and deficit) that causes her to see things in detail but has trouble seeing the whole. So eye contact may not be the best, since she is looking at the face differently than many of us would. This is not the same as Asperger’s at all, but may cause some issues with social cues, reading others’ emotions and so on. It gets better as they gain experience.</p>
<p>Everyone comes at this kind of situation differently. You’ll figure it out, and he will too.</p>
<p>I’d also hesitate to take away his summer music festival. At this point, it’s his only form of self esteem. I’d only take it away if summer school was necessary in order to graduate. </p>
<p>Compmom: I’m a HUGE Oliver Sacks fan, and I “diagnosed” S’s prospagnosia after reading Sacks’ New Yorker article. Luckily, S doesn’t have it as severely as Sacks does–not even able to recognize his secretary’s face or recognize his own house from the sidewalk. S also has the place problem. We once arrived at a familiar destination, walked two blocks, and S realized he’d left his backpack in the car. I told him to run back and he had no idea where to go. The car was only two blocks away! As I’m sure you know, this problem really impacts your social life. Imagine running into people all the time that know you and you have no idea who they are. I’ve had that happen to me when I see someone from the past out of context and it’s positively painful, trying to figure out who they are and keep the conversation going without letting on that I’m completely clueless who I’m talking to. I’m great with faces (never forget one–though terrible with names) but this has happened a couple times because I meet a lot of people that I don’t see again for a long time–I’m a tutor so am constantly encountering old students and work with people of all ages. As for S and his face blindness: Last month, D and S were at a concert. During intermission, a man came up to S, called him by name and spent some time talking to him. When they walked back to their seats, D asked S who the guy was and S said, “I have no idea.”</p>
<p>Glassharmonica: you ooze wisdom. Your daughter was lucky to have you. That’s all I can say.</p>
<p>Cellomom6: Thanks. Just thanks.</p>
<p>For fun: <a href=“http://www.faceblind.org/facetests/”>http://www.faceblind.org/facetests/</a> It’s a Harvard research test, online. Basically changing small details like hair or someone’s stance makes a person unrecognizable for a person with facial blindness. Things can get better as compensatory strategies expand. But another reason to go to a small colleg/conservatory like Oberlin! I think that people with prosopagnosia become very wise about people, because they have to rely on personal vibes rather than facial characteristics or even expressions.</p>
<p>Fun test - 97% - I only missed Tony Blair. I guess I have good face recognition AND I have great mental mapping skills. I can get to a new place if I look at google maps then never see a map again. </p>
<p>I take that for granted - it’s a good reminder of how difficult it would be to have a brain where those things are challenging. I image that might go together with other parts being more developed. I, for example, can’t tune an instrument or sing a scale to save my life. No perfect pitch here. So face recognition is a functional skill in my world were I work with the public but I get by with bad pitch. Your son lives on having a great ear and that’s a wonderful thing. </p>
<p>Facial blindness actually also reflects a gift for visual detail and analysis :)</p>
<p>Saintfan-- I took that quiz and got 100%! But I think you may have helped me. I recognized Tony Blair but his face seemed a little distorted. I think I would have got him, but I had read your post! Also without my obsession with movies and pop culture, I doubt many people would know who they all were, which is to be expected. But my Mom would have done poorly and probably only known 3 or 4 people.</p>
<p>They ask how old you are so I suspect they choose political and pop figures who you might know based on age. They also ask if you knew the person after the fact. I knew Tony Blair but got it wrong, if you didn’t know who any of those people were it would be a different score. I almost got tripped up by DeNero - I know him well, but without hair not so much.</p>
<p>dec51995-- I am amazed at how much you have accomplished and moved forward with helping your son in such a short period of time! Like some, reading all of these posts from the beginning made me think he had failed all of his courses. Obviously not, and to get into Oberlin with merit is pretty amazing! If it were me, and because you asked for advise, I would continue with the Psychologist and help your son come to a decision about what he wants to do this summer and in the fall. I know it’s tough because you’re probably thinking he needs to be treated successfully before he is able to make these decisions, which is true. The Psychologist can answer that. There are Pro’s and Con’s to a gap year, and I think previous posts have described them. It really depends on the individual. I’m waiting to see if my daughter will want or need a gap year-- she is a rising Junior and I’ll have to start another thread to talk about her! My husband is totally against a gap year, my daughter and I more open to its possibilities. (Husband thinks with daughter’s personality she will regress musically because we really don’t have the necessary musical opportunities in our area.)</p>
<p>Good Luck! And this may sound odd, but I think every student approaching their late teens could benefit from a proper Psych exam. It couldn’t hurt, and really help some. We all get Physicals, right? Also, just from personal experience in another part of my family, unfortunately if it’s something like bipolar it can take years to get the diagnosis right. But it doesn’t sound like that to me. </p>
<p>Face test: I got a 97% and missed Tony Blair, too. It was fun. The hardest part for me was remembering the actors’ names!</p>
<p>Thanks for all the encouragement. I’ve had the chance to have many small talks with S to get a better picture of his frame of mind this year. I was pleased to hear him say that a gap year would give him time to show he can attend class successfully and rebuild his relationship with his dad and me. He feels very bad about the whole situation–even lied to friends about his classes because he didn’t want them to know “he was a loser.” (That one makes my heart ache.) Part of the problem with orchestra, apparently, was that he was placed in the back row for the first time and felt that everyone was a better player than he was. I so wish I had known how he was feeling. I never would have dreamed that this would bother him because almost all the players in the orchestra are graduate students, so, of course they would be better players. However, it does make a terrible kind of sense: he’s always been the principal, except at Tanglewood when they rotated and he had to do his time in back. He is looking forward to going to therapy and figuring out what’s wrong. I am in the middle of trying to find an appropriate therapist. Everyone urges me to find a good one, but I’ve never done that before, so I’m kind of guessing. Here’s what I’ve come up with. I’m contacting the guidance counselor and our church youth director for suggestions of specific therapists they know who have successfully worked with troubled kids, and contacting all the people I know who have had children in counseling to see if they can recommend therapists they liked. It’s a surprisingly large number, actually. All those years of listening to the horror stories of other moms is paying off for me now. Any other suggestions you have to help me narrow down a good choice are appreciated. </p>
<p>I might also suggest talking to his family doctor and see what kind of recommendations you can get from him/her.</p>
<p>Life at a conservatory is going to be a series of “starting at the beginning” events. Chairs rotate in orchestras,so he may be in the back again, and you register for courses beginning with the seniors and moving down (that means that the underclassmen have to really be on the ball to know what they have to take and be online at the right time to get it). Being late to a rehearsal will mean a verbal warning from the conductor (at every level), and is grounds for not having your contract renewed in the “real world” or a drastically lowered grade in an academic setting. These are all things that kids need to know and to have the skills to deal with on their own.
Oberlin could be considered to have a looser arrangement than some other schools; I personally know of a student who missed many, many classes, rehearsals and lessons (alcohol & drug experimentation and general lack of interest in doing what was supposed to have been done)- the school didn’t interfere and the only one to say anything at all was the studio teacher who became annoyed at being “stood up” on a regular basis. While some schools might have called the student in for a meeting, this wasn’t done at Oberlin and now it’s a case of “what happens in the fall?”.
Far better to work on the skills and tools needed for success before sending a kid off to face it alone. Not only does it make sense economically, but one hates to see a talented kid not succeed (or any kid, for that matter). My eldest was in college back when the Internet became a BIG thing, and he spent his nights in the school library(yes, it was open 24/7) and ended up missing not only classes but meetings that were set up to help him. He blew his chance at his “dream school” and it took him quite a while to figure out what he wanted from life and how to go about getting it. Thankfully, I can say that he’s a very successful adult but he is working in an entirely different field than he had planned because he got to the point in life where he had to make money and he didn’t have the credentials in the areas that he had wanted to pursue. I’ll always wonder what “if”…</p>
<p>Mezzo: thanks for sharing your experience with your child. It’s sad to think that your S lost his chance with his first choice of field/major, but I’m happy he still figured out how to be successful. The situation in orchestra that you described above is exactly what we’re trying to avoid. (
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