As many of you know, we tend to not 'brag' much about our kids as we know at any point in time they could make us 'eat crow'. At least that is how I feel. I have been working with our 15 yr old ADHD/Learning Disability/ODD son for the past 7 years (that's when he was diagnosed with LD and everything went downhill from there). He ended up in alternative school for 8th grade last year, this worked out well for him academically but it was a social nightmare for him as he had nothing in common with those kids and there were only 12 kids in his class and he had to leave all of his buddies at regular junior high. He just couldn't make it in main stream school and after fighting it for years, we finally gave in and agreed to send him there. He approached us in March 2012 and asked us if he could go to a private, all boys,catholic school for 9th grade. My first thought was that he had lost his mind to believe that we would actually pay for him to get suspeneded and for me to get called to school to get him because he just couldn't make it through the rest of the day. Instead we decided to give it a try. he tested and interviewed and got accepted and they set up a 504 Plan for him (Private school doesn't offer IEPS) This school has very high standards both academically and behaviorally, none of which our son has done so well at in the past. He was failing miserably by mid October, but behaviorally he was doing 100%better. The structure and standards they hold the boys to seemed to be working but he had absolutely no homework or study habits due to the fact that he was never made to do either. We finally got him to agree to work with a tutor and he only failed 2 classes at semester but he has learned better study and homework habits and currently is only failing 1 class by just a few points. We had a meeting with his team at school today to discuss whether or not he is going to be able to hack it there and everyone said they know he has the potential as long as he continues to work as hard as he is now and learn how to bump it up a notch to get even better grades. He isn't a straight A student, nor will he ever be. We are so proud that he is putting in the effort and he is not allowing poor behavior to get in the way of his education. He may still completely lose it in the next couple of months, but he has come a very long way compared to the past 7 years and I am so grateful of that. We still live on the edge, he gets a bit crazy and loses his temper at times when school gets to be too much but it's working! Today was the first conference I had with school where I didn't cry, not even a little. They love him and want him to be there. They understand him and are willing and able to work with him. We had to sell our second car and refinance our house so he can continue to go to this school and pay for private tutoring, but so far it has been worth all of the sacrifice.