fiercely competitive.
hates to fail.
overthinks to the point of anxiety.
extremely smart.
independent.
very concrete, logical thinker.
participates when interested, tunes out when he's not.
mature sense of humor.
very concerned about fairness and following rules.

that's pretty much the diagnosis on my kid. i'll add sweet, loving, handsome and very very special to that list. but of course, i might be biased. :)

we had all the tests done by the behavioral experts to determine if he has any behavioral disabilities, based on his teacher's concerns last year. in a nutshell, the experts say he is nowhere near having any type of autism or asperger's syndrome--that he's just a very smart kid who doesn't mind playing by himself and is so bent on perfection that he'll avoid social situations if he has already determined he might fail. this will probably be his biggest hurdle (and mine to deal with). he is very hard on himself if he messes up in any area. we will work on showing him that it's ok to mess up, that losing isn't the end of the world, that trying is more important than not trying. we also really need to work on getting him to admit that he's SORRY when he's wrong. those words are very hard for big j. they're hard for me too, and i'll work on that as well.

i pretty much could have diagnosed this all myself--and have--but i guess it's reassuring to have a specialist tell you that your kid is a "delight" and that there are no disorders in his psyche, just a big, complicated brain that might cause him to be misunderstood.

thank you God again for blessing me with a really cool kid. i ask that you continue to guide me in raising him to be an incredible, kind, compassionate adult who can lose graciously and fail without feeling like a failure. AMEN.