After about three years of constantly dealing with a child who will do the opposite of what you tell him no matter the consequences for his actions and pretending as if he doesn't understand or know ANYTHING - he has gotten tested by the school and we receive results today.

I am almost 100% sure that they are going to say that he has Oppositional Defiant Disorder. Which, if I'm not mistaken, is not a special education issue. I recently learned of this disorder myself and have been reading on it. We were getting ready to pay $1500 to a private psychologist to do full testing on him when we got the news.

So my next step is deciding what to do. I don't think I can live like this. I'm always on the defensive with this kid because I don't know if he is being for real or if he is running some con on me. It gets old.

This summer I had him working on creating sentences. He is 7. He should know how to do this. For about four hours, he acted as if he didn't know how to make a sentence. I know he does. But for FOUR HOURS, he acted as if he truly didn't know. He cried about it and EVERYTHING. Then magically, when his father threatened him with a spanking, he did it perfectly. So I spent four hours of my day going through this.

Fine, then I won't work with him with school work anymore. But then it's just daily activities. I was picking things up in his room this morning and found a pair of underwear caked with crap. Literally, with poo. I ask him if he knows how to wipe himself. He says no. OF COURSE he knows how to wipe himself. He just doesn't do it. He will come out of his room after being told to dress for school with underwear pulled up high and his shirt tucked inside of the underwear and his pants worn low. It makes no sense. He is 7. He KNOWS how to do these things but just doesn't do them to screw around. So then I have to tell him to go fix it. He acts like he has no idea what I'm talking about.

I'm not sure how to continue this. Maybe I can just tell his father, who works from 5 a.m. until 6:30 p.m., that if his son wants to act stupid, I'm going to let him. Next time he wants to go to school looking like that, I will let him.

If there is no way to make this better, I just don't have a clue how to live with it. The boy's grandmother refuses to watch him because he just does what he wants to do, regardless of consequences. The afterschool program is threatening to put him out because of behavior. He was suspended from daycamp this week. Sigh. It's a lot.