dyslexia can my son claim esa

dmg24

TRYINGTOSWIM wrote: »

I don't intend to offend but have to ask,why you would want him to claim ESA, is that setting him on the path to thinking his future is sorted by a life on benefits, not a good ambition for any 17year old surely. My son is 17,dyslexic and with much encouragement from us over the years that he can achieve what he wants,is now at college,working part time and has a bright future.
why steer him in the path of claiming benefits? I bring my sons up to understand you have to get out of bed in the morning,find a job, work hard at that job to get the things you want. it would never have crossed my mind to suggest claiming benefit for beeing dyslexic.

A perfect first post - welcome to MSE!

bunny999

TRYINGTOSWIM wrote: »

I don't intend to offend but have to ask,why you would want him to claim ESA, is that setting him on the path to thinking his future is sorted by a life on benefits, not a good ambition for any 17year old surely. My son is 17,dyslexic and with much encouragement from us over the years that he can achieve what he wants,is now at college,working part time and has a bright future.
why steer him in the path of claiming benefits? I bring my sons up to understand you have to get out of bed in the morning,find a job, work hard at that job to get the things you want. it would never have crossed my mind to suggest claiming benefit for beeing dyslexic.

The best attitude on here that I've seen in a long time.

SingleSue

TRYINGTOSWIM wrote: »

I don't intend to offend but have to ask,why you would want him to claim ESA, is that setting him on the path to thinking his future is sorted by a life on benefits, not a good ambition for any 17year old surely. My son is 17,dyslexic and with much encouragement from us over the years that he can achieve what he wants,is now at college,working part time and has a bright future.
why steer him in the path of claiming benefits? I bring my sons up to understand you have to get out of bed in the morning,find a job, work hard at that job to get the things you want. it would never have crossed my mind to suggest claiming benefit for beeing dyslexic.

It's pretty much the same story for my eldest son, he is now 17 and at 6th form doing A levels, something which only a few years ago seemed completely impossible.

He was written off at Primary school as being educationally subnormal (or as his teacher said, the stupid one in the class despite recently having gone through testing which put his IQ at 136) and even when he started his GCSE's, was predicted at best, an F/G in English and he was at a level more suited to a child at Primary school. His highest predicted grade in any subject was a D and that was a subject where there was barely any written work, only practical stuff!

Lots of time and effort later by myself, my son and his English teacher who spotted that rather than being the least intellectual child in the class, he was actually a talented story writer, except no-one could understand a word of what he was writing and he improved massively. He ended up being put in for both English Literature and English Language at GCSE and passed both in the A-C range.

The knock on effect from this was that his confidence improved so much that all his other grades went up spectacularly and he finally obtained 9 A-C GCSE's including English and Maths with 11 GCSE's in total. What is more amazing, is that just a week before his exams started, he finally completed the diagnostic process for his joint problems and received his diagnosis which completely hit him for six but he managed to put all that aside and still do well in his exams.

He is now studying English Literature and Language, plus philosophy and Film studies at A level and doing very well.

So from what looked like a pretty bleak future for him, he now has the potential to have a much brighter one.....but it took an awful lot of work from everyone (including himself) to get him there.

Oldernotwiser

Whilst completely agreeing with tryingto swim, I would also add that parents cannot claim CB/CTC if a child claims ESA and, hopefully no young person with these problems would be out of education at this age.

jellybaby1969

Oldernotwiser wrote: »

Whilst completely agreeing with tryingto swim, I would also add that parents cannot claim CB/CTC if a child claims ESA and, hopefully no young person with these problems would be out of education at this age.

I do agree with the above and CB cannot be in payment when ESA is awarded... If the young person was on DLA they could also claim ESA and still be in education !