I was a voluntary assistant teacher for a few years as part of my work experience, and one kid always stuck with me. (Had my fair share of helicopter parents, but y'all know that story already).

Mind you, this class was specifically for low-income (just migrated) families in the local area who can't really afford extra tuition for their kids to catch up to the level of education required, so naturally their parents don't know much.

Anyway, there's this family with three kids: two boys one girl. The elder boy and girl were sweet little things -- a bit obnoxious at times, but what else do you expect from third and fifth graders? They're fine on their own. But the problem is with the youngest of the three -- maybe it's Down Syndrome, maybe it's ADHD, maybe it's a combination of many many things -- point being, he's not quite right mentally. He's sent to the class every week with his siblings, but he's usually just off doing his own things like, I don't know, playing with drool on the table and whatnot.

What sucks is that it seems his Mom had completely given up on the poor guy. Being a parent in somewhat poverty obviously has her busy doing her job all the time, but whenever I see this family together (never seen a Dad) she was always tending to the elder two kids, and the Down's/ADHD/whatever kid was almost like a dog on a leash -- pulled around but not really talked to at all. Now I get that it's extremely heart breaking to have a kid with mental disorders, but that doesn't mean you can just ignore them all together because you think, and I quote her here, "He will never progress, so why bother?"

The only time I've seen her really talk to him (not in third person mode) was to punish him for not being "normal" like his brother and sister. Sad, really.

Luckily the older sister has some sense and takes care of him quite affectionately.