Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Recommended Resources I'm new to this and looking for advice/resources

This sounds like a very frustrating situation. I'm sorry!

If your son has an IEP, the school is required by law to serve his needs, and part of that should include talking to you.

What have you done to try to communicate with the school? Have you called the school office to make an appointment to talk to the principal?

You need to establish good communication with the school, even if you decide that you will eventually HS. In the meantime, while your child is in their care, you need to connect with the school. It's just something that must happen, especially if they're threatening legal action! I mean, it's clear that something isn't working here!

Talk! Find a way, but get an appointment and talk!

As I think more about this I am hoping to start finding out about education opportunities sooner than later. My son will miss the kindergarten cut off by a few weeks and without waivers will not be able to attend until he is almost 6. At that point, I believe he will be so far ahead of where he needs to be if he continues at the pace he is on, that school will not be as fun as it should be. I have lots of time to figure it out, but I still have nervous nelly mommy syndrome!!

I took a look online at our school districts policy on enrollment ages. They claim to have a strict 9/1 policy, although I haven't actually talked to anyone, I only looked at the website. My son has a 9/22 birthday, so he only misses by 3 weeks. The thing I really struggled with is that had he been born just prior to the 9/1 date, I could choose to hold him back a year, but I can not choose to accelerate him a year.

The one loophole I did find is that if you enroll them in a Montessori and the Montessori is able to confirm he completed all kindergarten level work, he could start 1st grade the year he should start kindergarten. I feel on one hand that it is way too early to start thinking about these things, but on the other hand, I want what is best for my son! What's a mom to do...

P.S. the last few days we have been enjoying a fun new game. We will be talking or reading or whatever and DS will ask what makes tree and have me spell it out for him. At this point he seems to just be taking it all in and there is not much response. I am excited to see where this one is going to go!

Kimberly,

I�d be careful with these acronyms that they are sticking on your son. Edison was almost certainly �ADHD�: have you seen the book �The Edison Gene�? And Simon Baron-Cohen, an expert on autism/Asperger�s, declared in his book �The Essential Difference� that all of us theoretical physicists are Asperger�s � he specifically mentioned my own mentor, the Nobel laureate Richard Feynman. (Baron-Cohen was making the case for tolerance; he was not condemning physicists.)

I don�t know your son, and he may have real problems and need real help. Or he may in fact be a perfectly normal human being who is sick and tired of being forced to fit into a square hole when he is not square. I�d compel the school to sit down with you and explain exactly and in detail what their understanding of the situation and of your son is. I�d also seek out some independent and sympathetic expert who can help evaluate whether your son is someone who really cannot function in normal human society and needs serious help or whether the kid is just not willing to tolerate the nonsense in the typical public school and needs a freer and more sane environment. I have a friend whose son is seriously autistic and who really does need a great deal of professional help. But a lot of this labeling is merely an attempt by bureaucrats to make children easier to intimidate and control.

Incidentally, I�m a stay-at-home dad who has been homeschooling our girls from the beginning. One of our kids would probably be labeled ADHD. She�s really just an energetic, enthusiastic, bright kid.

All the best,

Dave

Hi mamabird,

Welcome! Your kid reminds me so much of my DS4. I remember feeling anxious when I first started suspecting he is gifted, like I should be doing something extraordinary to provide appropriate stimulation and get him on the right educational track. I agree with other posts that at age 2, it is more important to just follow your child's lead and enjoy playing at his level. Children's museums are great. Internet is indispensable for answering unexpected questions ("uh... let's look up together why poop is brown and pee is yellow.")

A tip from my experience: if you find yourself wondering if your child is slowing down and perhaps even losing some of his old skills, don't worry about it. DS4 always seems to take huge cognitive leaps (usually in the winter when we're indoors) and then slow down for months (usually in the summer when he is focusing on physical development). DH and I often find ourselves saying things like, "Wow, that kid is like Rainman; at this rate, he will be ready for 4th grade next year." And then a few months later, "Well, I wonder if he really is highly gifted after all. Maybe he is just obsessed with [math, reading, or whatever his topic of the month was at the time]. At this rate, other kids his age might catch up with him by the time he enters school." For instance, he took an avid interest in learning to tell time when he was 2.5 and then completely lost interest. Gradually, he seemed to forget the difference between the hour hand and the minute hand. Then, last month, all of a sudden, he demonstrated he can tell time as easily as any 2nd grader. I have no idea what got him interested again and how he figured it all out in his head all of a sudden (I think maybe learning multiplication recently got him interested in the minute hand). Same thing with reading. He could read at age 2 but stopped reading for almost a year and refused to read to me. I thought he had forgotten how to read. Now, he can read just about anything if the topic is interesting enough to him.

Just to give you a taste of what to expect in the years to come, DS4 has now surpassed his 6 and 7 year old cousins in math and reading. He can tell you the 50 states (and most of their capitals) in alphabetical order and can locate just about any country on the world map (which I cannot do). He loves to tell anybody willing to listen how Germany used to be 2 pieces and now it's one piece again, and how there used to be a big wall in Berlin and it's all torn down now (just imagine the ridiculous interaction he often has with other 4 year olds at the playground). I am trying to enroll my DS4 in kindergarten in September (he just turned 4 so he will not be anywhere near age 5 then). I scheduled an evaluation for him next month, which is required for early entrance. I don't know if he will cooperate. He is very strong willed and, to use Kriston's categorization, definitely the obsessive type who likes to pursue his own narrow interests and not easily get distracted by what others are doing. Unless the examiner frames every question in the context of geography, numbers, natural disasters, or how the human body works, he might just refuse to answer the questions! We will see...

I AM worried about his academic future. He is so unusual and I'm afraid schools usually are more accommodating of children who are mentally retarded than mentally gifted. Maybe that's how it should be in a world where resources are limited... but it certainly doesn't seem fair to my child.

Toddler years are really fun. Enjoy! And feel free to come on this board and brag when you are bursting to tell somebody about your child's amazing talents. I can't wait to hear more about your son's new accomplishments (and maybe some unusual problems) as he grows!

Junior

Thank Junior!! These are the things I really needed to hear. We just took DS to the Children's Museum today. He absolutely LOVED it!! By the time we left he was so tired out that he fell asleep before we got out of the parking ramp.

A funny thing happened though. We were at one of the displays and there were letter cards (kind of like what you would find for dressing room numbers) on pegs. He had taken a whole bunch down and was lining them up. Eventually we decided it was time to start putting them back up. He would pick one, I would ask him what letter it was, he would tell me and then hang it back up where it belonged in front of the same letter. A lady was kind of watching over our shoulder and asked me how old he was. I told her 2 and she kinded of scoffed, gave me a dirty look and walked away. It was as if I was doing something wrong by having a 2 year old that knows their letters. Sounds like this is pretty normal though from what I have read here....

Hey mamabird - I'm so glad your DS liked the Children's Museum. It was always a good place to go if I wanted to make sure my DS would sleep on the ride home. But what a rotten lady you encountered! Seems like she only asked how old he was so she could scoff. I feel so sad for you - we lucked out and got the curious and amazed comments until DS turned 4.

I think you said you were in the twin cities. Your son might enjoy Monday mornings at the science museum: http://www.smm.org/playdates/

Thanks st pauli!! I think he would love that. Overall the day at the children's museum was very fun and I am not going to let one rotten lady ruin my day! Thanks for the link, we will have to try that some day soon.

St. Paul has a great electricity museum!

My DS LOVED the science museum as a preschooler. And still does of course! Even more than the children's museum. We spent a lot of time in the dinosaur room! My DD3 loves the dinosaur room too. They also have great kid's programs and summer camps, even for preschoolers. My daughter is going to her first one this summer!

I used to get the eye roll for my DS ALL the time when he was 2 to 3. He was always trying to disassemble stuff. And he was usually running or climbing! He rarely showed his stuff out in public. My daughter loves to show off for the public though. People comment on her all the time and her vocab.

Somehow this is reminding me of taking DS11 to the local amusement park as a preschooler. The folks who were in charge of strapping him in would always comment that he was more interested in the mechanism of the seat belts than he was in the ride itself. ((smile))

That seemed like a 'sweet quirk' at the time. I had no idea what was in store for him!

Grinity