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Joined: Mar 2011
Posts: 28
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OP
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Joined: Mar 2011
Posts: 28 |
ColinsMum, you are right on so many points, and yes, we are expecting and teaching our son to be considerate, polite and to know when to stop talking. We are in no way encouraging him to say whatever he feels on a level he feels comfortable with - not at all. But every situation can be different. If your child's teacher is marking your child's test question wrong, but your child has it right, would you encourage your child to respectfully ask the teacher about it? I would. The teacher may or may not get defensive by a student bringing up a mistake they made. Most teachers wouldn't. Some do. The Mr. Zero teacher did  Of course, as parents, it is our job to raise considerate, polite and caring children. We need to teach them how to get along in society in order for them to be successful. I'm just frustrated with the extra burden that is on our gifted kids to continually try to fit in - into classrooms where instruction is moving too slow for them, in conversations with adults where they need to be careful to know their place as a child and not another adult, among peers where our gifted kids have trouble relating and are reminded to dumb it down a bit and in a world that does not seem to value them as much as we should. The family philosophy at my house is the golden rule - just be nice! My personal version of that is to go out of my way to make everyone feel special. My gifted DS's version is that he IS being nice when he politely corrects someone. We tell him most people don't like to be corrected. His reasoning is, "Mom, is it nice to knowingly let these people go through their life embarrassing themselves because they are wrong?" He truly believes in his heart he is helping them... Nobody said raising children was easy *sigh*
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Joined: Aug 2010
Posts: 868
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Joined: Aug 2010
Posts: 868 |
My son has several of the characteristics of Aspergers, and his behavioral quirks, literalism, and choice of words have been a problem for him at school. Here is what is helping this year:
1. Preparing the teachers at the beginning of the year with a "welcome to my kid letter" that describes some of his strengths and challenges that will likely come into play in the classroom along with what interventions work best and what doesn't work
2. Professional help - seeking the help of a psychiatrist or psychologist with experience in autism and Giftedness; if the professional is used to 2E, even better. Learning the why of things he does has been such a help to me and has helped me learn how to teach him appropriate behavior and techniques for coping in situations that stress him
3. Getting it into his IEP. If you have an IEP, having his behaviors defined as part of it can be a huge help. It allows the school to require teachers to accommodate your child to a certain extent while also dealing in a more appropriate way when his behavior is a problem.
4. Educating your child. It has been a huge help this year to talk about how my son views the world and social situations and how others perceive his behaviors. "You thought you were just providing clear details, but what they heard was you insulting them," etc. It has been eye-opeing for him and has changed the choices he has made in some situations in order to prevent a repeat of what didn't work. Even if he doesn't understand why someone else would consider what he said inappropriate, he is able to act in the information that they do think that.
5. Acceptance. I have come to a place of accepting that my job is not to fix my son but to help him gain tools to navigate as best he can through life to live a full, rich, rewarding life. There is nothing "wrong" with him, and his particular set of gifts and personality traits will mean he will have some advantages in life and some challenges, it is my job to help him learn skills and methods of coping with those challenges. And it is also my job while he is still a minor as home to advocate for him when others interpret his behaviors as something they're not.
In your particular situation, I would ask for a visit with the teacher. I would acknowledge his frustrations in dealing with your child and let him know that you know it isn't always easy to have him in a classroom. I would let the teacher know that you're willing to work with the teacher on a plan to help your son learn to modify behaviors that are disruptive and find acceptable accommodations when needed, such as taking his tests in the office if he cannot control noises when he is stressed. And then I would tell the teacher that calling your son names in front of the rest of the class will not help and that it isn't something you're willing to support or tolerate because of the damage it does through humiliation and fostering an environment of approved disrespect from his peers. It isn't ok for a teacher to resort to name-calling.
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Joined: Feb 2012
Posts: 353
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Joined: Feb 2012
Posts: 353 |
Hey Celit,
I think others have made some really good points--I just wanted to let you know I PM'd you about one of your earlier comments. Good luck!
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Joined: Mar 2011
Posts: 28
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Joined: Mar 2011
Posts: 28 |
ABQMom, thanks so much for your thoughts. You are right about not needing to fix our children but to equip them with tools. Thanks for that reminder!
I think I am just at a weak moment and I'm letting my emotions get the best of me!
Advocating for my gifted 13-year-old son seems to have become a full-time job. Our school system does not have any gifted services except for 3rd, 4th and 5th grade and it is an enrichment one morning a week. My son is not allowed an IEP; there are GEP's for the gifted during the 3 years they are in the program. Regular classroom instruction is all that is available to us right now. No modifications.
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Joined: Sep 2008
Posts: 1,898
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Joined: Sep 2008
Posts: 1,898 |
Advocating for my gifted 13-year-old son seems to have become a full-time job. Our school system does not have any gifted services except for 3rd, 4th and 5th grade and it is an enrichment one morning a week. My son is not allowed an IEP; there are GEP's for the gifted during the 3 years they are in the program. Regular classroom instruction is all that is available to us right now. No modifications. That's too bad. I wonder whether it's worth seeking an evaluation for ASDs, assuming he hasn't had one? Even if he doesn't have a diagnosable ASd, it might help you to find tool shops for him - IRL friends whose I-think-HG+ son has Asperger's say he has benefited hugely from social skills group training, which I didn't know even existed, for example. And, played right, the knowledge that you were seeking an assessment might help the school see that you're taking your side seriously, and help them do the same.
Email: my username, followed by 2, at google's mail
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Joined: Mar 2011
Posts: 28
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Posts: 28 |
ColinsMum, we have had full testing and no LD's or anything else was indicated. I really appreciate your help and feedback!
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Joined: Apr 2010
Posts: 2,498
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Joined: Apr 2010
Posts: 2,498 |
I wonder whether it's worth seeking an evaluation for ASDs, assuming he hasn't had one? Even if he doesn't have a diagnosable ASd, it might help you to find tool shops for him - IRL friends whose I-think-HG+ son has Asperger's say he has benefited hugely from social skills group training, which I didn't know even existed, for example. And, played right, the knowledge that you were seeking an assessment might help the school see that you're taking your side seriously, and help them do the same. I totally agree with all of this. Who diagnosed the "visual-spatial learning style"? I don't really believe in learning styles of this kind-- they have been debunked by scientists-- and I find that often when people say it's an extreme VS learning style it is instead an ASD or other neurological difference. The inability to grasp why he can't just tell the truth, the feeling that it would be an injustice not to do so, is a classic gifted-with-ASD behavior. Cognitive behavior therapy and/or Michelle Garcia Winner's "Social thinking" curriculum would probably be helpful for him in any case. DeeDee
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Joined: Apr 2010
Posts: 2,498
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Joined: Apr 2010
Posts: 2,498 |
I wouldn't support the teacher in coming down hard. The teacher should have had him write his essay in another room, the hallway, or wherever he wouldn't disturb the class-- as a punishment yes. But leaving him there to sing does nothing to solve the problem. The class is still disturbed, the teacher gets more upset hearing it, and your son gets a zero. Everyone loses. And this teacher should know better. I agree with this too. The teacher is making it worse. DeeDee
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Joined: Jul 2012
Posts: 1,478
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Who diagnosed the "visual-spatial learning style"? I don't really believe in learning styles of this kind-- they have been debunked by scientists-- and I find that often when people say it's an extreme VS learning style it is instead an ASD or other neurological difference. Visual-Spatial learning style in regards to the work that Linda Silverman has done whilst working with thousands of gifted and highly gifted over the past thirty some years has not been debunked. What has been found is that no studies of neuro-typical children being given instruction oriented towards visual or auditory "styles" which have been properly designed have shown positive learning effects. I think Dr. Silverman's categorization is fixated on an unfortunate term (Visual-Spatial) that has lumped her work in with the mainstream attempts to sell expensive alternate learning materials into classrooms. What instead she has identified is an underlying brain organization that has been validated through FMRI showing a tendency of gifted kids to cluster towards one of two ends of a spectrum in terms of size and spacing of minicolumns. If you follow the neuroscience research that the Eides have identified, this range tends to have ASD on end and Dyslexia on the other end. On the ASD side is a tendency towards focus, serial reasoning, literal thinking which can be mischaracterized as an "auditory learning style" on the Dyslexia side is a tendency towards abstract, wide range system thinking mischaracterized as the "visual-spatial style."
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Joined: Oct 2011
Posts: 2,856
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We aren't talking about a need to turn off intelligence, though, but about the need to choose language (and content) appropriately to the person you're speaking to. Sure, this is not always easy, but that doesn't mean you get to not do it! This - pragmatic language - is something my DS had trouble with in the past; it was on his IEP and at school they helped him with it explicitly. He's much better at it now, but it does take work. IMHO if you're encouraging a 13yo in a belief that this is an unreasonable expectation and he doesn't have to bother, you're not helping. If the person you're talking to doesn't understand, it's not communication. If you know that, or would know it if you paid attention, and keep talking anyway, that's rude, and people will react negatively.
Besides, it's a skill crucial to many careers. I'm an academic, for example: I wouldn't get far if I talked in the same terms to students at all stages, colleagues from all areas and members of the public! One concrete tip: when you aren't sure what level to pitch something at (I meet someone at a party and they say "what do you do?" - do they want the abstract of my last paper, or the one sentence summary of what my department does?) it's OK to ask - e.g. you say "I'm interested in some questions relating to X; have you come across X?" and depending on the answer you explain either what X is or what the questions are. My career (IT) is one of those in which it is necessary to practice pragmatic language, and I'm one of the ones frequently called upon to translate complicated technical information into a jargon-free format that's easily digestible by the average user. It's something I'm fairly good at. What I'm referring to is separate from this. It's not the habit of talking over others' heads, it's the habit of conversing in modes and usages that are not commonly heard in everyday conversation. For most people, spoken language is much, much simpler than the kind of written language we encounter on a daily basis. It's language we all understand, and we also commonly hear, just not face to face. Well, for me, there's very little difference in how I write and how I speak. So yeah, when I was in junior high, kids would tell me I had a wonderful future as a newscaster, because the language I used sounded like what they usually heard on the evening news. My drama teacher even cast me as one in 8th grade. So that's the choice... speak the way that comes naturally to me, or dumb it down into everyday language. Unless I'm speaking with someone who wouldn't understand for some reason (young, non-native English speaker, mental handicap, etc.), I just don't feel like it's worth the effort. I'd rather just be me. And that's the quandary faced by a lot of gifted kids. Some choose to dumb down their language to fit in better and draw less attention to themselves... the chameleon effect.
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