Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy 8 yo , doesn't care about behavior at school

If it is a public school, I doubt that they have medical professionals on staff. Yes, they do have school psychologists and school nurses, but they cannot make a medical diagnosis.

Yes, stonewalling is definitely done. But I also think parents do have other choices -- afterschool at home (if the kid wants it), or do enrichment activities outside of school etc. Schools generally prefer bright children, who comply with doing worksheets, as opposed to truly gifted children, who think out of the box and who have (for example) mastered multiplication in K. A lot of times, schools have no clue as to what to do with kids who are outliers. If the kid is an outlier and has behavioral issues (disrupting the class etc), one expects stonewalling. What stood out, to me, was that the school/teacher recommended gifted testing. The person can choose to do it privately (provided the school accepts outside results, so best to check), so there is no question of any bias. I would start with that.

For statements like "this kid has the social skills of a 5 year old", or "reacting to jokes made in a totally innocent manner", I would just say something like "We'll work on it" and move along. The school will always test enough to see if the parent blinks first and says "OK, we will get him tested" etc, but I think if you stand your ground, and continue advocating (ABQMom said in some other thread that she has fought for services as though her son has a label even though he does not have a label), it may work. For us, personally, proving with work samples, again & again, that my child knows the material, proving that the teacher had a bias by looking carefully at worksheets that came back from school etc, helped the school look at it a little differently. Do they now think that my child no longer has ADHD ? No, of course not. But they are also extremely careful -- because they know I will ask for a lot of detail in a very polite manner. So, in a way, wear them down as well, so they provide whatever support is needed to make the child succeed.

Thank you for all the suggestions . Really appreciate it .

We did not sign the letter they sent yesterday . We thought we should ask everyone's opinion here first ( since i really don't have anybody to ask about this , don't think we have any friends who's going through the same thing like we do , so any help from you guys are highly appreciated )

But anyway we didn't sign it . We already had a paper from the psychiatrist that we took our DS to last week . She explained it in the paper itself that DS does not meet the criteria of ADHD or any mood disorder , she's just recommending DS to get IQ tested and also as far as being disrespectful , she's suggesting for a behavior therapist .

Now since the principal saw that behavior therapist word in the letter that thet psychiatrist sent , she called me and she asked if i would give her permission to have our DS evaluated by their FBA .

Like everyone here said nothing is going to change because he's still staying in the same class . Given the same thing like everyone else in the class does . Yesterday's theme of math was learning to tell time , he knew that already back from kindergarten . I showed the teacher in front of the principal too , works he's been doing , works he did last summer from multiplication , 3 digits multiplication that he learned just last week only with 2 explanations how to do it , even showed her that he's working on division , starting with fraction .. but nothing has been done .

I don't want him to be medicated , the pyschiatrist even said that she doesn't see any of those behavior .

If we ended up choosing for a home school , wouldn't that hurt his social skills even more ? Though he wouldn't be too happy with the idea , he said this himself few weeks ago " Mom , i think it's better if you homeschool me , because i can go on my own pace , i can learn more stuff , and i don't have to get in trouble all the time from school and from you too when i get home "

He used to get consequences when he gets in trouble at school , but now , me and DH are tired of giving him punishments and seeing him very unhappy , it breaks our heart seeing him like that . He was a very happy baby , happy kid .. until all of this started . Sometimes it makes me wonder .. it would have been so much easier if he's just an average kid , but then again it's not going to be him . Does any of you feel this way sometimes when things get tough ??

Thank you for listening to me venting .

I think pretty much anyone here can identify with that sentiment.

There is definitely a very dark side to having a kid with this set of extraordinary (outside the box) needs. You're not crazy, and you're not alone.


ETA: in addition to MoN's excellent advice below, consider what I noted earlier about local library, parks department, or continuing education/arts classes. You can readily find other homeschooling families by choosing activities which are scheduled DURING school hours. Social extraverts need a different kind of handling in homeschooling than introverts like my DD and I do. But it is definitely possible.

This can go round and round, they decline to accelerate as they think your son is immature and because he doesn't get acceleration, he is more likely to misbehave. I think you need to give them a message to give your son challenging work at school and then continue like that for at least 3-4 months and if his behavior does not improve then only you will think of behavior consultation. In the meantime you can also work with son at home to make him undestand the expectations from school.

I feel for your child.

If I were you, I'd present the principal with a permission slip to perform a School Behavior Assessment, wherein you bring in professionals to analyze exactly why your child is being punished for being bored, which is the school's fault, not your DS's.

:LIKE:

Well, I have a totally different relationship with the school than you do, but I did sign the paper to let them do an FBA. Then we argued about everything that was in it, and the school has (sort of) backed down. That is, we've never been presented with anything but a draft, and a promise to get a final version to us. They have implemented a behavior plan despite the lack of a completed FBA - that is also marked "draft" in everything they've showed us. But they're not doing any harm to DD9, so we've been letting it go for now.

The FBA in our school is completed by the school counselor, not by an outside evaluator. Is there a reference to someone else on yours? It's based on observations made in several environments at school (with teacher, specialist classes, recess, lunch, etc.). There isn't necessarily any interaction with your kid at all, just observation.

Actually my neighbour 2 houses down the street is homeschooling all her 3 children . And i got a little informations about it from her , and i guess from what i learned , there are few families in this neighbourhood that are homeschooling their children . Few weeks back , since this is a new area , we had a meet and greet with neighbours and there were sign up sheet about clubs they're having such as cooking , running , guitar , bingo , and there was homeschool club . I signed in my name there , but haven't heard anything yet , hopefully soon , they'll be contacting me or something , maybe i can learn more about it too .

Anyway back to the FBA thing , it's not going to be done by the school counselor . The school counselor herself only got to talk with DS 2 times , and i met her once , and that was my initiation to meet with her , it was my idea , and she was very nice and said she'd help . But i guess not much , since DS only got to talk with her 2 times , both time because he was in trouble from something . He was being removed from the class for being disruptive .

The FBA will be an outside person from what i learned , and the principal said , the person usually works with autistic children .

Maybe you can insist that the school perform a WISC-VI as part of their investigation as to why your DS has these issues. It only makes sense that they explore it from your standpoint too.

My DS8 will have his last day at school tomorrow. I'm done trying to make it work.

Please tell me , i am being ridiculous and crazy to think this is stupid .

DS got in trouble because he was walking backwards , and he had to do running laps because of that .

Really ? Seriously ?? Does all the school consider this as a breaking the law behavior ??