Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy Son doesn't want anything different

What to do when you're advocating for your child, trying to figure out how he can spend less time on things he knows and more time delving deeper into things he loves - and he doesn't want you to?

He's 11 and in grade 6. The area we live in has a one morning a week pullout program. I've met with the school coordinator who knew very little about the options of telescoping, compacting etc. (even though it's on the school districts website re options for gifted children) but who thought it would be a good idea to pursue those options AND was optimistic that the teacher would be open to it.

Met the teacher last night (open house) and she talked around it as though she wasn't in fact open to it at all and was just recently aware that two kids in the class were in the program.

Anyway, back to my question. My son doesn't want anything special. Do I know better or should I leave him be?

Opinions?

Isn't 6th grade middle school and doesn't he have many different teachers? My 6th graders each have eight teachers for their eight classes. Anyhow, I am not sure that telescoping and compacting would work as well in middle school. Also the focus shifts even further from input to output and independent research/work (at least our experience) so there should be more room to delve deeper.

The problem is not whether you know better but whether you can force your son to go along with "anything special". I just don't think that you can.

6th grade is elementary in our district. 7th is middle school.

Given the choice, wouldn't everyone do the bare minimum required so they didn't have to think hard, or struggle or feel any discomfort? I'm sure many other parents remember the first time they had to spend more than one evening studying for a test, or actually did homework, in college or grad school or whenever. It wasn't fun! For me it was so not fun I just never did it.

In an ideal world our kids would have the same expectations that other kids have, they'd be asked to stretch themselves, and supported in doing it, to strive and succeed, and strive and fail. To learn how to work at something. But they're usually not. Resilience and persistence are hugely important in life, and they're what our kids are not getting. That's why smart kids drop out of college and out of life. You have the chance to ask this of your son a few years early. Of course he doesn't want to do it, but he needs to do it.

To make it clear, I'm not talking about pressure cooker stuff, hours of homework and quizzes every week and push push push. I'm talking about appropriate challenge, of him saying "this is stupid, it doesn't make any sense, I can't do it!" and having an adult sit with him and work him through it and come out the other side saying "wow, I thought I couldn't do that, and it didn't feel good at all, but I stuck with it, and now I can do it!". Most kids get that in a normal school right from the get go. Our kids don't.

So, yeah, my opinion is that whether the child wants to be challenged is the least important question. I'm all about the 'soft' skills. And I believe the research supports this POV.

My son has always been happy to just do the regular class work, and if he never had anything difficult, he's be quite happy. All through elementary school, other than being accelerated a grade for math, he was quite happy. If we had asked him if he wanted to be accelerated for math, he would probably have said no - he is just not one of those kids that is thirsty for knowledge and needs more all of the time.
Having said that, at 11 he is in 6th grade in Middle School - he is now in a full time gifted program and in 8th grade accelerated math. Would he have chosen this for himself if asked ? Probably not. Is he thriving ? Absolutely. So - my answer - yes, you know better.

Yes. Everything NCPMom says.

Skipping a grade and compacted 8th/High school math has given our ds12 (soon to be 13) something to work on. Not just coast on through. We feel he needed that challenge and the reward of meeting it.

My DS15 has never been one to really challenge himself. He's not a look-at-me kid and thinks grades are stupid. In the lower grades he was against memorizing his math facts because he found the speed and repetition tedious. In middle school math he easily understood all the concepts but would often get the final answer wrong because of a careless errors. I was always told he was appropriately challenged because he was not getting straight A's even though he was assessed as PG.

Also, he only speaks up in class to answer something difficult or offer an alternate point of view. He told me he doesn't like to answer anything remotely easy to him because he likes to leave that for the other kids. He never goes in for "facetime" with the teachers even though his private school puts great emphasis on personal interaction with the teachers. He knows that teachers will give exam related info during these visits that is not given out during class time to encourage this interaction but he refuses to participate because he doesn't need help with anything.

As a 10th grader he is taking AP stats, honors pre-calc, honors latin, honors bio, and honors physics and getting straight A's. BUT, he is bored out of his mind because the material is super easy for him and the achievement stars from elementary and middle school are struggling with the "difficult" work load.

His teacher for honors geo & trig from 9th grade said he was one of the most capable math students he ever had.

His school requires students to take AP Calc AB before BC. I fear this will be another source of boredom because of the significant overlap. Ugh!

Looking back, his lack of desire for more challenging work and recognition caused his lower and middle school teachers to view him as only a good student who was appropriately challenged. He wants more challenging work now but is stuck because he needs calc as prerequisite for courses he is interested in.

We couldn't force any enrichment on him when he was younger. Now, I think he regrets refusing most of our suggestions.

We just had a conversation with DD11 along similar lines. She was effectively complaining that one of her classes was too hard (in her typical, subtle "I'm smart enough to talk you into anything" style). Our response was basically, "Sorry, you haven't been putting in the work and therefore we can't side with you on this." After all, the class may be too hard for her right now, but how will we know unless she works at it?

I also pointed out that she can be or do anything, but that she can't just quit when it gets hard, because it always gets hard at some point.

In truth, we're happy that it's hard because it's taken years and a lot of effort to get her to a place where she has the opportunity to try something hard.

Is it possible that the reason your ds doesn't want to do anything "extra" or "more" is because he just wants to blend in with his classmates, rather than a lack of motivation to try something challenging?

If it is an issue of not wanting to look or "be" different, I think that the approach you take is a bit different than if his unwillingness is simply lack of motivation.

It's also been my experience that open house usually isn't the most effective time/place to approach issues like this with teachers - you didn't have success at the open house, but I would pursue talking to the teacher again - I'd call or email her and ask to meet either before or after school one day next week to discuss.

Best wishes,

polarbear

All fantastic advice! I believe he would thrive if able to take on more challenging work. Thank you for taking the time to explain each of your situations.

Yes, I think a big part of it is not wanting to stand out. I am now challenged with working with his teacher to find out ways he can work differently (not more). Perhaps an independent science project or a different novel or more creative writing assignments. He is strong in math, art and writing. I need to meet with her around some anxiety issues (probably best to write about those in another post...).

Thanks again!