Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Twice Exceptional Behavior issues and boredom

My DS7 is in second grade after one skip. We had the meeting to get his 504 plan set up last week, so if anyone happens to have specific suggestions for accommodations we should request, I would appreciate it. He has difficulty with fine motor skills (so writing, etc). They suggested we get an evaluation of his processing as we only have the WISC-IV processing information (which was average but well below other scores). That is somewhat vague, though.

The big thing I need to figure out is whether to keep him at school or not because he just is not able to handle it well when he is either bored by work or doesn't think he can do it well. He is one of the top students in the class according to the teacher, but he told me (when I showed him his report card) that he is no good at anything and all the other kids do better. He is allowed to use the computer if he finishes his work early, but increasingly doesn't even want to try even though he can do it well.

He has a difficult time with math because they want him to show the steps and he loves to do it in his head. This has been a huge sticking point (he was sent to the office for being distracting during testing and the principal asked him difficult math problems, which he answered with no problem but then completely refused to work out even though he would explain verbally the non-school-approved tricks he used to solve them in his head).

We have been considering homeschooling but there are several problems. The main one is that he has always had difficulty with social skills and with some executive functioning skills and my hope has been that he could improve those at school. I know it's possible to do rich social activities as a homeschooler, but there are reasons that would be very difficult.

The school also tells me they think he will have a lot of difficulty in third grade because there is so much writing.

So I'd be interested in feedback on whether others would homeschool or if there are other things we could try to help him do better at school (with better behavior and without feeling like he isn't capable).

Have you considered single subject acceleration on top of the skip? Or would the teachers do differentiation in the form of a pull out for just math? I can't imagine mine at that age in a regular classroom for math. It just wouldn't have worked. But the pullout (with the right teacher) worked great.

My experience is that for kids with lagging social skills, school does not help, and may make things worse. At our (former) school, there was relatively little time for socializing during the school day. And if your kid is perceived as different, he may be shunned on the schoolyard (ask me how I know!), and not invited to playdates for after-school socializing. So why bother trying to play with the other kids (and practice social skills) if they're just going to ignore you (at best). With this also comes the "there must be something wrong with me" thoughts, which don't help. (Of course, if your son already has a good group of friends, this may not apply.)

Plus, if there is a strong desire to be with other kids, there are other ways (Scouts, 4H, after school clubs, etc), in addition to getting together with other homeschoolers.

Me, I would homeschool. In fact, we did. DS is much happier, has more friends, and has more confidence in his abilities (academic and social). I would not say we have a heavy social calendar (there are a couple of days each week when we don't see other kids), but since the kids we do see actually like DS and DD, the interactions are more meaningful.

We pulled DS and DD out of school for academic reasons, not social ones. In fact, because of many of the same problems you stated (boredom, not willing to put in effort, feeling incompetent, all resulting in bad behavior). The improved social life is a happy fallout of homeschooling, and in some ways was a surprise.

One of the benefits of homeschooling in terms of social skills is that you have more control over the kind of peer interactions your son has. A child with developing social skills may not have the resilience to manage the "law of the jungle"-type peer interactions that tend to predominate in large, loosely-supervised settings like recess. In a homeschool setting, you can design peer social situations for success, so that he has an opportunity to practice skills he might be working on in therapy or at home, but in sheltered live situations, where he can be reinforced by experiencing meaningful success. You are also often in the vicinity, to coach him with a consistent set of cues.

One of the flags in your DS's case is that adults in the situation, and objective measures, indicate that he is successful academically, and much improved behaviorally, but he is not perceiving this about himself. Whether schooled at home or elsewhere, he needs to be in an environment with generous--but authentic--positive feedback about his successes. At the moment, he is heavily predisposed to interpret environmental feedback as negative, therefore his settings need to be quite intentional about helping him identify his strengths. Because a standard classroom is designed for bringing everyone up to an even level of development, even after the grade skip, he is probably receiving more feedback from the setting about the areas in which he lags or is nearer the median (for which the teacher may occasionally assist him), than in which he excels (for which the teacher does not need to assist him, and thus possibly gives him negligible overt attention). Remember also that any negative feedback from his previous settings likely left a mark that will need to be specifically countered; it won't just disappear because the current circumstances are relatively better. Oh, and some teachers actually praise weaker students more than stronger students (usually unconsciously), because they are trying to encourage them to do better/try harder.

We've been homeschooling ours for a few years now, but did have experiences with institutional schools. The one who finds the social impact of homeschooling to be least positive is actually the most socially skilled one, who, I think, would prefer a larger stage...

I'm sorry for not replying more quickly; we have had a hectic week and I read the responses but didn't have a chance to reply.

It does look like we are going to have to work on homeschooling options. My daughter is also running into more school issues again. I just hope we can figure out good social options.

DS does now have a 504 plan to allow writing assistance for exams if needed. I am hoping we can add something about being able to move on if he demonstrates mastery to reduce boredom.

Thank you again. I really appreciate the help and the ideas to consider.

Good news is that there is a lot of support and information available. Gifted Homeschoolers Forum (GHF) is one of many great resources.

I agree-- the "but, but-- social skills" stigma about homeschooling is probably more mythology than reality, from what I've seen and experienced.

It does provide you with a way to hand-tune what your child NEEDS in order to learn and grow in positive (and not maladaptive) ways, though. With a child that has a wide margin of asynchrony or a particular disabling condition in the mix, that can become the controlling factor in developing social skills.

That said, in those cases, being able to take a non-normative path to learning social skills can be a much, much better thing in the long run. Internalizing that you are less worthwhile than other human beings by virtue of differences from them is not the same thing as "developing good social skills."

Working on weaknesses and growing into adult social skills as appropriate-- and as your child's individual readiness allows-- well, that arc may look very different from typical age-mates at any particular snapshot in time. But the thing is, you're not trying to shape your child to be able to 'get on well with other 4th graders,' are you? You're attempting to eventually, at the end of some arc that ends during middle or late adolescence, to get him/her to be a socially competent and emotionally well-regulated young adult.

That said-- ask yourself how what you're hearing from your child contributes (or undermines) growth toward that larger goal.

We kept ours (2E, similar issues, now 12) in school and then negotiated like crazy to make school fit.

They worked on social skills (not just "socializing" but also class participation, appropriate give and take with peers, working through issues with teachers, etc.). They worked on fine motor and showing work (still a work in progress). He still has executive function goals and supports in his IEP. They multiply accelerated him to the point where it kind of works academically; no formal education will ever be appropriate to the pace at which he learns.

Basically, we demanded an appropriate education and hung in there for the follow-through and inevitable constant tuning.

His social skills are notably better in the multiply-accelerated environments than in the same-age environments. For some kids, it works.

I can also say that given how hard we were working to remediate the social skills issues outside of school, I could not have also dealt with homeschooling. Having some space in the day for me to exist apart from the legion issues we faced with DS was really important to my sane survival.

You've received great advice already - the one thing I'd add is that it is most likely worth looking into why there was a dip in the WISC processing speed scores, think through why the school is saying your ds may be challenged with the increased demands in writing in 3rd grade, think through the EF issues you've seen, talk to your ds about what it is he thinks he isn't doing well at, and look for connections.

Did the school do any kind of OT assessment for fine motor skills? Does he have anything in his 504 plan to help with fine motor, or to provide alternative forms of answering questions etc?

It's just a gut feeling but fwiw, the reluctance to write down math problems could be related to the fine motor issues, which could be what's causing the dip in processing speed scores on the WISC, all of which might be tied into why your ds feels he's not good at things, all of which might be pointing to something you need to understand better and address no matter which school he's in (current school or homeschool).

Did the school offer further evals when they "suggested we get an evaluation of his processing", or were they suggesting you approach that further evaluation privately? If they recommended something could you let us know what they recommended?

Best wishes,

polarbear

I need to be clear that I know homeschoolers can have wonderful social opportunities and that school isn't necessary for socialization. It's just that our particular situation makes socialization very difficult.

DS is in OT because he has difficulty with fine motor skills. We do it privately because the school won't test him (I know this is inaccurate, but they say he can't qualify for an IEP because he does so well academically). They have offered to have someone write his answers for him on tests. They didn't give any specific suggestions for further evaluations; we would have to do that on our own.

This is just my point of veiw.

Most kids pick up social skills by themselves. If your child hasn't then leaving him in school to help him develop them is not going to help. He needs more and different help the same as s struggling reader needs more and different instruction.

I spent 10 years at school and my social skills weren't improved by being just expected to learn by osmosis.

Puffin, my hope is that the school would specifically work with him. They have said repeatedly that the counselor would work with him, but we can't get it as a specific goal because they say he isn't eligible for an IEP (again, I know this isn't necessarily true). He also has friends at school.

Unfortunately, due to our specific circumstances, it is very difficult to set up social interactions if we homeschool (I know this isn't true for many homeschoolers).

However, I don't think the school has actually been doing very much and we may just have to be creative in finding ways to do more at home.

Peers may not be the best people to have as tutors for social skills, in the first place.

Honestly, that has always mystified me a bit-- the notion that kids learn those skills "best" at the tender mercies of their age-mates and peers.

Logically, that makes no sense at all to me. While I agree that children with social skills deficits may find adults preferable to their peers, since adults are adaptive in ways that children are not-- just like puffin's reading analogy, isn't that actually a good thing with respect to children who struggle to learn those things?

Adults can be capable of scaffolding the development of those skills, and not just punitive re: the lack thereof.

apm, if the school hasn't been following through on their promises thus far, my guess is that they won't. Not unless you do have an IEP that says that they have to introduce particular interventions and measure outcomes.

At least if you are in charge, you'll have the ability to intervene during those hours of the day that are currently "lost" to this area of skills development, right?

I'm not so sure that parents can't be the ones teaching such skills. After all, most of his social interactions will be with you anyway. I guess a lot depends upon personality, but shifting your own parenting style to one which gently pushes rather than compensates perfectly-- at least in theory, that should be better than the current situation, yes?

Totally agree. What I'm talking about is that IME an appropriate education for kids with social-skills delays involves direct instruction, from adults, that builds these skills in the settings where the skills are needed.

So much of adult life is learning to sit in meetings and contribute productively to teams and so forth. One needs to know how to engage with peers at least some of the time. This is a teachable skill-- not teachable by the peers, (trial and error, ugh)-- but teachable by adults in the school setting.


Yep. IEP would be useful and necessary for getting the actual instruction implemented. We also needed an advocate to get this into place-- school dragged its feet. We are still, overall, happy that we kept DS12 in school.

In a properly-run social skills intervention, there should be a skilled coach/instructor(s) (i.e., adult), skilled peers (models), and reinforcing natural environments (adults, peers, and systems). Ideally, one wants a combination of direct in vitro instruction and facilitated in vivo practice, transitioning to independent in vivo practice, reinforced by natural environments.

This is why growing up with skilled and involved adult caregivers (e.g., parents, grandparents, aunts/uncles, close-knit neighbors) and mixed-age peers (e.g., siblings, cousins, neighbors) is so effective.

I would contend that parents ought to be the ones teaching social skills, and that the history of humanity suggests that parents have been net more effective than third-party professionals.

We do, however, have to be reflective about our own social and familial experiences, observant about our children's individual profiles, and intentional about the values, habits, and attitudes inculcated into them.

I firmly believe that corporate culture is driven top down. And if the executive management doesn't have a clear vision of their corporate culture then they get whatever mob-rule culture that just happens.

Or to translate, school culture (both social and academic) is driven by the principal down through the teachers and staff. If they don't put cultural norms and goals into place, they get Lord of the Flies on the playground and Banana Republics in the classroom.

It's always worthwhile examining what the school's goals for social culture are -- if any -- because that's what your kid will experience. DDs first school's goal for socialization was "don't be different, suppress who you are to get along."

If the school's goal is different from your goal for your child, then you aren't going to be able to change that experience. Just like if the CEO thinks that 'dog eat dog' is the best way to run a company, that's what you'll experience working there. No amount of deciding you'll run things differently (differentiation), complaining (advocacy), and yoga and therapy on the side (afterschooling) is going to change that.

Of course they should. And do. And yet, I would contend that there are some particular skills that it is hard to teach within the home, by parents alone. Negotiating in a team of peers, for instance (if one does not happen to have half a dozen siblings). Getting attention in appropriate ways when one is in a large meeting.

For some kids, it really does take a village.

I am not against homeschooling in principle, but it would not have worked for our family, and the OP said s/he doesn't feel s/he can homeschool successfully-- I think that it's important to affirm that this is OK and that there exist more than one solution to the challenges OP faces.

And, of course, I agree with you. After all, that's why I've run school-based social skills groups in the past...

But you make a good point: it is important not to become overly-focused on any one solution as the only way to go. Every child and family situation is different.

Agreed with that last statement, where "some" equals "all."

My DD is currently learning the skill of dealing with difficult people. It's an important one to learn, and you can't learn it without being stuck in a situation where you have to. If she never learns it, then she'll be another difficult person.

That's not quite true.

You can actively undertake a rebellion against the school leader using COINTELPRO techniques.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COINTELPRO

Absolutely-- it's just that some kids are ready older than others. You do have to hit the proximal zone with this one, or a child doesn't really learn much from the experience.