Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy trouble at school, any ideas?

Dear parents, I would like to ask for your input about how to deal with this situation... DS8 (3rd grade) got in trouble at school today. The regular teacher, who is very nice and understanding (we are so grateful to get this teacher this year, DS's situation has improved tremendously over last year) is sick today, so they got a sub. teacher today. She talked about probability during the math session, then let the kids do worksheets. Now DS is an amazing little mathematician, and he finished the worksheets in a few minutes' time. He was already done when the teacher got to him while doing her rounds in the classroom. She got really mad, and said that there is no way that DS could finish the worksheets in so little time because "no one can be THAT good". She said it must be because DS wasn't listening to her during her instructional time and started working on the worksheets early. DS felt this was incredibly unfair. He came home crying, and for the first time said that he hates school, and he wants to be just like everyone else.

We are in a very good public school district, and kids in DS's school are on average very advanced academically. The district therefore doesn't offer gifted program, with the rationale that too many kids would qualify. There are a couple of private gifted schools around, we checked out both, but decided that neither is obviously better than the public school that DS is currently in to justify the cost. But DS still stands out in his school as being much more advanced than the other kids. He is incredible in every extracurricular activity that he is doing. He was winning science competitions in the school district. And yet the teacher last year was very dismissive of his abilities ("there are many smart kids in my classroom, what's so special about this one kid?"). DS had a terrible time in 2nd grade. This year the teacher is so much better, but then we get the sub. today.

I thought about going to the principal, once and for all figure out what things would be like in the next 3 years. But on the other hand because we don't really have a good alternative and I can't homeschool him, what good does it do for me to find out? I also thought about going to a child psychologist, so that DS can get help coping with school and with misunderstandings. Does this sound a reasonable idea? What would you all suggest?

By the way, DS is a very social and friendly kid, he is very popular among the kids at school and this year's teacher commented that he has great leadership skills. All the trouble seems to be from teachers, not peers.

Thanks in advance.

Worried mom

I think visiting a child psychologist who specializes in the social and emotional needs of the gifted is a great idea. It would be useful to have a relationship established early and lay the groundwork now instead of waiting for a major trauma later. The psychologist can help explain what giftedness means, how these types of misunderstandings will be a part of life for your son, and how he can best deal with them. The cost is the only thing holding me back from making an appointment for my own children, but I will probably bite the bullet soon. In the meantime, I found A Parent's Guide to Gifted Children by James Webb very useful.

Yes, I think some kind of counseling is a good idea; we have a couple in-school who seem really good at helping the kids with all kinds of issues.
We also just checked out of the library 'The gifted kids survival guide' which ds is actually fairly interested in reading. It has lots of quotes from kids on good things about being gt and some not-so-good things. I think it could help a child feel more like everyone else (at least a subset of everyone else!)

I think many gifted kids can be extra sensitive to unfairness on the part of adults. This seems to me to be a situation by an ignorant teacher. If she has never encountered HG kids, then the logical answer is that your DS must have worked on the worksheets early. Have you talked to your son about how some people might not know about kids with his kind of abilities, especially strangers, and sometimes he has to just ignore comments like this? (of course, a psychologist will have better advice, but I think sometimes kids can't understand why an adult would behave unfairly.)

Also, although your school doesn't have a gifted program, have you met with anyone about getting more appropriate materials for your DS? Don't give up just because no official program is available. As I have learned from others here, even if there is a gifted program, most of those are geared toward MG kids, and your HG DS probably still would need more. Here's a link to Davidson's advocacy guidebook, Davidson Advocacy guidebook and there is more help on hoagiesgifted.org on advocacy.

HTH, and good luck

m_o_n: your reply brought me to tears. Indeed, there is nothing wrong with my kid. It's a shame that some grown-ups are so narrow-minded that their tolerance for individual differences is so little. I still can't believe she actually said "no one can be THAT good", this is infuriating.

I started to talk with DS last night about this, but he was so upset that I thought I'd better wait. I very much want to let him know that adults make mistakes, adults don't know everything and every type of kids. And he should remember that he is a great kid. I will let his regular teacher know about this, too.

SPG: I totally agree that this is DS's sensitivity to unfairness brought out by an ignorant teacher. It would be great if he could ignore it. But it's hard for an 8-year-old when grown-ups are still authority figures and adult approval is so important to him.

I have always been afraid of communications with teachers. My previous experience wasn't good. Teachers tended to think that this is just another pushy mom trying to gain some advantage for her kid. DS used to talk to teachers himself about the school work being too easy and he wanted more challenge. But he shut up last year after seeing no result coming from all this and the teacher last year happened to be particularly dismissive. But just in the past week or so I started talking with other parents. I just can't believe that DS is the only kid in his grade who has this type of problems. Even though nothing concrete has come out yet, I've already found a few parents who want to see more challenge for their kids. We've started talking about forming a math club.

This year's teacher is actually doing something different (or at least trying to). She does group kids by abilities, and she also gives DS extra work on top of this. The only problem is that she doesn't have time to supervise DS, so DS does all the extra work himself but no one checks to see if he is doing alright. Still, this is so much better than last year.

Inky and chris1234: thanks so much for supporting the idea of seeing a psychologist. I really hoped that it would not be necessary, counseling is expensive. I also checked with our health insurance and they said that usually this is not covered. I checked out those two books. But I'm a bit concerned about letting DS read them now. At this very moment he doesn't want to be different from other kids, so giving him a book that gives a label to kids like him might make the matter worse. But one of these days I will start the process of making him realize that everyone is different (just in different ways) and he needs to accept who he is and what comes with it.

Re: explaining that your kid is different:
When our DS4 was tested, the psychologist gave us a pyramid picture of 30 smiling faces. Most of the kids were in the middle, then it sloped down with fewer kids, and then finally on each end only one. She said we could explain that this is your class, and that every kid learns differently. Most will learn the same, needing to hear something several times to learn it. Some will be at the one end, needing evern more repetitions to learn something. And some will be like your DS, needing to hear something only once or twice to learn it. I think this showed DS that everyone was unique, not just that he was different. It really helped him understand why the other kids didn't know something he thought was easy.

I cannot remember - has your son done any IQ or achievement testing? This would help show the school how different he is?

Yeah, we had him tested a while back when we were in another state and thinking about sending him to a gifted school. DS turned out to be HG but hit the ceiling in a few items in the test. We asked whether this meant that he needed to be tested with a different test (it was administered by the psychologist at the gifted school) but their reply was that the only purpose of the test was to see whether DS met their criteria for admission so they would give no re-test.

I'm not sure that I have the courage to show the test score to his current school. Probably we need to recover a little from last year's bad experience, and to figure out whether the general attitude of the school is more aligned with the dismissive teacher last year or with the understanding teacher this year.

I am sorry, I have been a sub and i would have never treated a kid that way!

The sub sounds like a jerk and you should go to the teacher.... they have a lot of say who they have sub for them, if the teacher is as good as you say she will not have her sub again.

It is tough for a kid who has had a history of teachers not understanding, who are trying to rebuild trust, to have something like this happen. Unfortunately, subs have a tough job and are almost certainly going to make mistakes. Perhaps, you could just remind him that whenever there is a substitute, there is a chance that he will not be understood and that, even though it is not fair, he should not take it personally. I would emphasize the good relationship he has with his teacher, the one who knows him.

My DS has rarely had any problems with his regular teachers but has been sent to the principal by subs. In 5th grade he had an especially chatty relationship with his regular teacher with whom he kept up a pretty regular banter. She was a great teacher and kept 32 pretty disruptive kids under control and learning most of the time. With the sub, there was already some level of confusion and chaos. When DS disagreed with her on some point she was trying to explain (and, yes, she was wrong) and she asked him to let her finish her explanation and DS didn't let it go but kept arguing(because his regular teacher would have enjoyed the back and forth), he was sent to the principal. The principal understood the situation, chatted with him a bit, let the tempers settle and let him go back to class without any consequences.

What I went over with DS after that incident is that being a sub is a hard job. The subs don't know the kids, have a lot that they are trying to do right but haven't done before, and so are likely to make mistakes. None of us is perfect. He shouldn't take a sub's mistaken understanding of him personally and perhaps in the future he could be a better "host" to the sub, since I know (from first-hand experience) that sometimes his banter can be annoying.