Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy "They said I was 'Weird'!

master of none -
You are so right. Hopefully by dealing with it early you may have prevented the confidence and self esteem problems our boy has now. If only we'd acted sooner

Hi,
This sounds very similar to our experience. My DS7 has been called a science geek and has been picked on for being different (advanced) by kids at school. The guidance couselor blames it on my son. He should try to be more like the other kids. The GC was concerned bc he plays alone by choice at recess. He does not like the rough games the other boys play. Out of sheer frustration with the GC I told my son to just play with someone during recess. So that day my son gets off the bus and states he played "kill the cops" with another boy. He felt awful and I freaked out! I will never ever ask my son to just conform again.
After numerous issues and communication and meetings with our public school we decided to enroll our son in a Friends school next year. We can't afford it but we have to make the sacrifice. I'm going to work a second job if I must. My son's self-esteem has been damaged by the ps and I refuse to accept the mentality that he should just accept being bored. And I hate the herd mentality. The Friends School approach celebrates individuality. I'm very hopeful that my son will fit in there. If he doesn't then we'll try homeschooling.
Outside of school my son has many friends and he gets along well with them all. I am very selective - meaning I won't let him play with just anyone. I don't want him playing with mean, disrespectful children. That said he has only one same age friend that is gifted. What a joy when the boys can get together. My son is not frustrated bc this friend understands everything he says. This friend actually responds when my son starts talking about science. My son's other friends (all super kids) just stare at him with a blank look. I try to keep my son focused on play when he's with his other friends and for the most part he's fine with that. He does miss his gifted friend though. This friend does not live nearby so we only see him once a month. I have to say when these two boys are together it's like watching the Science channel. :-) My son doesn't seem so "weird" when he's with his gifted friend.

Good luck with your Friends school. Our local friends school is just lovely and it is about the only private school in the area we would consider (we are now homeschooling after 2 years of PS). Let us know how you like it!

Kimck - We don't have many good private choices in our area either. I do know that on average 38% of students (5th graders?) at this Friends school score high enough on the ERB to be considered for the John Hopkins gifted summer program. And my neighbor's kids both gifted (one profoundly) did very well there. She also had problems with ps and the kids there calling her son weird.
On our children being called weird - don't ya just wanna say - "don't worry son someday he'll work for you". OR "she'll wish she could find someone like you to marry her". Ah, but we must restrain ourselves. ;-)

Oh mizzoumommy, we had something very similar happen to our DS who was 4 at the time. He was in a Montessori preschool and was already reading and doing math at an advanced level. He kept begging his Montessori teacher to give him lessons on the bead chains and other higher math skill lessons. She kept telling him that he couldn't do that stuff until he turned 5 (when I asked her why privately she said she was afraid of running out of curriculum for him for next year when he would be there for Kindergarten because he went through lessons so fast). He had never ever been told he couldn't learn something especially because he "wasn't old enough" so for almost 6 months all we heard from him was that he wished he was 5 year old smart so he could finally get some interesting lessons. This whole thing seemed to take away his innocence and he began to immediately see ages on everything - board games he liked, levels on books and he grew concerned that he wasn't supposed to be doing any of that stuff because he wasn't the right age. It was a real bummer and it was really stressing him out that he was so different. When he finally did turn 5, right on his birthday, he stormed up to his teacher and said that he was now 5 so could she please give him the lessons he asked about...he was crushed by the end of the day because she didn't give him a single lesson. Needless to say, he no longer goes to school there...but it took us a good several months of homeschooling to get him to understand that it is okay to be doing things higher than his other friends.

Wow - had a similar issue with our Montessori pre-school. DS7 was 3 & doing easy reading. His teacher would not let him read the books the older kids in class, who were in kindergarten, were reading. This turned into a daily power struggle between them wlth my son misbehaving every time she tried to force a phonics workbook on him. She insisted he must follow the curriculum, regardless of proficiency, or there would be nothing left for him to do. How very Montessori is that? In hindsight I should have pulled him out of there right away. My son also gave up on reading until he started kindergarten.

If only more children like those who tease your kids grew out of it. One of the reasons Bush managed to get elected twice was that Gore and Kerry came across as "eggheads".