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

What to do ? I have an 8 years old , who's very smart and very bright , suspected to be gifted back in 1st grade , and now in 2nd grade the school wants us to nominate him in gifted testing . He's been a straight A's student , very responsible with his school work and home work . He does chores on his own ( helping us doing laundry , loading , unloading dishwasher ) . Never had to tell him do your homework , when he has homework , he gets to it right away ( even in the car line waiting for me ) , reads tons of books , fiction , non fictions , science books . Back in kindergarten his reading level was in 3rd , back in 1st his reading is in 5th . Been changing school for 3 times due to relocating .

The school has the same complain about our son , during kindergarten and 1st grade was told , he can't sit still , talks too much , distracting his friends ( by sharing knowledge about the related subject but he was supposed to be quiet , since he's talking out of his turn )

Now , the past couple months in this school has been a nightmare . He sees himself different and that he finds the needs to impress his friends by throwing silly stupid jokes . Sometimes it's not even funny because he's being sarcastic and his friend didn't get it . For example , he was in the bathroom , his friend asked him what he was doing .. he said " i am shopping .. duh " His friend gave him a blank look .. and our son replied " i was just being sarcastic "
Even more blank look from his friend .

He loves jokes , he loves talking , but all of these things get him in trouble at school . So much so that he was excluded in the school rodeo day program . He is at the point where he doesn't care because of the constant clip moving from his teacher . Although the teacher told me she has no problem with him completing assignments , most of the time he'll be the first to finish , and when he's finished he's bored .. nothing to do . He is the type of kid who always needs to be given something to keep him busy and out of trouble . When he's done he's allowed to read or write , but even his writing is so creative that he gets in trouble because of this too !! Or he would ends up assembling something and creating something from his pens , pencils , erasers , pencil box .. etc . As a result too .. it distracts other students because they wanted to see what he was doing .

Lately he argues so much with his teacher , esp. when he thinks it's not his fault , or being accused for something he didn't do . He always argues , very opinionated . Sometimes i am afraid whatever that comes out from his mouth would get him in big trouble .

The school wants us to nominate him for a gifted test . But at the same time , with the treatment they gave him at school ( basically clip changed every single day for the past 3 months ) , and he's seeing himself as a trouble maker ( yet he's confident that he's awesome and very smart , i got this exact words from his own writing in his journal ) , i really don't think it's a good thing . Principal told me that from what she sees , he's very lagging in his social skills , but she also saw him having a deep conversation with a 4th grader when they both were in the office . But when our son back to the class with is peers , he wanted to be the class clown .

Is this quite normal ?? It gets to the point where it doesn't really bother him anymore that he gets detentions , he gets referrals , he losses recess time .. just because he wanted to impress his friends .

A little background for his academic stuff .. he's a straight A's student , he found out the concept of multiplication on his own when he's just started 1st grade . Right now , he knows how to multiply 3 digits number and he knows division . He adds and subtracts 3-4 digits numbers . He's very creative , he loves building stuff . He is an out of the box thinker , when he was 6 , thanksgiving assignment , what are you thankful for ? He drew and wrote he's thankful for planet earth because without the earth , we human won't survive .
He loves reading books , science , fictions , non fictions , he loves reading his bible . Probably his knowledge about bible story is better than mine by now . He asked me this question not too long ago

" so i have a question after reading my bible last night .. why did God create people who's bad such as the philistines , or pharaoh . God created them knowing that they will turn out to be bad people since He knows everything . So why did he create them ? "

This kind of questions are often came out of nowhere . And then he has problem stopping it .. for example , when we're talking about how strong we can be while watching american ninja warriors . And we saw a woman doing it .. we said she's strong .. and then he rattled about Samson , one of the strong person in the bible . He would talk about something related to the subject but sometimes he doesn't know if it's his turn yet or when to stop it .

I even took him to a pyschologist to have him evaluated . No mood disorders , no ADHD , the specialist said , she finds him very mature almost like 11 years old just from the conversation they had . And that she thinks he would benefit from IQ test and gifted program . As far as the behavior , arguing with teachers ( not beind respectful ) she suggested us to a behavior therapist .

Now the school wants to have their own behavior therapist to monitor him , the therapist that they're using , usually works with autistic children .

I am just at loss at the behavior problem right now . To the point where he came home yesterday with report card , all A's but we ended up talking about the incident at school .The incident that made the principal called me was that he was reading Mad Scientist book from the library and there was one page where a dog had a swimsuit on , bikini , and he would call this bras and panties and he had a good laugh about it and showed it to his friends when he's not supposed to . The principal just said our son was looking at inappropriate picture and said inappropriate things such as bras and panties . I was horrified .. because i thought where did he get all this stuff from ? Well turned out it was from library kids book !!

How do we handle this ?? It seems so exhausted a lot of times with all the things school come up with , but yet he's very smart . But right now he gets tired of the school too and doesn't care anymore . What to do ?

I don't know how to fairly judge the behavior of a kid who is underchallenged and likely bored and looking for any outlet. So, until they are adequately challenged, I think it is kinda meaningless. If they are never challenged, then I'd anticipated even more of the same.

This article talks a bit along these lines:
http://www.cedu.niu.edu/lepf/founda...ed.Students.Why.Do.Smart.Kids.Do.Suc.pdf

I could have written this post about our DS, also 8 and in Gr. 2.

Friday will be his last day at school. It's just getting worse as the days go by. I miss my lovely, caring, happy, and mature little boy.

The school has done nothing for us, even with a psych report that gives him a GAI of 151.

Not sure what we are going to do yet, but it will not be school, or not this one.
(Best school in our province, for kids above the 80th percentile.)

You might want to look into group therapy for him to help with his social skills. My DS9 (PDD-NOS) has been going to one for several months now and I made a huge difference in his school behavior. The other kids in the group are kids his own age, who also have some difficulty making/keeping friends of their own age. I think 2 are just super ADHD, and I don't know much about the other 2. They've been making great progress though. The LPC who oversees it does cognitive behavior therapy.

I feel exactly the same !!! He's not as happy as he used to be anymore . Mostly because they've labelled him as a trouble maker . He even wrote a story about himself called him " TroubleCo"

Me and my husband were thinking about pulling him out from the school too , since it's gotten worse and worse and nothing good coming out from it . And it's not like he's learning anything new from there either . This was supposed to be one of the best school in our area , exemplary school .

It frustrates all of us , not only our son but us as parents too . He even said he is very book smart , but not street smart , this is his own words .

I am thinking to get his IQ tested even though the school wants to do their own testing . Do u think it'll be helpful at all ?

Its not like he's struggling making friends . He makes friends very easy , but what becomes problem is that , he doesn't think his friends understand him , so it gets tiring for him . And it's like he always has to explain things to his friends ( his age ) , so he thinks by throwing jokes , silly stupid jokes , making them laugh would fit him better among his classmates . Since talking about things that he likes doesn't interest his friends , nor his friends care or understand what he's talking about .

Does that make sense at all ?

OMG .. i just saw the title of the article and this was my question all the time to him !!!! He's so smart but yet why does he do stupid things ??

And about teacher , for example , i brought the books that my son worked over last summer , it was math 3rd grade book . I showed this to her and his work , and yet he came home telling me oh he's just learning the same thing he already knew for example counting money , ( he knew this already from early 1st grade ) , or he said oh just addition , oh just subtraction . I mean the kid already knows this all . He is so underchallenged . And as a result he keeps himself busy doing stupid things !! Or distracting friends .. he's not effected by it but it does effect other students who still has a lot to learn .

And if he doesn't learn anything new from school , makes me wonder what does he go to school for ?

It sounds like your poor son is desperately unhappy and under-challenged and I don't see how his behavior is going to change until his environment is changed. Imagine being forced to follow lock-step with other students 2-3 grades younger. It's got to be extremely challenging when his abilities are so much higher than his age peers.

Our school does two achievement tests for entry to GT, but we had private testing done as well after he got into the GT program because the HGT classrooms weren't enough on their own. Turns out it was the private IQ and Achievement testing that the school was most interested in because it was just so high.

Some ideas for right now:
1- Is this the end of a grading period? Since he got all A's, I wonder if you can be bold and ask the principal if he can try out 3rd grade for him right away, with an eye toward a grade skip next year. Ask the school to do a full evaluation for gifted and get the ball rolling on it right away. Ask for an Iowa Acceleration Scale evaluation in addition, so you'll know whether a grade skip is appropriate. Look around the Davidson database for supporting research about behavior and grade skips because I think you'll find some.

2- get some rigor into the classroom right away. Extra worksheets aren't enough. Can he start an online class right now? My son does AoPs at school and it's basically the only class in which he learns anything this year. For math, your son could do ALEX, IXL, CTY or many others. Maybe there's an online social studies or life sciences class he could do as well. This would be in place of what the rest of the kids are doing (that's how my son does his math-- the other kids get the regular curriculum; he goes online.)

2- get your son involved in something HARD outside the classroom, whether it's a musical instrument, tennis, gymnastics, golf, chess team, etc. Before we were able to make classroom changes for my son, he would often say, "thank goodness for gymnastics. It's the only place where I learn something new every time."

3- Find activities where he can interact with older kids who will get his jokes, and who will be interested in the same things. Is there a responsible middle school or HS kid who can work on a Lego Mindstorm with him? (You might have to pay them for this.) Or someone who can teach him some computer programming? My son is good buddies with older kids on his gymnastics team, and they've been valuable role models and friends outside of school.

It sounds like you have a really good understanding of your son. How about involving him in finding some solutions? When we had a frank talk with my son about his schooling, he was very receptive to hearing alternatives and helping making choices that he thought would work for him, and I'll bet your son would appreciate that as well.

Does your child have friends outside of school? Do you have play-dates with different kids, older, younger, same age? That helps a lot with such issues. What works at times, at home is to have quiet time when nothing is offered, no TV\no games\no reading\writing\play, absolutely nothing. Its just the time to sit quiet and be in their own space. We have seen that that has helped my DS to have more control on himself, also teaching him how to handle the situation when nothing much is going on. He also has a tendency to be himself and asks deep questions at times. The distiction, we are trying to teach is when is the right time and when its not for expressing\questioning. Ours is still a work in progress though. But the older he is getting, the more he is able to understand us.

Thank you for some great suggestions .

1. We still have 2 more months of school. They send home about 6 times a year for report card . The principal and the teacher mentioned it during our meeting that our son would be a good candidate for gifted testing . And she sent us some information about it just yesterday , with a note from her that he will be a good candidate for it . I don't really know as much as the process , but they wanted us to fill out the form for it . Then there are papers about math , science , language arts and social studies , each of them has about 10 questions related to the subject etc . I figured this is how they score him , and it's not IQ test .. ? have no idea ..

2. I will try to ask the teacher about this .

3. He's doing korean martial arts outside the school , and he's loving it . And also he just started taking Violin lesson this month , this was all his own idea . He used to take piano lesson , it was MY idea , and he said he didn't really enjoy it . But the violin , so far he said much much better than the piano . At home too , i've tried to supply him with some challenge math , reading , i am not taking whole hour to do that , but just 15 minutes here and there , just to keep him challenged . Should i stop this ? Because obviously he's learning more and more at home ( not from school ) .

4. My husband was thinking the other day about computer programming , he himself self taught computer programming at the age of 10 , he had his first computer at 8 . So he's big into computer , and he mentioned that it might be a good idea teaching our son computer programming . As far as friends , the only older kids he knew was from the martial arts . They seem to get along okay . But the lego mindstorm and older kids idea from you was good ! I might try that

We keep our communication open all the time , it's just sometimes hard for us and very frustrating because a smart kid like him getting into a lot of trouble because of stupid things , just doesn't make sense . We yelled a lot at him and it's been causing all of us a lot of stress . We talked about it , and we tried to change , and he tries to , but i guess that behavior part at school is so hard to change .. because there is always something happens that will get him in trouble .