My hunch is that if he looks focused to the teachers at 7, when there suspicion is the highest, that you won't have that issue, but of course, it may be crop up.
I know that girls can be different in this regard but our DD is described as very well behaved and focused at school - what that means is that she is pouring every bit of energy and mental focus into behaving appropriately and is unable to process the actual education at all... It's intensely frustrating to be part of but in general she is thinking harder and learning more the more she is moving. Which is to say the harder she needs to think about something the more she needs to move her body while she processes it.
Edited to add: We had to work very hard to stop telling her to sit still while trying to learn to read and instead remind ourselves that she was not being difficult or disrespectful.
This sounds familiar
My son can focus well, if not better, when he is in motion.
So far, he seems to be absorbing what he needs to at school, but I will definitely keep an eye out for the possibility that he is using all of his energy to stay still. That makes complete sense, and I hadn't thought about that as a possibility.
We have our fingers crossed for admission next year into the public school's self-contained gifted program. Our older daughter is in the program and had a child in her class who rarely sat down the entire year and the teacher was great about it. She completely understood how this kid was wired and was surprisingly accomodating. We also have our eye on a couple local non-traditional private schools that seem to be more of the "you don't have to sit at a desk" all day variety in case we find them to be a better fit in the near future.
Thanks for the advice.
Some days I have those "how is this not adhd?" moments, but in actuality it's just that his body is just moving as quickly as his mind is. It's nice to know we're not alone.
