Hi all,

I have a 3rd grader who does not like school. He has always done very, very well -- straight As and not had behavioral issues at school for the most part (mostly dinged for talking). We have pulled him out of the private school b/c they do Direct Instruction and we were seeing the bad ramifications of it show up in his answers despite the fact that he was accelerated a year in his core subjects. So, back in public now, year round school, he's been doing ok but is BORED. I know they are working on an individualized plan for him but it's not out yet--we are 3 weeks into school. He's getting in trouble for talking instead of focussing on his work, he's not turning in classwork at times and today said flat out, "I'm not doing that work, they can't make me." UGH.

I do think he's highly distractible, they are giving him fourth grade work but it's not gifted work (he has to complete 4 sheets of 25-30 computation problems like 34,586 + 556,789 before he's allowed to move on to the challenge work, out of box thinking problems, etc.). I can see my friends' points that he needs to follow along, but we were supposed to have a meeting to get his DEP by now--nothing. I know the work is easy, but it is time consuming, I can see how he'd think more challenging work after that is hardly a reward.

So, outside of the fact that we are working on the curriculum changes, is his lack of responsibility mainly a behavioral issue or stemming from the fact that he might be overwhelmed by the volume and underwhelmed by the content of the work?

Everyone I speak to thinks I'm trying to get him out of the work, I'm not. He does talk too much and doesn't stay on task except when it's something he chooses to do. He needs to learn that not everything is fun all the time. How do I get through to him without causing him to blow up (gets angry/frustrated easily)? I'm really concerned he's going to just stop doing stuff b/c he knows they can't make him, just to be stubborn about it.

Thanks, and oh, he's moderately to highly gifted but very, very gifted in math (99.8 percentile WISC-IV, 99 percentile WJIII).