Should I force my homeschooled 2E child to participate in activities with age mates at church or homeschool groups even though he tells me that he has nothing in common with them and doesn't enjoy it? He says even though he is an actor (musical theater) and can pretend to be interested when all they want to talk about is sports, he says this is very tiring and he doesn't feel that he gets anything out of being around these kids. He says they expect him to listen to them talk about sports yet they are not willing to listen to him talk about things he is interested in and they think he is a geek because he is not like them. He brought up the fact that I had difficulty fitting in with the other homeschool moms because I had nothing in common with them and then he asked me to imagine how he felt when he was forced to be with these kids who were nothing like him. He wanted to know what I expected him to get out of the experience. I told him I would ask for opinions on this message board. What do you think?
He does have five really good friends, and five more that consider him a friend, but only one gifted friend his age and he doesn't feel like he has as much in common with this boy as he does with this boy's gifted older brother. The rest of my son's good friends are all 3-4 years older. Some of these friends are taller than I am and my son just looks so little next to them, but they are the only ones that invite him to birthday parties and the only ones that he wants to ask to come over to our house and there really isn't a problem except that I think this probably looks weird to other people. There is another gifted boy that I think would fit right in with this group of friends but I am afraid to ask his parents if he can come over to visit my son who is several years younger. He is a friend of my son's friends and they have gone to some of the same birthday parties and sleepovers.
All of my son's best friends have common interests, are in G&T in school and don't like sports that much and would also be considered geeks. Because they are not into sports, my son's motor coordination disorder is not a problem. Should I just invite these kids over more and not worry about what other people think? This is what my son thinks we should do.
He would also like to find other kids who are 2E like him to talk to because none of his friends are 2E. They are just gifted. He said he would like to meet a kid with Asperger's that lives in Texas (where my son's sister lives) because he read his blog at
www.giftedgearreview.blogspot.com/ and my son and I both think this kid sounds a lot like him in some ways, especially the use of sarcasm in his humor. I read what this boy wrote under "Here's the thing..." and some of the things he says sound like things my son might say and my husband read it and agreed. It was obvious from the way this boy writes that he is highly intelligent. My son does not have Asperger's but there are a lot of similarities. There must be a fine line between gifted with Asperger's and gifted with motor dyspraxia and a sarcastic sense of humor. By the way, my husband also has this sarcastic sense of humor but like my son, he knows when to use it and when not to use it. My husband and my son both have lot of friends that appreciate their humor. I enjoy listening to them shoot puns back and forth at each other. Their "humor processing speed" is at a much higher level than mine. I can't think of funny things to say fast enough to keep up with them. Too bad this is something they don't test. I think my son would do very well on this kind of test because physical speed and endurance are not required.
