Hi,
Thank you so much for responding! I definitely need to learn more. He has been in Gifted for a couple of years, and it was never a problem. In Kindergarten when his teacher had problems with him, she just passed it off as part of him being gifted, and seemed to understand that she needed to treat or handle him a little differently than the other students. In second grade the same thing, his teacher commonly referred to him as "the Nutty Professor" The Professor with all his stuff falling out of his brief case. Second grade is when it started to fall apart. His teacher expected all students to act a certain way, be organized, expected students to remember to turn in their homework and other things on their own- and his brain doesn't seem to function that way. She had a lot of problems with him. She would call me from the classroom because he was having a complete meltdown,and you could hear him in the background just screaming. Third grade has not started off any better, the same kind of teacher- she is not as obsessive as last year's teacher was, but it's the same standard. For his gifted teachers- in Kindergarten he was fine, he wasn't in there for very long because he was tested in Kindergarten so he didn't get in until the end of the school year. 1st grade she found him extremely difficult, and out of frustration called me into her office and told me that he was never going to fit into a mainstream school and that I needed to find other placement for him because as he got older he was only going to get worse. She clearly didn't want him in her class. She left that year and to my relief he got another teacher, who I hoped would be more tolerant and understanding of him, but no. She the same way as the other teachers, he has to remember his HW and other stuff on his own. He constantly leaves his HW at school, when he does bring it home and do it he forgets to turn it in.
At home, I have decided his brain is just wired different. I have signs up everywhere reminding him to do simple tasks. Signs in the bathroom that say, "Don't forget to comb your hair, Don't forget to turn off the light, Don't forget to wash your hands" On the dining room table I have a sign that says "put your dishes in the sink" On the front door I have a sign that says "Do you have your backpack, lunchbox, glasses"
I do try to be supportive of his passions- he loves art. He loves to do arts and crafts and he loves to draw, paint, etc.. so rather than having the dinning room table in the dinning room, it is in the livingroom, and the dining room is his art area. He has all his arts and crafts stuff, desk to draw, paints. The walls are filled with his creations. He can put whatever he wants on the wall, he can't draw on the wall, just hang up any and all creations he wants.
We have recently started a behavior system at home, that I heard about. It seems to be working so far, but that just may be because it is new, and it may wear off. It's a marble system- he gets marbles for things that he does good. Different color marbles for things that he does wrong. He has to earn certain number of marbles to do daily things that he enjoys and then a certain number of marbles to do weekly things he enjoys. I put charts on the wall to remind him of some of the things he needs to do to get marbles, and how many marbles he needs for each reward.
I have a lot of problems with him at home, but biggest concern though is school, at home I have some control of being able to remind him about things- but school, he is expected to perform just like all the other kids or expected to perform at a higher standard and he just isn't going to. They won't remind him to bring his HW home, and they won't remind him to turn it in. He is expected to stay on task and perform high on his assignments- and I have come to the conclusion his brain just doesn't function like that. It's nothing new.. you hear about people like Albert Einstein who was a genius, but very eccentric- anytime they ever portray a gifted person whether in a movie or book, that person is always eccentric. I would think that the school with a gifted program would account for that in their program, and make accommodations for it, but it's just basically a higher learning class and that is it. I think another problem to is that they dropped the IQ standard down to allow for more children to get in, and so they just may be really bright and don't have the problems my child does. It's frustrating because the school won't do anything to help him while he is there, and blames me as the parent for his problems. I'm starting to understand how parents of autistic children and parents with ADHD children felt before they became widely accepted in the school systems, and the school systems started to work with them.
