Thank you for your replies. It's nice to know that we are not alone, even though it would also be nice to know that no other children have to have such difficulties... But I guess I'm kinda, sorta glad others have gone through this before us and can offer insight.
That said I'm having a great day today. I finally got a chance to chat privately with someone at the school this morning and it turns out that not only has DS not even had to leave the classroom once in a full week of schooling, but he isn't even outside the norm behavior wise for the school. They said there was a boy there last year who had to leave the classroom a lot and they still did not even consider kicking him out. I'm so relieved.
We went through a lot of stress and difficulty making the decision to move to go to this school and financially it's going to be really tough, but actual success is worth everything we can give! DS is in a class of 6 in a school full of staff to help with all sorts of things including a full time counselor to help with social and psychological issues common to the gifted. He's awesome. The right medication and the perfect school and I think we have found his place in this world.
He's totally crazy and impossible to live with after school, but after years of wondering why I couldn't have one of those kids who held it together when it really mattered and saved all the crap for home, I finally got what I wished for! I'll take it
If we have good enough behavior for school now the next step is going to be seeing where he is at academically. The education there is completely individualized, so I'm really curious where he tests on everything. It's kind of like a test for me too, as his teacher for the past year.
I'm also totally unreasonably anxious about his giftedness in general. After years of early intervention people and IU people telling me he's not gifted, autistic kids just do amazing things sometimes, it's hard to really think of him as actually gifted. I keep thinking maybe the parts of the test he did well on are autistic loaded subtests or something. Or maybe I gave him more intellectual stimulation than normal and he got good at certain things, but still isn't smart in a truly gifted way. Yes, I make myself crazy.
Of course I kinda mostly don't agree with the autism thing anymore anyway (and the school reports they see nothing autistic looking to them) and for as much as I think our test results might be tainted by autism or too much enrichment, I also alternately wonder if he could have done better because the tester had such a hard time with him and mentioned in the report that the scores might be an underestimate based on his poor cooperation. He's always seemed pretty amazing to me, but then you read that babies can be taught to read and 5 year olds can learn algebra with the right instruction, and I think maybe all kids can learn when really young if given the opportunity.
OTOH, if that is the case, why was the pace at the public school so slow? Why did I realize over the summer that I had totally forgotten to teach DS any spelling and do the whole K and grade 1 spelling curriculum in less than 2 months? It was like 8 words a week and tons of busy work to go with it. We did 10 words a day. I had DS copy all 10 once, then quizzed him. He got 100% each time. Done. Could most kids do this in a typical classroom? Are even the average kids bored with the slow pace? I feel like when our country went all PC on education and got rid of ability grouping we helped no one. Not the kid who has to sit and wait through what is boring and simple for them and not the kid who is struggling to understand material that is so easy for the kid sitting next to him...
Anyway, rant over. And hopefully when I hear back where ds tests academically (we did not do academic testing when we did IQ testing to save some money, we knew the school would do it in a few months anyway), I will be able to calm down and stop worrying and confusing myself so much! I just really want him to fit in and be happy!
