Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Learning Environments My DS12 won't go to school. Distributed learning?

Haven't read the whole thread. I did get my DS17 (12th grade) to go to a counselor for anxiety at two different times. (6th & part of 7th) and then (end of 9th - 11th grade.) Two different physiologists. I basically didn't give him an option when he was in 6th grade. Anxiety got so bad at school in 6th he was having panic attacks and throwing fits in class. (In our districts top honors program, it was really throwing a teacher who usually had very compliant kids.) These are the kids I just found out 90% of them won National Merit Semi-Finalists. And a few of them win national math comps. The class was super competitive, huge piles of homework, with EF expectations he doesn't need now in H.S. If I had to do it over I wouldn't have had him in that class. One kid we knew started having migraines from the class & he was eventually pulled out in 7th to be home schooled until they got him in a more relaxed school environment.

I really didn't give him a choice of going to the psychologist and honestly he was so miserable that he didn't fight it. (I think if I had let it go much older I would have had difficulty.) I don't know what I did to get him to comply. I think the trick was I lucked into finding someone he clicked with both times. And I was open minded about the idea it might not work. And what we found was it did help up to a point. During the end of 6th he saw the school counselor (school insisted), his private psychologist (cover by insurance) and I put in a group social skills group designed for kids with ADHD and/or ASP. (There was at least one other gifted kid as well.) He has since been diagnosed as having neither, although the psychologist doing the assessment does say he has some ASP characteristics. The only part he fought was the group therapy but I actually think the group therapy helped more than the private after the few few months.

Initially the therapy helped a lot. The psychologist help him learn how to handle his anxiety, learn how to recognize he was starting a panic attack. And get some perspective on the situation. Skills I just didn't know the best way to teach him. But it stopped being helpful and we took a break and never came back. But this therapist was very impressed how well he understood the concepts and said he could work with him like he would an older teenager because he was a gifted kid.

Things seemed to get better for a while, 8th grade went well, he was happier and did well in school. But when they slipped again in the end of freshman year, I got referred to a psychologist who specialized in gifted teenagers. Took a bit of convincing to get him to go but she managed to get him to talk. (Until the past few years he has taken a long time to warm up to adults.) And she has been very helpful as well. Since he was a teenage I've made sure he WANTED to go and he found it helpful. I think he really liked having an adult that wasn't mom or dad to talk to. We did consider drugs for a while in H.S. but I'm now glad he has managed without.

That said.. things that also helped. Finding a camp where he could decompress and find "his" people every summer. Band/marching band has been a good home for him. He really does well being in a group situation where his role is very well defined. Easing off on the pressure at school but not enrolling him in all of the hardest classes. For him that means AP classes in math/science, not for humanities, and lots of band and a 'light' course load.

As I posted last year. DS17 is a different child than he was in junior high. His pediatrician, and teachers and other adults who have known him for years have noted how well he has been doing these days. I don't know how much it has to do with working with a physiologist, or partially just age. But I know it hasn't hurt. He has been doing well in school this year, which is a good thing as I'm very busy this year and am not keeping an eye on him as much as I have in the past.

Not sure what i would do in your situation. But the 2nd half of 6th grade my son did miss a fair amount of class. I would get a class he'd have an anxiety attack, and I'd just calmly pick him up from school and let him decompress and not make a big deal of it. We started counting down the days till junior high & a new school. His teacher forgave him for a lot of homework. We just sat down and took a look at the homework load, decided since it was all WAY above grade level that it didn't matter in the long range view, and cut him way back. As this is fall of a new school year, I probably would have tried switching his class or moving schools.

I would have done a few things a bit different in hindsight. Wish I had gotten his assessed in junior high instead of end of 9th. Bad 9th grade grades are effecting where he is applying to university. I should have believed myself rather than the 8th grade humanities teacher & not put in him all honors in H.S. And probably shouldn't have put him in this gifted class, it was just there wasn't really a better place.

I couldn't have home schooled him. I just personally couldn't have done it. And while I did look at alternative school options nothing seemed right. (A new school has opened that would have been perfect.) And because he had his heart set on marching band, he wouldn't entertain other H.S. options. But in junior high I did respect that he is an introvert and realized that school was enough social interaction for him and let him come home after school and decompress. There are things he has been stubborn about. I think because seeing the psychologist helped in 6th grade he was more willing to give it a try in H.S.

P.S. I meant to post this in "Anxiety - won't see a counselor".