My son (5yo, April birthday) just started Kinder this past fall and the transition has been so so much more difficult than we expected. I knew that his handwriting was not great, but it was much further behind his classmates than I expected and he was very frustrated at the beginning of the year. He also has a really hard time settling down and listening and staying on task. His teacher has mentioned that although she's not a diagnostician she and her kids have ADHD and she feels like my son has similar tendencies. I thought he was settling in and doing a bit better but this past week we had 3 'oops' notes about various random things (running around and hiding under the table when the teacher left the room, putting stuff on his head when she left the room, throwing paper at a friend at lunch, etc). Basically, she's been giving him a lot of leeway and trying to help him learn to focus but he's still having trouble (she gave him some velcro under his table to feel, etc). She told him it's okay if he stands up at his table but he needs to stay near the table, things like that. At our parent-teacher conference she said lots of kids mature out of this sort of stuff after Christmas break, but the behavior needs to improve. I think she's particularly frustrated that he's getting up and doing something every time she leaves the room because it seems to be a willful, premeditated type of decision.
The gifted portion of things is becoming less clear to me now that he's struggling so much at school. They keep track of reading progress with a computer program and at the end of the first 9 weeks he seems to be 'reading' at an end of first grade level (he is able to read through some very simple beginning readers on his own now, which he couldn't do before school started). The teacher also said he's doing great with math although they don't seem to formally assess that. She said that she seems a lot of bright, higher-level thinking from him, but his focus would probably get in the way right now. He's a slow writer, does't have a good 'internalized' model of how to do the letters and tends to get lots of letters and numbers backwards (he is improving though). They do a LOT of writing at school, especially in the morning during reading and writing workshop. When he was very young he had a phenomenal memory for cars, still does. At 2.5 or 3 he could identify the make and model of about 70% of the cars he saw on the road. He still loves cars although Pokemon has become the latest obsession.
At home, I've also noticed that it's hard to get him to focus and step through the routine parts of the day, like getting dressed, doing homework, getting ready for bed, etc. He needs a lot of reminders or he wanders off and does other stuff. Honestly, I thought all kids did that, but after seeing him compared to his schoolmates, I think he has a bigger issue with it than most. On the other hand, he's usually great in public, easy to take to restaurants, and can sit and build an entire Lego model without much input.
Basically, I'm wondering if anyone else had kids with a similar story. At what point did you decide to get testing and what type of testing did you do? How do I discriminate between a real problem with attention and just needing a bit more discipline or time to mature? Any advice or input is very welcome. I'm worried about him deciding he's a 'bad kid' and giving up on trying to do well in class.
