Polarbear your post sustained me through a lot of soul searching this weekend about what to do about S1's school placement (see questions at end of this post).
I'm using Ross Greene's framework (from his most recent book, "Raising Human Beings") to organize how I'm thinking about parenting S1.
1. Figure out who your child is (skills. preferences, beliefs, values, personality traits, goals)
2. Get comfortable with it
3. Help your child live a life congruent with it
I do not feel - after all these years, three full neuropsychological evaluations, hundreds of hours of therapy - that we have a good view of step one, item one: skills.
I guess this is one of the big challenges of 2E kids.
Firstly, parents are dazzled by a 2E kid's gifts and it is natural to want to focus on the good (the extraordinary!) that we see. So we might overlook or "explain away" evidence that there are challenges too. As in, oh, he's not interested in playing with peers because he's so far beyond them, intellectually. (And there may even be a grain of truth to it.. but we throw out the baby with the bathwater!)
Secondly 2E kids, like anyone, prefer to feel and identify as talented rather than challenged and so they
a) compensate for (hide) their challenges and
b) may resent getting "help" for their challenges since getting help means admitting to said challenges, e.g. a learning disability (how can I have a learning disability if I'm so smart!?)
I emerged from this weekend thinking: find out more, find expert help finding out what is going on under the hood.
Assess, address, accommodate.
The good news is that I am sure I will be comfortable with whatever we find because it is what it is.
I have a superabundance of positive, sustaining feelings about S1. I have never met such a passionate self-learner. He wakes up wondering how the communism of Cuba and the former USSR were similar and different. He wants to know what to call Russia's current political regime, if not communism than what? (GOOD QUESTION! TIMELY QUESTION!). These questions bubbled out of reading books about 20th century wars, a book about symbolism, and reading about macroeconomics (a cartoon guide) -- those are the ones I see piled in his reading nook -- and making bold connections, synthesizing, etc. This is what profoundly gifted means to me. And it shows up in his vocab and information scores. S2 is bright. Great student. But there is nothing like this insatiable hunger in him. He does what is expected of him very well. S1 is driven by an internal burning fire. All I do is leave lots of dry wood around (in the form of books) but the fire does the consuming.
Against this PG backdrop, is a child with difficulty doing below-grade math word problems (how many more chocolate chip cookies are than than the difference btw oatmeal and sugar cookies?).
When he gets the answer wrong.. RIP, RIP, RIP goes the worksheet. And because THAT behavior is more glaring to teachers (and parents) we've been focusing on aggression, frustration management, etc.
Not wrong, but not the whole solution!
Today I speak with his psychologist about aligning the therapeutic strategy and school placement with needs.
Question #1. Let's say the recommendation is to place him in a school for kids with autism and LD including minimally verbal kids (i.e. we ignore the gifted half of the 2E). Is that going to be OK if he's getting enrichment galore at home? Some of the kids in the school we are waiting to hear from and his psychologist (not a 2E psychologist, an autism expert) is recommending, albeit with some reservations, end up going to group homes.
Question #2: If we go this route, anyone have experience navigating their kid from a SN school to a mainstream school in, say, middle school?
I'll end with a positive story. Friday S1 helped another child who was having a meltdown, earning S1 much teacher praise. The child's mom passed along her contact info and asked for a playdate for the boys over the holidays. S1 said this boy is new BFF because "we both love science."
