I am here to try to learn more about gifted kids in general, especially 2E kids, to help my 2E DS6 (wait, now DS7!) and to also help myself understand him.
We are not a high achieving family at all. I was ID'd as ADHD and borderline MR in elementary school and shipped off to special ed. I received a very poor education in a room full of disruptive children. I was always the top of my class in behavior and academics (this is not saying much).
Eventually the school district took me back, but they resented me and never gave me another chance. I was the first person they suspected when anything went wrong (and there was no basis for this, I was too scared to even talk at school, let alone do something against the rules) and when I took achievement tests in 8th grade and scored post high school on everything but math (my weak area) and spelling (my other weak area) the district had the results struck from my record and said I must have cheated (on account of my low IQ and apparently the ease of cheating on tests where the exact test you get is random).
Eventually my parents paid to send me to the neighboring school district and I went from a C student to an A student and I took the SATs and qualified for early college entry. I graduated college with honors and found it all quite easy. I actually found it much easier than high school because there wasn't a lot of homework or busywork and I rarely had to do anything other than attend class, take tests, and write a few papers each semester.
Am I gifted? I have no idea. The only IQ test on my record says my IQ was pretty low at age 8. The test the school threw out gave an "IQ estimate" of 128. I guess I will never know and at this point it really doesn't matter. But my experiences certainly influenced how I deal with school districts and advocate for my son.
DS's father was ID'd as gifted in school and was in a pull out program. He was a good student and is excellent at math and went to college for a math heavy career. He definitely has issues, likely ADHD and/or ASD, but he was never diagnosed with anything as his mother is very defensive about such things. Oddly I don't really think he is very smart. He certainly is great at math, he can make an equation for pretty much anything, but conversationally he can't follow along well and he has a terrible memory, so I can't really talk to him about anything!
On to DS. He seems to have somehow gotten the best of each of us. And the worst! He has severe combined type ADHD, an iffy ASD diagnosis, and Tourette's. I think he might have gotten 2 different ADHD genes or something because he was hit hard. His dad and his dad's family have tics/TS, so we know where that came from. And the ASD? Who can really tease that out from the other stuff at this point? Especially with gifted thrown in.
But DS has dad's great working memory (I have 0 working memory) and my great long term memory (which dad entirely lacks). He has dad's great math skills, but also my verbal skills. He even seems to be pretty good at spelling (for a first grader) which is something dad is also good at. He picks right up on the words in his foreign language class at school (whereas I had to go for a BS in a field where everyone gets a BA because I can't learn a language to save my life, except sign, which I find easy to learn for some reason). He loves history (like me, dad hates it) and science (something we all agree on). His favorite subject at school is coding (which is like dad 100%).
Academically, so far, he doesn't really have a weakness. I still add and subtract on my fingers and can't memorize my times tables (or how to spell words like their and calendar, thanks spell check), but I still managed a 530 math on the SAT in 11th grade. Even though I feel terrible at math, I guess I'm more average (but still pretty embarrassed about the finger counting thing). I suspect DS will be able to surpass me at math very soon and in some areas he already has.
My biggest problem is probably self confidence. I am an anxious person in general and I still can't 100% convince myself DS is actually gifted. I wonder if he's just good at math, if the "experts" were right and he is just ASD with splinter skills, if he just benefitted from an enriched home environment, if he will start to have trouble when school becomes more abstract, etc.
We have had 2 IQ tests done and they both came in over the gifted cut off, but not really far above and his scores ranged from an 8 to some 19's. He is in a gifted school, but not really keeping up in reading or writing and I wonder if it's because he really shouldn't be there or because he has some hidden disability (or because he has ADHD which can cause difficulty with anything that requires sustained effort and attention.)
So, yeah, I am here because my family is a bit of a confused mess
But mostly I am here because of the helpful people who frequent this board. I still feel like this whole thing is nothing but a pile of uncertainties, but I hear that is what parenting usually is.
