Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Learning Environments Worried about accelerated classmate not doing well

According to the giftedunlimited website, the IAS has been used in Canada and Australia, probably the two systems closest to the US. I don’t think it has ever been translated or adapted to other systems. I wish it had! It does seem to work much better at taking personal bias out of the decision making (which is the problem I find all systems and culture have in common) than the haphazard process I have seen for my kids. I do recall the school psychologist being totally useless for one of my own, and not even having been consulted for the other,

Valid question about the mom in that context. I now had to google exactly where it was that she worked. She is a psychologist and has worked until recently at a research center for “neuroscience and learning”, which does research projects and offers lectures and workshops for educators. Not sure how much she has been working with actual children, she may have been very much in on the theoretical side of things. And of course when it’s your own kid we all find it hard to be objective, LOL. But it’s one of those aspects that makes this so odd.

I do have to say that we have known the parents for decades (in a “friends of friends of friends” sort of way, and DH went to school with the dad) and they have always been EXTREMELY confident in their own abilities and opinions. As I have mentioned, extremely active and helpful in the community, but also very eccentric. Marching to the beat of their own drummer but being extremely confident about that drummer.

At the beginning of the year, they organised a family “get to know” party for the whole class, with food and drink and games stations the kids were supposed to move between in teams. It was great for DS7, he loved the party and the games and all the kids and families could see how easily and happily he plays and mingles (even for the impromptu soccer game!) as long as there are no physical obstacles involved. Little As mom, however, was devastated, confiding in me that she had organised the party solely to help her integrate and lose her fears, but she refused to join a team with the other kids and mostly clung to the mom. I comforted her, saying it was a great party with a wonderful atmosphere and that she was having fun being surrounded by classmates anyway, which I was sure was helping her social integration and comfort level along regardless.

Now I am thinking (still assuming that the gifted bit as such has been correctly assessed) that they may have intended to force her academic development by early entry rather than following her lead. Almost like an experiment a research psychologist who hasn’t had much clinical experience with children but likes to swim against the current may have come up with. And the school may have been guilted into going along with it, on account of “missing the boat” with her older brother. Told you I cannot help having all these inappropriate judgmental thoughts about the situation! But I wouldn’t even know that she was struggling academically, assuming she was happily chugging along and simply struggling with being little, if the teacher hadn’t sat her next to DS7 so that she could employ DS7’s aide to support her.

I do believe that an accelerated giftie deserves to still be at the top of the class, it just shouldn’t be effortless!

I am rooting for her, really I am. Maybe if reading clicks for her by second semester of first grade, the rest will fall into place with time.