I'm coming into this late ... I'm sorry!
Mizzou, what a great post. That's how I feel a lot of the time -- I worry what *others* will think, not about how I feel about it. For instance, we use big words a lot -- ds6 has shown a preference for precise speech and so we use the most descriptive words possible around him, knowing he'll ask what they mean. He loves it, and remembers some interesting words ("atypical" and "apparently" are some of the funniest ones). Not every kid would care, and not every kid would ask what those words meant. Ds6 is interested and asks, so we answer. I've decided I don't see anything wrong with providing learning experiences that ds can decide to utilize or to ignore. Almost all the time, he takes advantage.
On the "boredom in school" issue: We pulled ds from public K in favor of private gifted because of a bad fit. I wouldn't say ds was "bored" in K. Above all, I think he was *frustrated* rather than "bored." He lashed out verbally at us and his teachers, and physically at the other children. He was quite capable of zoning out into his own little world, but then got in trouble for not paying attention. He was definitely regressing; he started K reading Beverly Cleary books, and was choosing only "Spot lift-the-flap" books by January. His spark was gone.
In the spring, he started a Saturday math class for gifted kids at a well-known university program in our area. It was like seeing a transformation -- he remembered that learning was fun. It was at that point that we started looking at school alternatives.
My goal for ds6 is that he learn to persevere at learning when he is frustrated. At his public school, he couldn't learn that, because there was *no* goal to his frustration -- and he had too much energy to pretend to be engaged all day. He says he likes his new school because they "learn hard new things!" He loves working at his level (although he recently confided that he thinks he's the smartest kid in his class. Not quite what I'd hoped to instill with this school, but that's another post entirely.
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I think "bored" is the wrong word to use here, because it's likely many ND kids are "bored" at school. For my ds, it went beyond "bored" and into "stifling" and "unbearable" -- though different kids have different ways of showing it. And some HG+ kids do fine in regular public school. My ds, with a school that wasn't willing to make early accommodations, was not one of them. It wasn't a case of "bored" -- it was a case of "falling apart at the seams." Academic challenge has really changed him back into himself.
