Katelyn's mom,
And another thing I have noticed, I often don't hear stories about gifted girls acting out at schools, especially in pre-k. In fact, I have never heard a story of this. (If anyone has a story, feel free to share).
I'll share
After months of stressing about the perfect fit, I put dd (then 3) in a "play-based" church-run preschool. I didn't give the teachers any warning about dd. I guess I hoped that she would have so much to learn about hanging up her coat and walking in a line to recess that she wouldn't stick out much (it was her first time going to any type of school). And I thought it wasn't that important for me to tell them about her because the school had very little emphasis on academics (just 10 minutes of circle time).
On the second day, the teacher walked dd to my car and said rather pointedly, "Are you aware that she can read?" Needless to say, I was aware
Apparently the teacher was trying to get the 3-year-olds to start recognizing their own names by pulling a name out of the hat to select a child to be line leader. DD jumped up in excitement and shouted out, "Lauren - it's you!!"
Things were fine for a few weeks ... I think dd enjoyed the novelty of school and was on her best behavior ... but then the bloom was off the rose.
She started acting out. Nothing awful. But at least one thing every day of school (she was only going 2 mornings a week). And each day the teacher would walk dd to my car and say, "Today your dd3 had a time out after she opened a window I repeatedly asked her not to open. Why would she do that?" Or "Today, your dd3 disturbed the entire line of children when she sat down in a puddle on her way out to recess. Why would she do that?" And dd would often become so excited about something completely non-thrilling to other children ... the letter A, perhaps ... that she would jump around the room ecstatically. The teacher just didn't know what to do with her.
Needless to say, it turned into a bad situation. I was getting so stressed about what the teacher would say at pick-up each day. And I feared I was leaving dd with a negative take-away message. That she was bad. Or at least badly behaved. And all I wanted for her to get out of preschool was a love of school. And she certainly wasn't getting that.
We switched her to a private gifted school and all of the behavior problems disappeared. Same kid. They just knew how to handle her better. To challenge her mind.
As we had a psychologist tell us, "Kids like this ... their minds are always going. So either you give them something to do to stimulate them ... or they're going to think of something themselves ... and it's rarely good."
