My daughter is in Kindergarten. She is just now being tested to see if they should test her for the gifted program at her school. I have had to push fairly hard to get even that accomplished. I ended up having to call the Board of Education, because the school kept telling me that only her teacher could recommend her for the program...which I knew was not true. The teacher even acknowledged in the parent teacher conference in October that my daughter was starting to show what she was capable of. The teacher showed me the chart they keep to show the children's progress and pointed out that my daughter was the only one in her class that had mastered all the skills on the chart which included letters, letter sounds, numbers, and counting. She is also the youngest in her class. She started school a month after she turned 5. She started adding and subtracting when she was still 4 on her own. She can sound out words but refuses to read a lot because she doesn't like to have to sound out words...she just wants to know them. Now, at 5 1/2 she has started to multiply. She started 2 days ago. I don't know how long she has been able to. I asked her how she learned and she could not tell me. She just said, " I just know." She also just started probing more about death. She has talked about it since she was 3. But just last week she had a break down over it and was up until 2am organizing drawers and crying. She wanted to know how I knew there was heaven. And if everyone dies and no one comes back to life is it going to be a big empty planet....which just brought up questions about birth. Now she has the flu with a 101 fever and is watching Space Camp because she wants to save her money and go to college to go to space. She said she doesn't want to be the "watch out" for the space crew because she would be upset if someone died and she was watching out.
I had been trying to help keep her challenged but within the last couple of months I have stopped. It is for 3 reason. 1. I am afraid that since I am having trouble getting her help at school I am going to allow her to move so far ahead that she will really have trouble fitting in and may pick up bad habits. 2. She is extremely caring and very emotional. The teacher seems to think she is immature because she cries easily. She is actually very mature and carries herself well around adults. But she will cry just hearing a baby cry. Or if someone is sick or hurt or she hears about something bad. She gets very hurt at school. She said some of her friends are older and they still don't understand her and they keep changing their minds about being her friend. She said she would never stop being someone's friend just because they didn't like what she was playing or because someone new wanted to be her friend. So her thinking is very mature but she cries easily because she doesn't quite have the coping skills to deal with the emotions of what she understands.
3. My last reason for not giving her more to learn recently is because she is picking up things so extremely fast on her own that I actually never know what direction to help lead her in or even how to help her. Like the multiplication...things just happen over night. Everyday she says a word or makes a joke or comes up with some theory that I have never heard from her. Her reading is the only thing that is "on level" everything else about her is well advanced and all on her own. No flashcards. I have given her workbooks but very rarely had to explain to her how to do them. I hardly read to her anymore because we can't make it past a page without her asking a dozen questions. Don't get me wrong...I love to teach and guide her. But I am finding that the only thing she needs me for as far as learning goes is to listen and answer adult level questions.
My other concern is that she has started to become anxious the last couple of months. She complains about her stomach hurting a lot but there seems to be nothing physically wrong. She will occasionally have a panic attack. She is having bad nightmares again and is telling me her friends just do not understand her. I try to snuggle with her and give her confidence but I can tell she is starting to feel isolated. After her break down the other night about death...a new imaginary friend showed up. Her name is Two-ma. My daughter said she calls her that because Two-ma can get to 2 before she can get to 0. Two-ma also knows Kung-fu and is teaching my daughter how to protect herself. Her other "friend" is Buzz. It is an invisible buzz that she holds in her hand or pocket. I have noticed when her cousins or friends start to pick on her she pulls Buzz out and whispers to him and she will throw him up into the air and run around smiling while he flies around her.
Her teacher said that if she was more mature she would recommend putting her in first grade. Which is confusing because I have had so much trouble getting her tested or challenged in school but yet her teacher agrees that she is advanced. Once my daughter really starts to read there is going to be no stopping her at all. I mean she went from talking about odd and even numbers a week ago to learning multiplication on her own. She seems to be on about a 3rd grade level in math....with no help or instruction. I figured she was going to be gifted like her father and I when she starting talking at 7 months and drawing at 12m and then she seemed to get more quiet about what she knew for a long time. She has always been creative but until recently she very seldom showed us what she could do. Now it is all surfacing and I don't know what I should do. I am going to continue pushing for her to be in the gifted program...even though I am sure I will hit roadblocks since there are currently no Kindergarten aged children in the class. But should I be pushing for her to move into first grade...or should I wait until she starts reading above her level? She can read beginner books. But anything she has to sound out stops her from going farther. She is very good at sounding things out but she hates doing it. I know many of the first graders at her school still haven't learned to read so I do not think she would be far behind. I don't know. I just want to make things better and not worse. I also don't want to just sit back and watch.
