Hey, I totally understand how a certain personality type can get into tremendous trouble with "assigned" tasks when they are inappropriate (high need for autonomy, oppositional tendencies, high degree of confidence in their decision-making).
Couple that with perfectionism or a skewed sense of "smart" (and self-identity) = "just knowing it" (ie-- without study, effort, and certainly without ASKING FOR HELP... oh, the horrors... LOL);
well, you've got my daughter. She is 11, EG/PG, an honors virtual high school student who is filled with hormonally-fueled adolescent angst, and
is perpetually either bored to tears with her coursework-- or afraid to ask for help that she ACTUALLY NEEDS. (The latter is a problem in mathematics sometimes, where she seems to think that "observation" is a route to mastery... and that when that fails, as it not surprisingly sometimes does in algebra and beyond, this is a clear example of a personal failing as a "smart person." )
I have no advice. But LOTS of sympathy. Let me put it this way:
all of this =
epic power struggles at our house.
My daughter's preferred method of introducing challenge into her school life? Procrastination and civil disobedience.
About the procrastination; she spent last year's spring break completing <mumble-mumble> weeks of schoolwork. Okay, okay... it was about five weeks' worth. She did it in four days. With almost no discernable drop-off in quality.
So really, with the situation as it is (school's "GT" offerings, even with a 4 grade acceleration in play AS WELL, are simply unsuitable about 85%-90% of the time); it is tough for me to advocate that my DD should change her approach.
The problem is that when she gets that far behind, we feel like we can't "reward" her with enrichment activities and extracurricular "fun" stuff... since, you know, she has to learn that there are things that you do just because you HAVE to... but that means that we may spend months with every weekend devoted to hectoring DD into compliance, which she frequently resists with every fiber of her being. It is also the case that almost every single other person in DD's life begins to have KITTENS over "being behind like that" after she racks up a couple weeks' worth. Yes, I
realize that for most students, this would be metaphorically suicidal... but I think that for DD, it's
exhilirating to turn on the "panic mode" and drink from the firehose. Oh, sure... it may not be any more intellectually stimulating overall, but at least the RATE is more like what she's after. She would probably be perfectly happy to have taken a full year of algebra 1 in a three week "boot camp."
About civil disobedience: my darling little Ghandi, there, is a completely
immovable force when she makes up her mind. "Nope. Not doing it." We've resorted to some pretty wacky tools of motivation when she goes there-- but from an adult perspective, it leaves us scratching our heads.
I mean, seriously?? A four paragraph essay about Anne Frank is your hill to die on, kid? REALLY? But that part of things is about pure rebellion related to the inappropriateness of the task itself.
Not asking for help when she needs it is related to the fact that so much has, for
too long, been TOO EASY for her. We've always feared this particular facet of giftedness; that she would internalize that "easy" = "smart" and translate it to the converse. She most certainly has.
Anyway. Sorry. I seem to have hijacked your thread there for a moment.
All of that to say.... if we can't be an example, at least let us serve as a warning to others.
Appropriate placement really IS that important for kids with this particular brew of personality characteristics. 
Some other things to watch for in this particular blend of characteristics in a GT child:
- Goldilocks syndrome-- make sure that s/he has ample opportunity to BROADEN task tolerance so that s/he can begin to adjust to the idea of "doing" tasks that are too easy, and also tackling tasks where the outcome feels uncertain (they may initially feel "hard"),
- Try to modify your way of approaching discussions of what it means to "be smart" to reflect that smart people DO have to work very hard at hard tasks/subjects, and that "being smart" just means that one's brain is able to process information differently-- it still takes EFFORT sometimes, and that's okay and it certainly doesn't mean that a person "isn't gifted." Mostly, I think that our kids sometimes are terrified to admit when they need help, because they seem to come to regard "just knowing" already as normal in a learning environment. Long-term, that is a terrible thing.
- Finally, even grown-ups have to do things that are trivial/boring/uninteresting. A lot. It can help to prioritize what I know that I must do, and set myself a time to do it in, after which I will reward myself with self-selected activities for a period of time. I can also allow my daughter to have some of this sort of freedom, too. She MUST complete the work the school insists upon, but at that point, her day is her own. I have also agreed to help fund independent study materials for her, on the condition that her regular schoolwork needs to be completed with acceptable effort/grades.
Only a gifted child could be "bribed" to do schoolwork with the lure of
more difficult educational materials. Crazy, but true.
