Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Twice Exceptional how can I rise my 2e son self-esteem ?

Hello
Let me introduce myself. I am the father of boy (7) and a girl (5 tomorrow). We are French living in France. I am on this forum because of my boy who has been diagnosed with giftedness. He is also an AD (HD?) child (due to his behavior at school and home and to the large discrepancy between the IQ verbal score (155) and the treatment speed (83)). He is on Ritalin (or so). He is also dyslexic, dyscalculic and is followed by a graphology therapist.
So, I guess he can be considered as 2e � It seems that this "2e" state is not well-known in France. It seems that learning disorders are not compatible with giftedness in France. You can be gifted and ADHD, but in that case your attention problems are just simply counterbalanced by your intellectual capabilities. That is definitely not the case of my boy who has a lot of difficulties when it comes to reading, writing, calculating (basics school learnings). I am still wondering on how it is possible to have such high performance in wisc4 and have such problems. When you talk with people who are involved in the "giftedness" stuff in France, it looks like the only way to get the gifted child interested in school when there are problems is to skip a grade � I am quite confident in that is not a solution in the case of my child. So what ? In France, it looks like there are no solutions�
Now let's come to why I am here. During the WISC4 passing, my child showed great performances in some tests (he answered sponteanously to things that I cannot respond even after a short thinking � well, maybe I am not very intelligent but I have a PhD in Chemical Engineering. Seeing my 6-year child, just answering in real-time these questions leave me stunned). Nevertheless, doing the homeworks is just entering war at home. I and his mother too are completely lost in front of that. The big question for me is how I can try to challenge him on a ground he would enjoy to be challenged on. I do not know if I am clear (it would be easier for me in French :)). Let's try it another way. It is very hard to get my son interested in things. It does not mean that he is not interested in anything (he has a lot of imagination, can play with anything, he is very fond of books but not of reading them). I often say to myself that it is because I am not capable of raising interest in him, of making his brain works in a way he will like. He is a kind of race car running 10 mph, and I am not capable to help him driving faster. His self-esteem is so low. So, my questions are : how can I try to interest him ? As he has learning disorders but succeeds in IQ tests, is there a means to make him work on other abilities than just basic school stuffs (I mean just to make him understand he can do great things .. a kind of work around self-esteem rising) ? Can you provide me advices, book references, websites which can be helpful?

Merci and sorry for my poor English.

Hi, Raoul,

My child is 2E as well. I'll offer some ideas from our experience and see if anything is useful for you.


Do you have therapies in place for the dyslexia, dyscalculia, and dysgraphia? Experts here recommend particular methods to teach reading for children with dyslexia (Orton-Gillingham is one such method, there are others, I don't know them all but will leave that to experts).

First, I'd make sure that your son is getting all the therapies he needs, so that his disabilities hinder him less and less over time.

Our son has never been formally diagnosed as dysgraphic, but he has had a lot of difficulty with written expression. We still do speed-writing practice drills as a way of making his writing more fluent (copying a text, seeing how many letters he can write legibly in 60 seconds, gradually increasing to 2 minutes).


It wasn't for mine either... considered it, but decided against. We're glad we chose as we did. I think there is more than one path through this process.


You have my sympathy. We've been there too. We had the most success by (1) praising wildly even the smallest success and (2) breaking things into steps, and doing only one step at a time, with a break between.


I'm not sure what's available there...surely there are things to be involved in where his skills are valued. Cub scouts, Lego league, chess club, Odyssey of the Mind or Destination Imagination tend to be pretty supportive places for unusual kids to find both friends and interests. It isn't that hard to start most of these up, if they're not already available.

I wonder if your son would like filmmaking or photography, bypassing his academic weaknesses but giving him room for self-expression?

Hope that helps,
DeeDee

Welcome French Papa
Your English is very good. I believe that you are intelligent enough to be a good learning partnet for your son.

To raise his self esteem try Special Time. Make a regular appointment with your son to do what he wants to do. During this period of time let him decide what to do and how to do it. Your job is to be interested and get to know both him and yourself under these conditions. You can set limits as needed for safty and money but try to go a bit outside your routine comfort zone.

One big difference between children and adults is that many adults have some freedom to structure their live to avoid certain challenges. During special time the shoe is on the other foot. As you try and spend time with your son he may insist that you aren't fun. This is his way of showing you how it looks to him that he is being treated. If you can get him laughing about your supposed faults then he can release tense feelings about the challenges he faces.

Try Special Time and let us know how it went so we can cheer you on.

2E is just starting to be known in the US. It is frustrating indeed to imagine how much talent is currently being lost to both our Nations and to the world.

I think before you try and make hin understand that he can do great things that the self esteem must be solidly in place. That means that your first job is to make it plain that you love and enjoy and respect him in his current state. While you wait you can become an expert in 2E folks who did do great things or even stories of othe 2e kids on this board. Look up cousins and see if you have any family members who overcame silimilar challenges. Talk about these people and let them live in your imagination so that they can start to live in your son's imagination as well.

A last point is that I believe for most people, the mind and body enjoys what the mind and body are talented at. Observe and experiment to find out what your son enjoys and we'll help you brainstorm ways to nurture the spark of love into a driving talent.

Then we can all think of your family and say: Un veritable marve de civilization France.

Sort for the spelling problems in both languages...this is the only French phrase I know.

Peace and Love
Grinity

Welcome Raoul - I think your English is excellent!

I have two 2e children - my ds is 12, and your description of your ds reminds me so much of my ds at 8 years old. I'm sorry I don't have much time to reply right now but I'll add a few quick thoughts:

1) Our ds was diagnosed at 8 (2nd grade). We had to tackle the issues that were caused by his 2e challenges before we put a lot of focus on his strengths. This seems sad in a way, but it's what he needed at the time. Our ds' largest challenge was writing - both handwriting and being able to express himself in written language. Those two challenges were making it impossible for him to be successful at school, and his frustration over school turned inward into anxiety and depression and panic attacks. So the first two-three years were full of figuring out accommodations and remediation and advocating over and over again at school.

2) I wish we'd tried to push for more challenging work for our ds in the areas of school he excels at and really loves (he's a math science kid). Because of all his 2e-ness, we didn't realize until he was in 5th grade (11 years old) that for years he'd been bored to tears listening to the level of discussion in his regular-level school classroom among typical peers. He would have benefited tremendously by being in a full-time gifted program with accommodations for his challenges, but we'd turned down a full-time gifted program because we felt it would be too much stress - still do! It's really tough knowing what to do with kids who have such wild discrepancies in abilities.

3) I'm not an enthusiastic fan of full-grade acceleration - or even subject acceleration for EG kids if it means they are in a class with a mix of non-gifted kids. I'm not saying I'd never do it - we have our ds subject-accelerated, and 90% of the time, it's a-ok for him, but there are other times when the pace is simply too slow. Radical acceleration might have been more appropriate for him and he could have handled it intellectually, but he couldn't have kept up with the writing demands in elementary school and we (parents) needed several years just to figure out what path to take re accommodations (ok, we're still figuring it out because things change every year!).

4) Are you sure your ds is ADHD? I don't mean to question and I hope you don't think I'm out of line in asking - the reason I ask is our ds was misdiagnosed with ADHD at 8 when really the symptoms that looked like ADHD were due to his undiagnosed disabilities combined with giftedness. If your ds responds well to the Ritalin then he's got ADHD so *please ignore* what I just said!

5) I've always felt like it was hard to get my ds interested in things. It is! He gets interested in what he is interested in, not what someone else finds for him to be interested in. That's ok (although it was annoying for me at times when he was younger!).

6) Since it sounds like he has dysgraphia, I'd start him keyboarding now - let him use whatever fingering he wants to on the keyboard, maybe just his thumbs and index fingers. If he is dysgraphic, eventually he'll most likely need to be using the keyboard for his schoolwork, and the sooner it seems like just a regular part of his life, the easier it will be to integrate it at school.

That's all I can think of right now - you might want to just go through a few old posts here on the 2e board to get a feel for what other people's experiences have been and how they've approached the world of 2e.

Best wishes,

polarbear

One of my favorite stories about Albert Einstein is that one of his teachers tried to have him expelled from school. The teacher said, "All you do is sit in the back of the room and smile." Apparently, the class wasn't either math or philosophy, because those were the only classes that interested Einstein before he went to the polytechnic.

Chances are, you will be frustrated--again and again--when he doesn't seem to be interested in anything. And you will be puzzled when his imagination catches a spark about something that seems so dull to everybody else!

There are two huge reasons for his lack of interest. His intelligence means that so many things are so easy for him to figure out. Boring! And his disabilities mean that so many things are just too hard for him. It takes him so long to figure it out. Boring! Unless his education is very individualized and very carefully planned, he won't spend much time at all in the "Goldilocks Zone", where the challenge is just right!

You know the Goldilocks Zone should be called the Baby Bear Zone, because it was always the Baby Bear's stuff that was just right for Goldilocks!

My son has a similar discrepancy between his verbal capabilities and his processing speed. He has some other "E"s, as well. For our family, we have found it easier to homeschool so that we can provide the right level of support for the disabilities while allowing him to go as far as he wanted as fast as he wanted to support the giftedness. I don't know if that is even an option for your family, but it has worked well for us. Having a scribe, voice-recognition software, and/or keyboarding for all written work, as well as extended time, so that he can get what is in his head down on paper, has been incredibly helpful for my son, who was convinced he was stupid because he couldn't write like other children. If your son is dyslexic, the options that don't require him to know how to spell words, such as a scribe or a voice recognition program like Dragon Naturally Speaking, might really be a godsend for him, particularly if he can get permission to use them for school. I second the recommendation for Orton-Gillingham-based reading instruction methods for dyslexia.

Therapy, therapy, therapy to work on skills while he's still young, but also giving him a chance to really learn things at the level he is capable of is the strategy I would recommend. Think about using audio books, videos, programs like Learning Ally, if you have something similar in France, and just plain reading aloud to him: not only his textbooks, but books at his conceptual reasoning level (fiction and non-fiction), and giving him a voice recorder so that he can get his ideas recorded even if there is no one available to act as a scribe at that moment.

It's late here, and I think I may be babbling, so I'll stop. I hope some of this was helpful.

My spouse and youngest son both are 2e, so I feel lucky in some ways to have had a "cheat sheet" for my son by being able to draw for my spouse's own experiences when making decisions about what to do.

To me, the challenge for 2e kids' self-esteem seems to lie in the discrepancy between concepts coming easy yet still struggling with basic things like writing, reading, and even riding a bike or tying shoes. It's frustrating to watch their peers quickly write something or memorize math facts that seem beyond reach for themselves.

Things I learned from my husband that have helped me with our son (and it is NOT a one time thing; moving to mid school has meant we are having to start all over again with him feeling dumb again as his peers adapt to the new, faster pace and he has struggled with organization and keeping up with more busy work).

1. Make sure you are subtly and continually presenting the idea to him that for about 5% of the people in the world, their brains function differently - giving them some advantages and some challenges in the process. People with dyslexia tend to be able to view ideas globally or in 3-D, giving them a real advantage in some types of problem solving and in thinking outside of the box. There are a ton of websites that talk about famous people who had dysgraphia or dyslexia. It is very important that your son does not see himself as defective, simply different.

2. Comfort him when he is frustrated, but also let him struggle. Push for allowances in class that allow him to keep up with his peers, but let him work through the frustration and exhaustion at home. If he doesn't learn he can push past the frustration, he will be limited in how much he believes he can do.

3. Get him the therapy he needs, and do it as soon as possible. My son required speech, physical, and occupational therapy for everything from learning how to grip a pencil to how to decode sounds. In our part of the US, our speech therapist used the Wilson Reading program, and with the new approach to reading, he jumped several grades in a few months once it clicked.

4. Make sure he is doing things that he loves outside of class. My son loves making music, so we bought him a keyboard that hooks up to our Mac computer so he can create, record and produce his own music. He also likes to play with Legos (this is great therapy for fine motor skills as well), and he is also goes climbing with his dad. It is a sport where he challenges himself and it also helps develop his core muscles and fine motor skills. Do things with him that he likes.

5. Educate yourself on all of the research and data you can find on 2e kids and learning styles. You will be his best advocate for change in his school and with his teachers. If the French system does not yet give your child legal protection for services or accommodations, get really good at sweet-talking his individual teachers into learning how he best learns and what help he needs to succeed. As in all things, you'll have some teachers who readily see his genius in spite of his challenges and others will refuse to vary their teaching style. If it is unbearable, is home schooling an option?

6. Don't readily accept the ADHD diagnosis. Perhaps he really does have it, but maybe not. High IQ kids' boredom and zoning out can often be interpreted as an inability to focus when it is actually a heightened ability to tune out what is around them while they escape inside their own head.

Hang in there - it's a tough challenge for both of you, but 2e kids also bring a journey that is new and unique and often quite inspiring.

Great post ABQ. As usual.

Just a quick but huge thank you for these answers. I will answer them later on .. It took me some time to get through all these English words and I think it will take me a little bit to answer (in an comprehensible English)... So please be lenient !

Bonjour, Raoul:

My son has problems with dyslexia and dysgraphia. I helped him write down his stories, and he drew pictures to illustrate them when he was your son's age. It got his ideas down on paper, and was fun for both of us.

We bought him a small voice recorder that he used to record his stories or homework. He would play them back and write down what he said. He could not remember what he wanted to say because he spent so much effort on drawing, not writing, his letters. He wrote some long and good stories this way.

As he got older, he learned to type on a computer. We bought him typing games like Sponge Bob Square Pants, and he now types quickly (still 2 fingers, but quickly).

Does your son learn better from watching videos than reading books? I often get my son a video as well as the book when he needs to write an essay on something. It helps to have 2 ways to learn the material. His self esteem improved over time, and now that he is 14, he knows what his strengths and weaknesses are in school.

Good luck

Once again thank you all for the help each of you brings to me !


In my first post, I omitted to say that my son is followed by a dyslexia/dyscalculia therapist (3 times a week) and a psychologist. After 3 changes in dyslexia therapist in a year, I guess we finally found the good one. He is now making progress in reading. It is hard to compare the different methods you talked about since I am not a dyslexia professional and I therefore do not know if they have equivalent in French … I will try to investigate that point.

Concerning the homework, we cut them in small pieces (about 10 minutes each … corresponding to something like 2 to 5 minutes of real work), let him have some 5-minute break in between … We encourage him even for the smallest success. But, the biggest problem is to bring him to work. He just wants to play, nothing else … He yells, breaks things, bites us, punches us (yesterday he punches his mother in the face) … We are against being violent especially with our children, but sometimes, believe me it is very hard to face that. He is perfectly aware that he is wrong doing such things and the final result is that his self-esteem goes deeper and that we are more disappointed … Sometimes (we do not know why), he will start working without any trouble, but it is so rare.

That makes me think about what grinity wrote : "your first job is to make it plain that you love and enjoy and respect him in his current state". Well, it is definitely the case. He is aware of our love and respect. We try to prove that to him each day … But, when you are punched in the face, bitten, yelled at while he does not even try to dress himself in the morning, while he still eats with his hands at home (and so on…) it is very hard to find the strength not to make him face his own dark side …. Anyway, I will try to read the stories on this board that I discovered just a few days ago.

Polarbear : well, it looks like you underwent the same things as me… Gifted program is not a thing that you can find in France except in locations very far from our home and work (the closer one is 600 km far I guess) and they are quite elitist even if they recognize that high IQ can come with learning disorder. One school is not that far from home but they seem to be booked for next year … The only thing we are waiting for is a special assistant that will help my son in class (for that we had to cry for fundings from a French institution for disabled persons …); something that has nothing to do with his giftedness but with his various dys … We've been starting (tense ???) slowly to get him used with keyboarding.

ADHD or not ? Hard to say. Ritalin does work but the neurologist had to double the dose reaching high levels for his weight. I am not happy with that but … His mother find the ritalin effect is not that clear. Even with Ritalin, he is always a kind of "thinking tornado" but he can do other things than being in his tremendous imagination …. Anyway, when I see him work (let's rather say trying to work), I and his mother rather think in an error in the IQ tests !

Beckee : I would like to believe this story on the "Goldilocks Zone" … But at the present time, we are rather in the "nowhere zone". It is very hard to get the spark of interest you are talking about … unless you speak of dragons, ninjagos, wolves, werewolves, owls … and he is so bewildering. Most of his discussions is non sense jumping from one point to another. Maybe, we are just incapable to enter his thoughts and I am sad with that. Polarbear's sentence "He gets interested in what he is interested in, not what someone else finds for him to be interested in" is just right in our case.

We tried several activities : judo (where he behave very quietly compared to others while not being under Ritalin at this time), music, circus, theater … No activity seems to attract him, except paintings maybe, very strange paintings indeed (very fond of yellow … kind of yellow monochromes)


Technological solutions : We are just about buying Dragon Naturally Speaking so that he can "write" things by himself. Seems like there are no French equivalent to learning ally, but we read a lot of books to him and he enjoys that (he could listen for hours till his parents exhaustion… I remember reading him the first harry potter book and a Jules Vernes's book last year … but we mostly read book for his age). A voice recorder sounds like a good idea. He likes taking photos, movies and we let him do his things with that … We should encourage him more and praise more his photos and movies (even if it's often quite strange too …. looks like David Lynch's stuff)

I think that I have to think about "Believing in himself is essential to his being interested in learning. For my boy, I told him that we would do whatever was needed to help him learn what he was interested in and then helped him figure out what that was. At the time, it was oceans and sea animals. We got lots of materials and worked through it together and his face lit up to know he really COULD learn. " from master_of_none. That's somehow comes with the Special Time concept described by Grinity. It is definitely something we (the mother and I) have to deal with. We try to spend time with him, but our investment is not as high as you describe it. Nevertheless, this requires time and time is a thing we are always struggling with … He is always late with the simpliest things (getting dressed, eating, …) We use a Time Timer to help him with time going on, but he seems just not to care about that …

ABQMom : point 1 : Do you mean that we should present him the idea of his "exceptionality" ? Well, I am not convinced by that … First, I do not like people who think they are superior (well, indeed, that's my problem and not my son's one). Secondly, he is aware of his intelligence and says things like "my intelligence serves me nothing". On the other hand, he daily faces his differences ( and more and more strongly at the present time"). So, explaining him that the reasons of these differences are exactly the basis of his strengths might be helpful … I am just unsure about that.

Point 2 : we exactly do as you tell because we are convinced that he has to learn to struggle, even if at the present time after struggling the results are not very exciting (that renders his will to struggle lower and lower …)

Point 3 : I already dealt that point

Point 4 : Well we still do not have found the thing that he will truly enjoy. Very hard to find one, indeed. I am very fond of music, play the guitar (I am not very good). I wish he likes music, but up-to-date, I do not find a way to make him enter this marvelous place. I still hope he will but I do not want to force him (I was ..). I also like sports, I wish I can play soccer or tennis with him but he just does not care about sport. His uncle is a climbing teacher (a very good climber), but my son does not care also.

Point 5 : I am just here to learn more on 2e than I can find in France. I am happy to be able to dialog with people who face or faced the same challenge. Home schooling, an option ? Well, yes since both I and the mother work, but who knows …I guess it will be hard moneywise.

Point 6 : I already dealt that point


Well, I quit right now … too tired.
Thank you for reading me and for your answers

Firstly, you are doing a great job.

Secondly, in regards to some of the ADHD comments - kids with ADHD often have no concept of the passage of time. They need constant reminders of how long they have to finish their task. Have you talked to the doctor about a non-stimulant ADHD medication? There are several now, and many have success with them. My son is currently taking Tenex (the short-acting version of Inntuiv) and it has made a huge difference in his behavior.

Good luck!

Wow. Life sounds hard for your family and your son. A few questions for you:

1) can you outline a pattern for the current behavior, when did problems start appearing, what the evolution was and how/when you got the diagnosis (ADHD/dyslexia)? Who did you see, when (how old was he), and did you get all the labels at the same time? Do you have detailed scores for the WISC-IV (all domains and subscores)?

2) what's going on at school? What grade is he in? CE1/2nd grade? What month was he born in (is he young for that grade?)? Is he showing the same behavior issues there? How are the teachers handling his differences -- both the giftedness and the learning disabilities? If you are about to get an AVS (note to other participants: special assistant = 1:1 aide within a mainstream classroom) I am guessing the situation is not good there, but... more details?

3) How does he do with other kids? Does he have siblings? Friends? At school? Outside of school?

4) You said you went through 3 dyslexia specialists. What didn't work with the previous ones, what works with this one?

I don't know if it has been recommended yet but if you can read it without spending months laboring over the translations try ordering this book: http://www.amazon.com/Misdiagnosis-Diagnoses-Gifted-Children-Adults/dp/0910707677. It goes through basically all the DSM-IV labels (including ADHD and ASD, because the behaviors you describe don't scream ADHD to me, but then I am not a specialist) and tries to distinguish gifted symptoms from other symptoms.

Re. reading, how did he react to the higher level texts you reqd to him? Did you try books on tape? Books that are appropriate for his probably low reading level might be excruciatingly boring to him.

And I would definitely talk with him about his exceptionalities -- if only to say that you understand how frustrating it can be to have so many ideas and such a hard time getting them out.

Lastly... Your written English is good enough, but I have no idea how hard it is for you to type this all out (and/or read other people's posts). I'd rather keep this discussion going in English, because you will get more useful feedback from other people with better knowledge of your issues this way, mais je peux parfaitement continuer la conversation en français ou clarifier des traductions si nécessaire.

And yes, that, too.

Technology solutions: record yourself reading those books. Then you won't get exhausted as quickly.

Have you had him evaluated for Asperger's Syndrome (AS)? Some of the things you mention make me think very much of it.

The limited range of topics that he is willing to engage with is one strong sign that makes me think about Asperger's. This is one of the hallmarks of the diagnosis. (You can use these interests to help gain cooperation with schoolwork by incorporating them into assignments, especially if you homeschool, BTW.)

The fact that what he says will often not make sense to you is another one of these signs: we spent years with my son who is diagnosed AS asking him "What are you talking about? Please give us some context. What does that have to do with what we are discussing or doing?" He was initially very resistant to this, because he really didn't seem to understand that we had a different perspective and didn't automatically know everything that he knew, or what he had been thinking, or what he had seen, or what associations he was making. He would just start talking in the middle of a thought stream that had been going through his head, and expect us to know what he meant and what he was referring to - sometimes in words of his own devising. It was infuriating and frustrating for all of us - from his perspective, we were just being obnoxious and controlling by making him conform to some arbitrary speech pattern we wanted where he had to give background information first, instead of just listening to what he had to say. He has gotten much better about this, but it has taken a long, long time, and it will still happen sometimes, but he will usually self-correct now if we just say "What?"

Kids with AS often have real problems with transitions, and have to be warned ten minutes in advance, then five minutes, then two minutes, then one minute, in order to avoid a complete emotional breakdown when they have to "switch gears" and stop any activity, but particularly one that they are enjoying, especially if they are having to stop something they enjoy to do something difficult that they hate. Some of the out-of-control behavior that you are seeing when you try to get him to stop playing to do schoolwork may be a manifestation of something like this. (A good technique for handling this is to not only give frequent reminders about the coming transition, but to try to arrange activities so that the fun stuff comes after the not-so-fun-but-required stuff, so that there is a reward for getting through the unpleasant things, and the thing that comes after the transition is something to look forward to.)

The still eating with his hands could be related to fine motor challenges, or it could be a sensory behavior either related to not liking the feel or taste of utensils or to seeking the sensation of touching the food. Both of these (motor challenges and sensory avoidant and/or sensory seeking behaviors) are common in kids with AS.

I'm not trying to diagnose your son over the internet, but I wanted to make sure that this was considered

One more thing to consider: Ritalin can make some kids more impulsive and irritable, and it can cause confusion and uncontrolled speech, so you may want to discuss this possibility with the physician who prescribed it, since your child is on a high dose, is getting violent with you while on the medicine, and you noted that his speech can be incoherent.

I hope we can help you find the answers that your family needs.

I would agree with aculady, although these days I see AS everywhere .

I hope that's not the case, because 1) finding somebody to diagnose is going to be tough and 2) treatment options are... not good in France. Refrigerator mothers and institutionalization are mainstream diagnosis/treatment for ASD out there

Hi everybody,

I am currently trying to find the time to answer back your very interesting answers ... But I am right now on the edge of a nervous breakdown or so ... The mother cries, says she hates her son, herself and I. She is so anxious, wants to change my son from school (that's not easy in France except in the private system but the close private schools are completly booked) ... she finds quite expensive solutions ... All that makes me anxious too ... I am so tired right now ...
She said to me that I am losing my time on this forum ...
Well I am truly sorry not to answer as fast as I wish, but I am just struggling to breath... Hope you understand.

We understand completely.

Raoul, I'm so sorry. The good news is that children learn and grow-- it will not always be like this.

We have found it useful to hire a college student to work with our son after school-- the student takes direction from our son's psychologist and occupational therapist, is very likeable and helps our son achieve his goals. Crucially, this also gives us a break. I wonder if you can do something like this? Because yes, it can be maddening.

DeeDee

Really we do. Having a child with special needs kid is known to be very hard on a marriage. Maybe just keep things with DS as they are for the next month and just put energy into loving the wife.

My favorite book on parenting is called 'Transforming the Difficult Child Workbook' by Lisa Bravo and Howard Glasser.

Breath. Love. Take care of the whole family which includes you.

If possible make a list of all the ways you spend your time and all your obligations. Seeing it on paper might help get it out of your head. My DH and I did couples counseling when the going got particularly rough.

Hope that helps
Grinity

Raoul,

This is a really small point with all that you are dealing with. And I could be wrong. I am no neuroscientist. As I understand it, the physical or genetic trait most strongly associated with intelligence is the quality of insulation (myelin) on the connections between brain cells. It's almost as if the functioning of your computer can best be explained by the quality of the insulation on your ethernet cable.

For some reason, I find this idea oddly comforting. It helps me get over the difference between myself and people with lower IQs. Some of them may still get freaked out by me reading upside down or speaking Chinese, so I try not to do things like that in front of them.

One day, when you can sit down and listen to something in English for twenty minutes or so, you should sit down and listen to the Black Hole Son portion of this program:

http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/207/special-ed

Or you can read the transcript for the whole program, which is found here:

http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/207/transcript

Hi everybody,

I finally find the time to answer. It does not mean that everything is back in order (indeed till my son was born, nothing is in order), but the situation is less critical right now (for how long ????). Anyway, thank you for your support and understanding…

My "wife" (we are not married) cried several times last week, feeling lost by my son's behavior. … She is so anxious about school also … So I am, but in a different way … let's say with less guts.

Concerning the drugs, it looks like that there are only three medications available in France from normal drugstores (not easily). They are all based on the same active molecule as Ritalin. And, up to my knowledge, they are the only ones our neurologist prescribes … And honestly, we do have hesitated giving those drugs to our child.

Before answering SIaSL in details, I will deal with the Asperger issue. Indeed, we are in the process of passing diagnostics by a specialized psychologist (in April). Many of its behavior lead to think about that (it is surprising that after just 2 posts describing my son, Asperger is quoted … many psychiologists in France would argue the mother with her too huge love for his son, claiming that high potential, ADHD are just fantasy, while taking the money and making the parents losing their time … we lived that for 18 very painful months). Nevertheless, my son has rather good social skills. He can talk with anyone easily .. OK, the way he communicates can seem rather weird. Besides, he is not afraid of changing routines. He also has a lot of humour (he very easily understands wordplays and formulates ones of his own). His present psychologist said us that there are different Asperger level… Honestly, I do not know what to think about this hypothesis and I am unsure that passing the diagnostic will convince me that he is or isn't Asperger. What do you mean SIaSL about being Asperger in France ?

Thank you aculady for your interesting comments. One of the big problems of transitions with our son is that we work as you propose for the homeworks (advance warnings, fun stuffs after the homework and other hard things). But that does not work …

As far as hiring someone for the homework, we tried that but several home-teachers simply quit after a few tries …

Now, the answers to SIaSL :
1) "can you outline a pattern for the current behavior, when did problems start appearing, what the evolution was and how/when you got the diagnosis (ADHD/dyslexia)? Who did you see, when (how old was he), and did you get all the labels at the same time? Do you have detailed scores for the WISC-IV (all domains and subscores)?"

My son had problem to sleep when he was a baby. I remember his first full-nights at the age of 18 months and our hope … Well, it lasted 3 days or so and he finally left us sleep normally at about 2.5. He started walking at 11 months, started to speak rather early but not very early, but he was described as having a pretty good vocabulary at the day-care center. Problems really started appearing at the "maternelle" school (guess it is kindergarten in the US). During these 3 years, all his teachers told that he was very kind, had friends but he did not work at all .. He was just here doing nothing else than being bored. It started seeing a psychologist during these years at 4.5 or so… This f**** (sorry can't find anything else to describe her) psychologist just told us that there was nothing to do except waiting he stopped being immature. Told that we were just too anxious, that the mother was too close to our child, that we did not do the good things … My wife was on therapy, I was and we were on a couple counseling. All these so-called professional were just in a deny of High Potential when we talked about that. Indeed, at the age of 5, his teacher told us that she understood nothing to our son and that she thought about a High Potential. Anyway, my wife accepted this denial and I had to struggle 6 months to make her recognize all that. After she had acknowledged we were running in a dead-end with this psychologist, a pediatrician sent us to a good psychologist who sent us to a speech therapist. Our son was them measured as being late in reading learning. A WISC IV was passed at the age of 6 and 2 months. The scores were :

VCI : 155
Vocabulary : 19
Similarities : 19
Comprehension : 19

PRI : 135
Block design : 14
Picture Concepts : 19
MAtrix : 14

WMI : 115
Digit span : 14
Arithmetic : 11

PSI : 83
Coding : 7
Symbol search : 7

Based on that, a neurologist diagnose ADHD ( last year at the age of 6) and gave him a long-delivery Ritalin equivalent. Things then improved at school, but not that much and definitely not at home: it was the beginning of rebellion, violence, tantrums …. But, the progresses at school were not as expected. He refused to write most of the time, had a lot of difficulty to read compared to his school friends. The big thing with the drugs was that he stopped making the clown and disturbed the class (an important point for the teacher who was so disappointed just after 3 weeks of school in September 2010). It also clearly helped him in having a readable writing. This school year (CE1 indeed as suggested by SIaSL … 2nd grade in the US I guess ?) was getting really bad .. No progress. We changed speech therapist for one of the best in our countryside. She told us that he is dyslexic and dyscalculic (at the age of 7). He presently sees her 3 times a week and it seems that he finally starts reading not as fluently as the other children, but he reads much better now …



"2) what's going on at school? What grade is he in? CE1/2nd grade? What month was he born in (is he young for that grade?)? Is he showing the same behavior issues there? How are the teachers handling his differences -- both the giftedness and the learning disabilities? If you are about to get an AVS (note to other participants: special assistant = 1:1 aide within a mainstream classroom) I am guessing the situation is not good there, but... more details?"

What's going on at school ??? What a huge question …. He was born in july. As I said the drug helps him controlling himself and probably focusing, but most of the time the teacher writes in his place and tries to question him verbally. I guess she is doing great job and as much as she can, but he is not alone in the classroom. That is why we and she asked for a special assistant in the classroom, but we are still waiting for her coming. His giftedness is definitely not taken into account. But as SIaSL who seems to know how things work in France should know, it is quite dangerous in France to stress on giftedness care. Indeed, the reaction of many teachers can be kind of "if you are so intelligent, you should succeed. So leave me alone". So we prefer insisting on the difficulties to find some help. One of the big anxiety source of the mother is her questioning on his possible grade repeating … French schooling is much based on writing, so my son is facing a lot of problems. The reason for this thread is precisely on the giftedness care at home, just to overcome this lack at school.

"3) How does he do with other kids? Does he have siblings? Friends? At school? Outside of school?"
Everything did work pretty well with other kids till the end of kindergarten. He had a lot of friends, boys and girls, although he was different. He was kind of with them but not at the same place (on the moon or somewhere else). As an example, when neighbors played soccer (you know the strange game where you just can touch the ball with the feet), he could run in any directions or played bumping the other players or simply take a chalk-stone and draw things on the asphalt. Last year (when he was 6), he had less and less boy friend but still had a lot of girl friends. But with the girls getting older and gathering between girls, my son is more and more alone. He is definitely not interested by the same things as the others. Outside of school … no friends although we are living in a small village ( he used to have some)


He has a sister, 5 year-old. She is a magic girl, understand his brother difference, often hide things she can do to her brother ( I guess she is quite intelligent and that is much more easy to acknowledge than for his brother). She starts reading almost by herself, uses a very elaborated vocabulary. (she starts also being bored at school).She easily entered her brother imagination and can play for a long time with him until things get bad (but I guess it the case in every family). That gives surrealistic discussions between them during meals where the mother and I cannot say a word …


"4) You said you went through 3 dyslexia specialists. What didn't work with the previous ones, what works with this one?"

The first one was too young. She did too simple things with our son. The second one was better but did a lot of things by playing. She said our son is exceptional ...Such assertions were not what we were waiting for. We wanted our son to enter reading. We did not see any progress with both of them. Moreover, our son is very strong in obtaining what he wants: he simply turned these specialists as he wants. Now, the specialist is very experienced and succeeds in making him work on exercises he would have refused to do with the others.



"Re. reading, how did he react to the higher level texts you reqd to him? Did you try books on tape? Books that are appropriate for his probably low reading level might be excruciatingly boring to him."
During reading higher level texts, he is always very attentive, asks questions on the terms he does not understand. He anticipates a lot. For example, when I read him "around the world in 80 days" from Jules Vernes in its integral version, he quickly told me that the thief was phileas fogg before I even thought about that (well at the end of the book it is not phileas fogg …). I guess I should try books on tape, but the mother does not truly agree with that.


"And I would definitely talk with him about his exceptionalities -- if only to say that you understand how frustrating it can be to have so many ideas and such a hard time getting them out."
Well, we did not have done that .. We should think about that …

Well it is quite late. I go to sleep

Thank you again for your answers.

Your son's verbal scores are so very high. It's going to make 'figuring him out' very difficult. What does Aspergers look like in a kid with 155 verbal IQ? Do you know how many kids you'd have to gather to find 10 more with both Aspergers and Verbal IQ of 155 or over?

Wordplay is a classic favorite of Gifted+Aspergers folks.

If you can get through reading - Different Minds: Gifted Children with AD/HD, Asperger Syndrome, and Other Learning Deficits
http://www.grcne.com/

I think you will find it useful long term - but believe me, it's a difficult book to get through in my native English! Very Dense.

Smiles,
Grinity

This 155 is quite weird ... Honestly, I am quite surprized with that result (moreover he was not yet on ritalin then) and it is quite hard to believe and I am doubtful with this score. I wish I would have been there during the tests. I do not know how the psychologist did work with him. The fact is that the psychologist did receive our son something like 10 times before the tests and enter a good relationship with him. I think that if he had passed the tests the first time he met her, his verbal score might have been less than 100 (I am quite sure about that). If you do not know how to manage my son, it is very hard to get him do something you want him to do, unless he wants it too.
He is so disconcerting....
Anyway, he is smart and intelligent, but that intelligent just leave me stunned ...

this book (Different Minds: Gifted Children with AD/HD, Asperger Syndrome, and Other Learning Deficits )seems interesting, but does it deal with how to manage with those kids or does it rather deal with theoretical things ?

I have some limits in reading English. I can easily read books like "the wave" or scientific books (physics, chemistry) (I mean without the need to open a dictionnary every minute) but I tried to read "the human stain" in English and it was too hard for me (at least for the time I can spend on reading)

just a point for aculady about hand-eating ... I had a lot of problems in accepting that, I "fought" a lot. The psychologists (the bad ones) told us not to deal with that problem and said that he will stop one day or another ... So I stopped bothering him with that. I just tell him to take his fork 3 or 4 times a meal.

Anyway, at the kindergarten (from 3 to 6 year old), he ate normally !!! His eating-towels were almost clean. And up to now, nobody complained about how he eats at school (except for he is very slow and eats almost nothing).

Just a little question from a French ignorant ...What are those DS everybody write about ? I guess DS10 is something like my 10year-old child ... Do DS stand for Daughter/Son ?

DS stands for Dear Son (other adjectives can mentally replace Dear, if desired). See this thread for other abbreviations:
http://giftedissues.davidsongifted....of_Common_Gifted_Acronyms.html#Post13990

Different minds is very theoretical....If your want a book that just teaches what to do now, try 'Transforming the Difficult Child Workbook'....strangly the Workbook has all the theory that the original book had but more concise. So you only need the Workbook. It is by Lisa Bravo.

I find the hand eating worrysome because it wasn't always like that.

Here is a sample of how Transforming Workbook works using the hand eating:

Some children find any attention reinforcing...positive or negative. Stop comments to 'Use Fork' at the table since they are providing a positive reward for a negative behavior. Then look for ways to make comments that notice any good table manners, such as
You wiped your hand on a napkin...what shows good table manners.
You looked at your fork, I wonder if you were thinking about using it to eat your potatoes.
I see you are using a spoon to eat your soup, good job of using utensiles.

Of course if you are silently fuming about the bad behaviors while mechanically saying the words it won't work. The workbook really helps with that. My idea is to start the experiment by keeping tracks of how many positive thought you have about your child during today on a little piece of paper and see if tomorrow you can beat your score.

Your son can not possible fake getting 19 on his IQ test even though it is quite true that some children clam up with strangers. Especially children who have learned that adults might react negatively to their vocabulary level. Is your son any good at reading body language in adults?

I have also had the experience of being told that my kid's problems were because I was 'too close' to him as a Mother. Looking back I would guess that 65% of what caused that was that having Verbal IQ over 140 is very stressful to a toddler and I was reacting to his pain and fear. 10% was because I missed having close friends who I could deeply connect with and I was delighted to interact with such a fine mind and 25% my own unidentified giftedness leading me to do everything I did so intensely. I didn't read 3 parenting books...I read 37 books. I didn't make resolutions to follow the good advice and then forget to do it...I followed through. So those are the reasons that caused me to end up acting in a way that looked to some like I was overinvolved.

If you want to print this out to share with your partner I would be honored to be a guest in your family.

Love and more Love
Grinity

While my son's scores on the WISC-IV are nowhere near as high as your son's, the pattern of highs and lows is very similar - high VCI, lower PRI, very low PSI. My son has significant fine motor deficits and some visual processing problems that are not picked up with an ordinary eye exam - left-sided visual neglect, scotopic sensitivity, problems with tracking and convergence, poor figure-ground discrimination, and so on. He also has formal diagnoses of Asperger's Syndrome and Disorder of Written Expression.

The problems with motor output, visual processing, and visual-motor coordination (which correspond to the very low PSI scores,and which adversely impacted the PRI) make it very difficult for him to write legibly, and even harder for him to write legibly and still think about the content of what he is writing while he is writing. When he was your son's age, my son really needed a scribe to record what he wanted to say: the mismatch between what he had in his head and what he was able to get out of it on paper was so huge that it was too frustrating for him to even try - trying to write by hand made him feel stupid and he felt that it was useless.

Kindergarten was miserable; he was constantly depressed and frustrated because everything was either too easy or too hard. This rapidly progressed to outright refusal or avoidance behavior when asked to do anything involving a writing task or really any visual or motor task that he didn't think he'd be able to do, or anything that he'd mastered so long ago that he felt it was insulting. He had a choice of trying to do the work and having evidence stare him in the face that he was incapable, or refusing and getting consequences for being disobedient, but not being ashamed of not being able to complete the written work acceptably (which he clearly saw was not difficult for others). He would rather have been seen as disobedient than as stupid. Refusing to work allowed him to preserve some shred of his self esteem, but at a huge cost. The consequences of being in this kind of a school situation were a big part of our decision to homeschool.

As he got older, he learned to use the keyboard independently, and that has worked reasonably well for him, but it doesn't for some kids.If what he is trying to write is very complex or difficult, he still benefits from using a scribe so that he doesn't have to concentrate at all on the motor planning part of things.

Based on my experiences with my own child, "work" that is appropriate to the PSI level or that requires a lot of motor output or handwriting, but is not at or at least near the challenge point for the VCI and PRI level is a recipe for disaster.

Specialized occupational therapy to help rehabilitate the visual issues was incredibly helpful in improving my son's reading speed and fluency, BTW.

There are other things besides motor skills deficits and visual problems that can cause a low PSI score, including ADHD, but I wanted to be sure you knew that ADHD is often not the main problem with a score profile like this.

I don't know if my son would count as one of Grinity's 10 gifted/Asperger's data points, but I wanted to put it out there for you.

well, he had "motor skills" tests (I do not know the English for "motor skills" therapist). None of them made the therapist think about motor problems ... Nevertheless, when I observ him, I think he is often embarrassed by his own body, but not that much.
He has visual preocessing problems (not that much) and he is followed by a therapist for that.

This needs a long reply I don't really have time for right now, but I see that Grinity and aculady have given excellent (as usual) feedback I won't cover again. Just add my +1s


Pretty much this:


Was she Freudian or Lacanian? (this forum sorely lacks my most useful emoticon, the eye roll). Yep, France is still hung up on the refrigerator mother theory of autism, and the most commonly available "therapy" is Freudian psycho-analysis.

http://www.soutenonslemur.org/2012/...-sur-la-situation-de-lautisme-en-france/ (in French)

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/20/h...utism-strongly-criticized-in-france.html (in English)

(the subject of autism treatment in France is currently high visibility -- http://www.soutenonslemur.org/ is anti-psy but has a good collection of press clips on the subject).

This might also be helpful: http://www.aspergeraide.com/index.php (French)


Well, that VIQ/IQ is going to make ruling Asperger's in/out tricky. I hope the person you are meeting with has experience with that combo (the 1/10,000 IQ, the undefined "other(s)")


But it helped some with classroom behaviors...

ADHD and meds is not my... area of interest but I would be wondering about aggression appearing right after the drugs were started. Have you talked with the neurologist about the home issues? Have your tried weaning him off the meds, maybe during the last summer vacations, to see if the aggressive behavior went away?

I hope somebody with more experience (and especially someone who has gone through several med protocols) can chime in here.


But... it won't be enough. Unfortunately.

Yes, I am familiar (well, 30 years out of date familiar) with the situation in France. I am French, although I have been living in the US for a while now (and with my own maybe 2E child, not going back anytime soon).

Retention (redoublement) is only going to make things worse for him, I am afraid, but a grade skip (which would be much exponentially easier to get than in the US) won't help either.

Drawing a blank on suggestions. Homeschooling is probably not an option (parental sanity seems to be in serious danger as it is). Has the speech therapist (orthophoniste), who seems to get him, been able to give any suggestions on keeping his mind fed *at school* while working at his comprehension level? The fact that the teacher scribes for him is actually wonderful.


A lot of warning signs for Asperger's there, down to the playing preferentially with girls.

A lot of warning signs for a PG child who is increasingly disconnected from age peers and their interests and starting to shut down.

The fact that he connects so well with his sister, who is probably his only intellectual peer in your village, is... a good thing.

And BTW, is the school thinking about skipping her (sauter un classe)? Because she might need it. Soon.



Because she wants him to read instead? What about reading lower level books and listening to things a 7 year old wouldn't be expected to read anyway?

Ergotherapeute? That would be an OT is the US.

My son is about 6 months older than yours, nowhere as high [1] on the gifted scale, and got a formal diagnosis of Asperger's last spring. We are struggling daily with similar issues (including nagging worries about stealth dyslexia, although he is currently reading at or above grade level in 2 of his 3 languages).

And I finally (stupid blinking envelope) saw your PM. More there in French...





[1] although after reading another post on the DAS-II in the archives it is possible that his verbal IQ on that test, with tests administered at a lower than recommended level (because of the multilingual issue?) but still well within the norming scale *might* add up to ~145. His VIQ on the WISC was 99

Raoul,

I unfortunately don't have time to read thoroughly all the replies since your last reply or to put together a well-thought out response at the moment, but I wanted to let you know that many of us here no doubt understand all too well how difficult life must be right now for your son, as well as for you. Although my ds does not have ADHD, he has a similar (although not quite as large) split between Processing Speed and the other portions of the WISC. Back when he was the age of your ds and we were just finding out what his challenges were life was just absolutely the pits at times - school was a mess, our son was beyond frustrated and anxious, and we (parents) were clueless. Although I can't help read enough at the moment to help with specific advice, I wanted to let you know - once you get past those first years of figuring out what's up, learning all you can about your child's challenges, and then advocating to get him what he needs at school - life really really does get much better. It's still very different than it would have been raising a neurotypical child, but you'll get back some of what seems lost right now.

Back in your original post you asked the question, how can you help raise your son's self-esteem - so for today, I'll go back to just answering that question. While you keep trying your best to understand his challenges, be sure to take time just to be with him, to read to him, to have fun playing with him - anything he loves to do.

polarbear

My daughter has a boy classmate. His parents are experimenting with ADHD medicines. The current one helps during school hours. But after school, something is happening with the medicine that makes him very aggressive. He is hitting everyone on the playground. Even the most loyal friends and their parents are pulling away because he is hurting their children. His mother has to go back to the doctor and see what they can do next.

So, it might be good to call the pediatrician and talk about the aggression. There could be a link between the new aggression and the medicine. Every parent I've known who chooses medicines for their child's issues has gone through an experimental stage with dosage, types, and timing.

Also, with very intelligent children, there is that huge difference between intellect and maturity. I read a few years ago that the age between 4 and 9 for "asynchronous development" is the most difficult. It does get better with time as the gap closes. Also when there is more available to the child to channel their intellect.

I give you much credit for all of your reading and translating. If I had to go on a French (or any other language!) site to get help it just would not happen. It is very impressive. Best of luck.

Hi, Raoul--


Yes, this is tremendously stressful on parents. This is why I advocate finding some respite help (someone to look after your son and give you a break sometimes)-- it doesn't have to be a tutor, anyone who can keep him safe and occupied can give you space to breathe.


I think you're right to look at this possibility.


Raoul, nobody with any sense believes that about mothers and so forth. That is 1950s pseudoscience. I am appalled that a professional said that to you.


None of this rules out Asperger's, and the "weird" communication rather suggests it.


There has been recent news coverage here suggesting that children with autism are not well treated in France, with some families traveling to neighboring countries to seek treatment.


Raoul, for my DS9 (who has Asperger's) ADHD meds alone would not work at all. The stimulant increases focus but also creates more anxiety-- which is intolerable. We found that our DS needs an SSRI (antidepressant) to decrease anxiety. This also helps him tolerate the ADHD med. If I had to live without one of these drugs, I would omit the ADHD med and keep the SSRI-- it has been very important for him to live with less anxiety, and he has flourished since we chose this path.


My DS found soccer impossible too. It's better now (he's 9). He is better at sports like swimming, which are more orderly and don't require figuring out a whole crowd of people at once.


It will be important for him to know that he learns and thinks differently from other people; that he has some wonderful skills and abilities; and that his differences are not his fault. The sooner this becomes an accepted topic of conversation in your family, the better. My DS went through an awful time of blaming himself for his bad behavior; now he knows why, and it's easier for him to accept that he makes these mistakes sometimes. Very important for self-esteem.

Best wishes--
DeeDee

Just a quick comment for tonight on

Well believe it or not, in France, it is not a specialist but most specialists who say this kind of stupid things to parents who are already so anxious and desperate... I just simply hate them now. Most of psychologists do not even know about neuroscience and believe that Freud or Lacan said everything possible concerning human nature ... I am speaking of nowadays and not of 50 years ago... I had to face psychologists who assured us that giftedness is just a parental construction ... I am used to be on a French forum on ADHD and almost every family started their obstacle course by such experience with psychologist just making families guilty. And it can last very very long. For us, it lasts "only" something like 18 months, but some families can be followed in French official institution without any diag (ADHD, giftedness, ASperger, ...) for years and years.

Moreover, shrinks (a word learnt in Woody Allen's moovies :)) are not the only one. You can find about half of the OTs who are of psycholanalytic obedience

Concerning Austism, I do not know if in the US, you heard about the movie "le mur" (The Wall in English ... nothing to do with Pink Flyod...) but it is very typical of how stupid some shrinks can be ... . SIaSL also wrote about that movie too in her last answer.

Well, I'll try tomorrow to write about what interests me : my DS and your once again very interesting answers (many of you could be better than the large majority of French psychologists .... )

I believe you. It's just horrifying and sad.

The coverage I saw, which suggests that many French families are seeking care in Belgium as medical refugees, was here:

http://thinkingautismguide.blogspot.com/2012/01/culture-of-abuse-autism-care-in-france.html

DeeDee

ETA: the film (The Wall) is here in entirety. http://www.supportthewall.org/2011/12/watch-the-wall-le-mur-by-sophie-robert/

I will try this one ... In fact we bought some books on the education of difficult children. They are mainly read by DW. But every "recipes" we tried had been working (tense??) for some days and collapsed ... We tried pictograms, time timer, barkley solution with tokens and rewards. I do not know if the collapsing of these tries is because we are not good enought at that or because DS simply does not want to play the game any longer.


Well I am not fuming anymore. Let's say I am just resigned ... I just simply tell him to take his fork being neutral. Anyway, I will try as you proposed ...


Can you be more precise about what you think, please ? For me, this behavior is one great enigma. I have an explanation of my own. But I rather ear yours before (if any), just not to influence.

The reason why I do not give full credit on this result is more in relation with the psychologist than to a possible faking of my son. Well from preceding posts, you may understand that psychologists (at least the French ones) are not my friends. Anyway, I can not see why she would have "cheat". Moreover, after her explanation of the results she told us that even if DS may have some psy-problems, she thought that with such discrepancies in the scores, we should better see other specialists to deal with compensating his problems. The fact is that she was impressed by our son during his sessions with her. As an example, she reported us that during one session, DS took a kind of maze-game in her office and succeeded sponteanously on the first try without any explanations on what to do. This game was a support to test kids up to 16-years old. She said that it took her 2 or 3 tries to succeed knowing what to do. It is very hard to believe when you are facing a child with such great difficulties at school and at home. She also told us that during the tests DS was walking around in her office taking small objects, looking around, not truly focusing while answering her questions. This is so hard to believe ... I have no doubt that my DS is intelligent but he is as intelligent as the others and I do not see any differences in the real life (from the intelligence point of view). It was only with this woman that he accomplished such great things.

Well, he is just amazing at that .. Actually, much better than reading in books . Of course, it is more a feeling than anything very tangible. One problem is that I think that he can literally play with that capabality. I think that is why the first two speech therapists did not succeed with him... he did.


You are wellcome ... I do not print your answers, but actually I shared them with her.

A global answer on the medecine concern just to let you understand the situation in my countryside (it is the same for many people in France, except maybe those from Paris).
So in my countryside, there are only 2 neuro-pediatricians which are truly specialized in children behavior problems (may be 2 or 3 more are aware of). To meet those specialists, you have to take a rendez-vous at least 7 or 8 months before. We see ours once a year. In case of problem, we just can call him and it is very hard to speak with him for more than 3 minutes. So when we change medecine, when DS faces sleeping problems due to ritalin, when new problems appears at school, this doctor just applies "recipes". It is just worrysome for me but we have no choice.
Just an example how can things happen with our neuropediatrician. The first time he saw our DS he told us that if we do not use ritalin, DS will just face a disaster at school ... Well it is clear that after such assertions, it is no use to explain to the parents the usefulness of that drug.
I am not truly blaming the doctors for that, I think that they do the best as they can for the maximum of people.

Well I will try a new thread for that issue because DS is on holydays right now without ritalin and I have to speak about that experience ...


I agree 100% with that.

Homeschooling is out of question at the present time. At least for 2 reasons : i) money and ii) I am not quite sure that DW will survive very long making school to DS. She is so anxious with that, so involved that it will end by a nervous breakdown ... It is not because I am doubting on the mother's capacilities. No the speech therapist (who is specialized in giftedness) did not say anything like that ... Anyway, what can she do in a school system where pupils have to all learn the same things, the same way. Those who are not on this pathline are just retarded, not gifted ... Untill now, the teachers of my son understood him and leave him alone with too much demands. They did and do not stigmatize him, and I am happy with that ... It is not the case of DW, but she wants so many things from them.



Well, we will study that point but the French system is not as flexible as that. Nevertheless, skipping can be easy or not depending a lot on your location, on the director of the school, on the numbers of pupils in each grade, on the director of the local county education administration ... Often you have to prove the giftedness, but that might not be enough ..

That's it ... Well, she wishes he can read so hard...

I get back to work now ... Answers to others later on. Sorry

I just wanted to throw out there that a lot of kids with ADHD combined with other issues (Aspergers, mood disorder, anxiety, etc) often have problems with stimulant medications like Adderall or Ritalin. We have found success with a non-stimulant called Tenex (or Inntuiv.)

One about kids with ADHD, rewards systems often do not work for them. They need immediate consequences or rewards. They may logically understand later that what they did was wrong, but in the moment, they are UNABLE to stop themselves. It's just the way ADHD works. It makes teaching them how to behave incredibly hard. Schools are often unable to provide the immediate reward/consequence they require. What we are doing with my son is a chart the teacher keeps on her desk. Anytime she sees him doing something good (finishing a worksheet quietly, lining up without incident, etc) he gets to check/color a box. It's such a tiny thing, but he gets to SEE, right away, that his being good is being recorded. Plus, he knows that if he does well all week, he'll get some sort of reward on Saturday (racing R/C cars with his dad, or a special Lego project.)

Good luck. I don't know if it's possible for you to obtain a non-stimulant ADHD medication where you are, but I would push for it.

Well, unfortunatly, our neuropediatrician only seems to precribe ritalin or so ... And I do not have heard of any other medicines in France except in special cases with very special hospital protocol ... But I will check that point.

the chart in school seems a pretty good system ... I will try to talk about that with his teacher. Thank You

I don't have any clear picture but in my family it's quite normal for young boys to eat with their hands. No one likes it, but it's mostly ignored. We all start out 'rather floppy' in terms of coordination and strength, and catch up in our 20s.
No sports stars in our high school years.

None of those kids started with a fork and went to hands, though. It's sort of 'assumed' that these boys just aren't coordinated or patient enough to use a fork until they 'grow into themselves.' Eventually the children grow up and start to care about how their peers percieve them and start using a fork - at the older age they are more motivated and more coordinated as well so it isn't as much work.

At our house we use the expression, 'is this the hill you want to die on?' when judging which of the child's behavior needs to be corrected. Things like kindness to others, being on time, and love of learning seemed so all consuming that I dodged the question of manners. If I had been using the 'Transforming the difficult child workbook' back then I would have known how to give a correction without all the effort and heartache (maybe) and things might have been different. We will never know.

I myself hold the fork in the right hand and the knife in the left hand, which I understand is normal in Europe, but I've gotten plenty of negative comments about this in the U.S. Here my understanding is that folks pick up the knife with their right hand to cut, and then rest it on the plate, and then pick up the fork with the right hand and so forth back and forth. This seems way to complicated to me, but the fact that I didn't 'naturally' notice what others do and immitate them shows some mild motor planning issues/attention issues. Frankly, while I'm eating I want to relax and not worry about a dirty knife sliding off the plate and one the table cloth.

All of this fall under the general catagory of what my son calls: 'What is easy for me is hard for others, and what is hard for me is easy for other kids.' I'm glad that he is getting the idea early that giftedness doesn't equal perfection in all areas. It took me rather longer to get that message.

We also have a French family who are family friends, and my husband warned us that table manners are a much more deeply held value for them than for us. This may not be true for your family, but if it is, and your son used to be able to use the fork with some automaticity, the fact that he isn't now may point to the idea that his overall 'capasity' to do difficult things is low right now. I'd also want a medical doctor to make sure there isn't a disease interfering with his strength or coordination.

Peace and Smiles,
Grinity

Point of information: nope, definitely not! The only Europeans I've ever seen eat like that were convention-defying left-handers, and in fact almost all the left-handers I know still eat with the knife in the right hand, as the right-handers do. However...
Yes, that American way of eating looks weird here! Here's what British people do:
1) Usually, and always in formal settings: hold the knife in the right hand and the fork in the left. Use both to cut and use the fork to lift food to the mouth. Importantly, the fork always stays in the left hand and always has its tines curving downwards: irrationally, you're simply not allowed to turn it over to make it a more effective shovel.
2) Informally, with food not requiring cutting: use a fork only, hold it in the right hand, and use it with tines curving upwards.
If you're going to use method (2), you have to use it for the entire course; you can't start with (1) and then switch to (2).

Yup, and beware also the things that are compulsory good manners in France which would be bad manners in Britain - e.g. the need to have hands below the table, when not in use, in Britain, but on the table in France, and the different positions to leave knife and fork in at the end of the meal. Argh!

whatever are the eating traditions in France, DS rules out any good manners, at least at home. And even if I can seem quite strict about that from my post, I am quite open. But eating with my son at home is such a mess ...Hopefully, I do not believe in the disease hypothesis since he does well many things requiring fine motor skills (lego playing for instance) and actually eats quite correctly anywhere except at our home... Here is my explanation. DS (then aged 5.5) explained quite a few things to his shrink (the one who tested him). Especially, he told her that when he wanted to do something wrong, he just had to do it, wait that I and his mother argued one against the other on his behavior and then he was able to do whatever he wanted because he was not anymore the matter of concern (I do not know if this is clear)... DW and I always were in disagreement about hand-eating. SO he found a good way to play with us. Now, she also has some problem with messy meals ... But, fortunatly (or not) we more or less gave up this fight.

I hope I didn't give the impression that you are strict, as I don't read that in, I was more wondering about how the extended family or neighbors were judging you and your partner based on your son's behavior. I think it's a shame when parents get isolated from their community because they happen to have a child who can't or won't live up to the prevailing expectations. This happens in the US over many things, I've been on the recieving end of several lectures over the years about my 'defective' parenting that are based on other people's judgement of my son's behavior. Thankfully that seemes to be over. I've had to 'ignore' the judgemental behavior and how it makes me feel so that I didn't become socially isolated at the time, and nowadays I get mostly compliments - not exactly revenge

la vengeance se mange très-bien froide

but I do try and enjoy the compliments now because I know how far we've come.

My son also seemed to use a lot of his vast intelligence making a social experiment any adults he could find who were willing to play. I'm not sure if this was his ADHD or his unusual high giftedness or a odd combination of both. I don't resent this, as I always hoped that parenting would help me grow into a more self-actualized person. As they say, 'Be careful what you wish for.'

The weird thing about my son is that even though he could 'see right through' my praising his good behavior, he has such a deep yearning for honest, undisputable, sincere praise that he - eventually - gave up using manipulation to get that thrill of being noticed. What is fasinating to me about these children is how much they are 'many aged' at once - thinking at one age, behaving at another age, feeling at a different age.

Smiles,
Grinity

Grinity, I am sorry, but I defenitely did not want to make you think I was offended. It is clear that I have an old-school side regarding manners , but not as much as it can be stereotyped for France (may be it is not good English, sorry). But strangely, the older I am getting, the more open I am. ANyway, I am not a man who can easily feel offended, be quiet about that.

It is clear that we are more and more isolated due to my son. Personnaly, I always lived without taking any care about what the others think about me (my friends and family not being in the others). Nevertheless, DW is very sensitive to the others judgement and all the more as this judgement concerns her DS. I just tell her not to care about, but it is fruitless ... She prefers that we stay apart than meeting the others (anyway, she and I are not very good with social stuffs)


FOr the moment, my son do not show that thrill. Alas ! Maybe it will come one day. What you're describing as being fascinating is just confusing for me ...May be it is because is so young...

Thanks Grinity

My son just has problems with tracking and convergence but I am not quite sure that he has been well diagnosed from the visual point of view. Indeed, I am quite sure that visual problems play a major part in his dyslexia, but the specialists (seeing therapist and speech)do not really hear me on that ... I am not a specialist
I do not know how it works in the US, but in France, specialists (and especially the doctors and professors) have the knowledge and you are just nothing for them (a bit caricatural but not very far from reality). So the game is to find the best ones and hope to be heard just a little bit. The few times I worked with people from North America I had the feeling to be heard even by well-known people in my working area.


I have the feeling that nothing is easy for my son at school. Kindergarten was not that bad for him, nevertheless, it was during this year that we truly realized that things were taking a bad turn and also that the teacher told us about giftedness (without her, maybe we would have still been in the ignorance, because we would not have considered that hypothesis). Also, during this year he often told us that he knew everything ... we just did not here him and said things like :"if that is easy, why don't you work ?" (actually we told him in French )

MAy be he's behaving as you say concerning desobedience.



Well, I guess we are into that ...

Thank you polarbear. We have to believe in better future for our son (and for us too), and what you said help us.

Thank you, but I love English (due to music and movies mainly) and it is often a working language for me (reading and writing). So do not give me too much credit for that, even if it requires some efforts for me. Believe me if people in the US would have speak german, things would have be much harder for me.

that's a very hard point for us. we have no family close to us and no close friends (at least who can understand our son behavior).

I guess we had to think about that can you please give me the name of the active molecule of the SSRI (in PM, if you prefer), so that I can see if there is French equivalent. Anyway, giving medecine to my son is a kind of problem for me. I am so desperate giving him ritalin each morning. I know that it helps him and that is why I do it ... And now antidepressant (any way, it is not as "hard" as a psyschostimulant as methylphenidate). thnk you for your feeling about that. I will clearly think about that and try to discuss with the neurologist (if I succeed to speak with him).


Many of the comments I had in this thread ended to that. You are probably right. We tried a few times to speak with DS about his presumed giftedness. It ended with him saying that his intelligence is useless. Nevertheless, I am again dealing with this issue with my wife and we will try again because we have now more experience in understanding how he behaves.

raoulpetite,
regarding "We tried a few times to speak with DS about his presumed giftedness. It ended with him saying that his intelligence is useless. "

I’m going to try and write about this, but my wording might not be that translatable...

My daughter (age 8) started saying similar things last year. I came to believe that if she's looking at it from the school's perspective (and parent's perspective, since they are "forcing" the schoolwork) she might come to believe that her type of intelligence is useless in that environment. For example, such a rich imagination, or creativity. This is not rewarded in a standard educational philosophy.

I tried to find things that connect working adults to the type of intelligence that she is so strong at (building, creating, imagining). Sometimes DVDs have a “behind the scenes” special features where the adults are seen drawing, creating, voicing characters to create the whole production. My daughter loves these. Here are adults acting silly, creating voices, pretending...and look at the result.

LEGO has a DVD that came with the autumn 2011 LEGO club magazine with adults working “behind the scenes” at LEGO. It is great. The adults are “playing” with LEGOs at their desks, fixing structures at the playlands, creating instructions on their computers, testing the instructions. This even inspired my daughter to pay more attention to my nagging that she organize or “rein in” her LEGO pieces. More time for productivity, less time finding each piece.

Generally speaking my daughter does not accept blanket statements like “you are smart” or speaking about her intelligence. However, she does bask in specific comments about having a very good idea that improved how we do things, thinking of others and not herself, helping out with directions in the car. I believe she still considers herself “dumb” from a traditional schooling standpoint, but for now I am happy that she thinks herself worthy in some other ways in the big picture of life. Once we are able to complete a more thorough evaluation of her to understand her strengths and challenges, I think I might have more information to guide her with regard to schooling.

Very interesting bzylzy. I Would not have thought about the behind the scenes stuffs ...

Thanx

With all due respect to the traditional educational system, and doctors and mental health professionals that support it, I've come to the conclusion that a long-term “deluge” of feedback from conventional people can be deeply oppressive to a child who does not think or learn in a standard way. It’s my opinion that as a parent I have to counter-balance all that, and demonstrate to my "out of the box" child that she has the possibility for a happy and productive place in the world. Somehow, one day at a time, we have to navigate the conventional to guide her to where she is supposed to be.

When my daughter was 5 years old, we were at a museum that was all about invention. The director happened to be wandering around and started watching my daughter. After a bit, he came over to me and said, “she’s one of us”. I was startled at the time but I eventually understood what he meant. She belongs to a world of unconventional thinking and possibilities. And it’s my job to prepare her for the world that she will fit into, not the world that might be comfortably conventional and standard. That preparation is not just the schooling but how she sees herself, that she understands how she can contribute, and what works for her and doesn’t.

Sounds easy in two paragraphs but is very hard in real life! But still worth trying.

What excellent insight and advice!

wow. just wow.

There are times when the wisdom you need at that particular moment just...arrives...so beautifully said that it takes your breath away. Thank you, bzylzy.

Yes, pretty beautiful and encouraging words from bzyzly ... Thank you for that

nevertheless and alas, we do not have still find such a distance from what is happening in the real-day life for DS ...

Yes at the museum that was a wonderful thing for me to hear, and good timing for me at the time because of what was happening with her in kindergarten.

It does take time to put it all together. Every little or big thought/advice/insight that you can gather from anywhere helps.

Since I got this advice from a kind person and it made a difference in how I see my daughter, I wanted to pass it on. All of our kids need to grow up strong and have a as healthy an image of themselves as possible.

Thank you bzylzy !

Otherwise, in order to correct an error I made in preceding messages, there is an alternativ to methylphenidate in France : Strattera.

Bonjour raoulpetite,

I’m back with a bit more practical advice/ideas that might help in the short term. It’s just ideas of things that have helped with my daughter. She is highly imaginative also and comes home from school high-strung so I respect that she needs time to unwind, however there is only so much time with homework, dinner, other activities.

For getting through homework, these have been successful:

Before starting homework, she works her hands in putty or clay (something not too soft as playdough). We put little pegs in our putty, the kind from the Battleship game, and my daughter has to work with it long enough to get all of them out of the putty. Our OT taught us this.

She does something sensory with her hands like digging into in a big bowl of beads, dry rice or beans. Again, she retrieves something out of it like marbles and when they are all captured that should have been enough time. When the weather is nice we have a bin of play sand on the deck. But I don’t want sand in the house.

We got a little table-top fountain and the noise is very relaxing. Especially now in the wintertime with being indoors more often, it makes for a tropical feel. My daughter does get distracted when her kitten plays with the water or sticks her nose in it, but then at least she is laughing and therefore relaxing.

Completing one subject then taking about a five minute break where she can leave the homework area. (Use a timer/alarm so parent’s voice isn’t the one summoning). Then do the next subject, etc. I let her choose the order.

When she’s done she can play for x amount of time. She knows what the largest and smallest amount of time will be (depending what else is going on that we have to do) ahead of time, the largest and smallest depending upon how much she fools around, argues, etc. during the designated homework time.

For the very imaginative type kids, pretend time is so important for them. We stress that it’s her precious time, not mine, that she’s wasting and she should be a friend to herself by trying to preserve as much of this time as she can.

We have done, and still do, lots of things to convince her that this is to her benefit, that it’s not just what we are telling her to do. If she is efficient “as possible” with homework (she’s still going to be slower than a neuro-typical child), she has more time to do what she wants. Arguing, fussing, etc. takes away from her. I TRY to act as cool as possible (not always easy in the late afternoon/evening) to show her that I’ve got nowhere to be, nothing to do, it’s not my time she’s wasting...I sit and drink tea and read a fashion magazine...I’m just not going to listen to the fussing.

I’ve even had her draw a pie chart that’s like a clock, since she loves colorful charts and hates being concerned about time. It gives her a chance to really break down what is happening with her time, see which colors can be hers and which is homework, how she can make her time color larger on the chart...rather than hearing me go blah blah blah.

With my daughter, if she goes two days doing the routine with no arguing, fussing, etc. she can play x-box after dinner (that’s her choice, I think it’s good to give child their choice within reason of course). Like with anything, if the child blows it they blow it and there is no turning back, no bargaining.

With her teacher this year, if the student homework is not turned in they lose all 30 minutes of recess where they have to sit, hands folded, no reading a book or fiddling with anything, and watch the other kids play. If the work is sloppy they have to do it again using recess time. Whether I agree with this or not is another matter. But that is her consequence and I’ll help her organize, stay on track, relax, but I will not do her homework or negotiate with the teacher so she has to deal with it.

This has worked really well so far. She is going to OT and we are investigating other ways to help her and have scheduled more testing in the late spring but for now, on an immediate basis, this does help alot.

Also there is a lot of maturity gained between age 7 and 8 so that helps.

Hi Raoulpetite!
No offense taken.

I've been away for a few days, and love the posts you've collected. Yippee!

Here's another thought - in all of the US, the name I keep hearing over and over for Gifted + Learning Disability is Dr. Paul Beljan

Dr. Paul Beljan is a past president of the American Board of Pediatric Neuropsychology. He holds child and adult diplomate qualifications with the American Board of Pediatric Neuropsychology and the American Board of Professional Neuropsychology. Dr. Beljan co-wrote Misdiagnosis and Dual Diagnoses of Gifted Children and Adults, and has authored several chapters and articles in various publications. Dr. Beljan currently is working on his post doctoral master's degree in psychopharmachology. Dr. Beljan's professional focus is on Alcohol/Drug Related Neurodevelopmental Deficit (A/DRND), Gifted Intelligence, Learning Disorders, Traumatic Brain Injury, Trauma, and non-medication-based Attention and Executive Functioning Deficit interventions.



I signed up for a 'webchat' with him - not sure I like the format, but I do recommend that you sign up too and see what you think of this fellow, as someday you may want to come here and visit him.

Giftedness and Learning Disabilities:
Unearthing the Missed Diagnosis

Presented by Paul Beljan, PsyD, ABPdN


In this SENGinar, teachers, parents, and counselors will learn how to correctly diagnosis learning disabilities in gifted and talented children.


Characteristics of gifted and talented children can result in incorrect diagnoses, such as overlooking learning disabilities. Learning disabilities can take the form of academics (reading and math) or innate abilities in general learning that may relate to social learning.



In this SENGinar, Dr. Paul Beljan will review some of the basic tenants of giftedness that include intellect and asynchronous development. He will then turn to the nuts and bolts of learning disabilities: what they look like, how to assess them, and what to do about them in the contexts of the gifted population. The "discrepancy model" of learning disability will be dispelled in favor of understanding the brain basis of learning disabilities. Dr. Beljan will present several anecdotes and case examples to illustrate the process of learning disabilities.

I've never met him in person, but I have spoken to him over the phone, he's a man of strong ideas which his isn't hesitant about sharing. His phone call was very helpful at the time.

Smiles,
Grinity

Hi bzybly !
very interesting approach for the homework, not that far from what we are trying to do ... But reading twice your post, I realized a huge difference. When he is fussing or so, we tell him that he is losing the time we give him to do his homework, not his own time.... I exchange on this purpose late yesterday evening and I think we will try your approach. Indeed, he is so in the present time.
At the present time, we are working on the basis of 10 minutes working/5minutes recess. Depending on how efficient is, he can watch TV (mainly a documentary or a cartoon) for 10 to 25 minutes. It is the only way he can watch TV at home, that is the homework specific reward. This works quite a bit since he works but this work is so "grinded" (in small pieces) and we have to fight so hard to make him come to his chair, take a pencils .... In fact, you tell that when your DD completed something she has 5minutes break, but DS almost never come to the point he finally completed what the teacher asked him for.

Wouldn't you mind being more precise about the "pie chart" thing, because I do not understand what your daughter has to do with that (althought I know what a pie chart is) ? It sounds interesting because one of the big challenge with my son is indeed getting him out of his own time sequences.

thanx

Grinity : I sent you a PM.

hi raoulpetite,
the "background" of the piechart being an analog clock (drawn on paper) with the hours and minute increments. Your DS can choose a color magic marker or crayon for each category (pretend/play time one color, schoolwork another color, maybe the reward time a different color to see what he earned). For my DD I prefer to have the arguing/fussing/not coming color be different. Then she can really see how many "minutes" she really did waste.

You could use a timer or a digital clock and start by keeping track of the minutes and write them down when he is doing his thing...then have your DS transfer the minutes onto the analog clock face with the lines going from the center to the minute markers, filling in the different colors from time start to time end for that category.

Does this make sense? It is so clear in my own head (: - )

With things like this it's easier to show than to write.

I don't think children/people like this will ever be as conscious of time as someone who is more left-brained. However if they are going to live and work in society they have to have decent skills to accommodate the convention as best as possible.

My DD was harder to get to the table last year but is pretty reasonable this year. Intellectually, the work is really too easy for her, and she doesn't like worksheets, but the physical act of completing it seems to be the problem. We are not having much luck with the school again this year but I am not working with them right now because DD has some more intense testing (to be done privately)and it will make sense to approach them again with new information. For now I expect her to do it and be responsible and it's working pretty well unless she is very tired at the end of the week.

If you have any more questions I'll try to answer them. Good luck!

Thanx bzylzy !
very intersting and I anticipate that DW we love this kind of chart. I also think that will help my son in acquiring the sense of time.
Nevertheless, I still have a little question on when you DW fill her chart. Is that before doing the homework and then corrected after depending on fussing and other difficulties (in order to make her feel the time she lost)? Is that only after ? I think it is just after, but not quite sure...

Sorry, I am probably too much left-brained

And good luck for your daughter and your family

I'm sorry when I looked at her things, I realized I might not have been clear that you might need to have one chart for an hour, so the minutes can be clear...not all 12 hours on one chart.

Everything would be tallied up for one "session" (this time being maybe from the time he gets home in the afternoon until bedtime for one day?) and have him fill it in when all is tallied. If he is too tired you could start by having him fill in the previous day's data before he gets started on his current day homework.

If you have a white board or chalk board you could "reuse" the space but at first it's good to start collecting the charts on paper over a period of a week or so and your DS can analyze what has taken plac. I'm assuming he probably likes to analyze data like my DD.

Very interesting indeed, thank you very much !!!

Well, I do not know what's the point writing about this morning story ... Maybe I just need to write it out somewhere to free my broken heart ... So here is the story.

When DS was in Kindergarten, he had a very close friend, a girl. They were almost always together. She is a brilliant girl ... in K-1, they were not as close, but it was OK. This morning (in K2), this girl was giving the invitation card for her birthday party to almost everyone ... Well, she did not even give an eyesight to my boy. Almost everyone around him was showing the card. DS just ran outside to the school playground when he understood he is not on the guest list. A pure nightmare for him, I guess. And what will happen after school : we will ask him for his homework and to stay calm ...Man, what's the point in all that ? It is so unfair. My son is a good boy, he never did bad to anyone, he is just a little bit different ...

Raoulpetite - That is just awful. Where my kids go to school, they are not allowed to pass out invitations to parties unless they are either for the whole class or they are gender specific so that the reason someone is not invited is quite clear. I would let him talk about it and share the burden of his hurt. It isn't fair. It is in fact, rude.
Sorry this happened to your sweet boy.

That's a very hurting thing to happen to a child. My daughter recently wasn't invited to the birthday party of the "popular" girl in class. Her father is a member of the school board in the district and she wears overly fancy clothes to school. The teachers have a tendency to favor her. She has an air of entitlement and she never speaks to my daughter out of class. If my daughter says "hi!" she just turns her head away.

However at least the invitations were not passed out in class. My daughter found out about it from the excitement of the other girls talking about the party, and I learned of it from another mother mentioning that her daughter would see my daughter at the party, then realized my daughter was shut out when I knew nothing about it.

What really irritates me is that the teacher this year, and last year are always partnering my daughter with this girl in activities and little jobs in the class, as well as sitting her near this girl, in the hopes that this girl's "popularity" will somehow rub off on my daughter. It really irritates me. This school is not a good match for my daughter and I really wish I could find something better.

Children can be very mean but unfortunately in your son's case the girl's parents might be leading her in the wrong direction. That's just very mean and bad manners to pass out invitations and leave someone out.

It's so sad. Maybe if the weather is getting nice you can take your son on a nice outing somewhere and do something that is his favorite, but don't talk about the party unless he wants to while you're out and about.

Well, France is less "politically correct" than the US, for the good but for the bad too. I mean that it is common use in France to pass our invitations in school especially in small villages like ours.... I think that if I try to make people act differently I will be the mad one, not the righteous one ... I wish I could, but it is probably useless ...

I am not blaming this little girl for what happened, she did not want to be rude with my boy, I guess. It just happened, just few small steps that progressively makes my son more different than he is ...

You know this story made me think about the name of the official structure that take care of children with learning disabilities wether they are gifted or not. The translation is something like "house for the disabled". This name is just not right ... Moreover the problem of DS is just invisible, he has no wheelchair or something ... I mean had he had a special equipment, others may take more care of him ....

I do not even know if I should talk to DW about that.
Besides, he is so strong, I ate with him for lunchtime ... he just looked like usually... But I know that inside he is just thinking about that, with the question: why ?

My DD is strong also, and she doesn't cry or get upset anymore, she sort of shrugs it off. I never approach the other parent, or in fact the school. That gives the whole thing too much importance and if they do do anything it will possibly make things worse for DD anyway.

For kids that age it's not really the child's fault it's what's going on with the dynamic in the class, but it would be more kind of the parent guides them to not shut out other kids. I just tell DD that we wouldn't do something like that to someone else but you can't really control what other people do. But you don't have to let them make you feel so bad that it drags down your life.

She had a bad time of it last year when she continued to be friendly to a special needs boy who is our neighbor and was friendly when she saw him at lunch. Some of the kids in her class were nasty about him and tried to get her to stop being friendly to him. The whole thing really upset her and it went on for months before the kids moved on to something else...but in the end, she is still friendly to this boy and is not in that class anymore. She moved on, and learned alot.

You're right bzylzy ... Beneath all this, DS learns about life.

For the anecdot, his sister had a boy who has special needs (schooling is difficult for him) in her class and from being quite mean with him (like the other pupils) at the beginning of the school year, she finally tells that he has difficulties, he does not wrong on purpose and that she is a friend of him. She's learning too ....

Been there, although thanks to US school policies about invitations sent on school ground being for all kids only never so that my socially clueless son realized it. *I* certainly did.

My heart breaks for your son...

Thanx SiaSL ! (took me quite a bit to understand your post ... I guess I finally understood). Speaking of broken heart, I almost cried that morning once sitting in my car driving to work. This US school policy is a damn good thing even though it probably does not change the fact that some kids like mine are not invited anyway ...

Amazingly, DS seems to spend a good time at school this week. I was so afraid of how he will feel after that sad monday morning ...

Your son got back on the horse after he fell off, so to speak. Good for him! He's very brave, and on his way. Cool story about your little girl also.