Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Twice Exceptional How Do You Tell If Your 2e Is Playing The System?

I think one of the biggest challenges of being a parent of a 2e kid is figuring out when to advocate for your child and when to back up the teacher.

My son has in his IEP that he is allowed extra time to complete homework due to his dyslexia and dysgraphia. My son is telling me that the poems he had to do for a class were confusing and frustrating; he says he didn't understand the instructions. But the teacher is telling me my son is chatty in class and not making his best effort.

And I've seen both sides of him - the frustration and avoidance and being the class clown because he's compensating for not being able to complete a task, and then I've also seen him play the victim card to get out of trouble.

How do you filter through it all to figure out what is going on with your 2e kid?

I guess you create your own judgements based on results. If a thing seems to be helping, support it. If it seems to be counter-productive, challenge it. You'll be right more often than wrong. There's his side, her side, & the truth.
If he's saying he doesn't understand tell him to ask questions until he does. Not understanding is not helping and not paying attention is not helping. Also teach him to doodle quietly on his notebook so he can sit still & listen, maybe.

Agreed-- this is super-complicated.

A 2E has less natural inclination to get school tasks done, because they're harder for him than for the average person; avoidance really feels like a sensible path some of the time. And (in our 2E's case) he also has a less intuitive grasp of why he should make the effort to do a really bang-up job on things that he didn't choose and doesn't care about much.

There can also be the problem that he's learned what he can get away with, or teachers find it difficult to enforce standards and let certain things slide.

We are finding that DS can often rise to occasion, if expectations are spelled out with clarity (and reminders of those expectations issued). We are working hard to keep everyone's standards high and spell out the standards frequently. He plays the disability card, but AFAIK nobody at home or school is accepting that excuse. It's a lot of work keeping everyone's expectations coordinated and high, but I think it is paying off for DS9.

We have been talking about having him come to his next IEP meeting; on the one hand, discussion of deficits is so frank, and may be difficult to hear; on the other hand, he will know exactly why we are asking him to do certain things and what standards we are expecting him to meet.

And I don't think it's always determinably one or the other (slacking or disability); disability forms a complex of compensatory behaviors and ways of thinking around it that shapes the whole family (whole community, sort of). I think perhaps you could make this a topic of conversation with your DS and see how he feels about his own effort and productivity these days...

DeeDee

La Texican and DeeDee, thank you for your insights. It helps.

DeeDee - I think the spelling it out clearly is where the issue is this time. He seemed genuinely surprised that she was upset. He thought he followed he vague instructions, but after he explained the way she'd given them, I see where he thout he was fine.

Ah, the challenges of being so literal...

And because he's so bright, it's the rare teacher who will notice that he's not understanding the instructions. How could he not, he's so bright.

Sigh.

DeeDee

If he writes down his assignments then when it's wrong then he can look back at his notes and say, well, this is what I have in my notes that the assignment was. Then she can see the effort, even if he's wrong.
and he'll be practing taking better notes

Writing down his assignments is more like code letters and numbers. His dysgraphia makes it a nightmare for him to copy from the board, so we usually get things like Lit: wrt 2 pomes, Math p 98 1-24

His IEP also is supposed to have the teachers check his agenda, so I may have to push for that again.

The issue was in the details - she thought "a poem about you" implied following a specific type often they covered in class. He thought "a poem about you" meant just that. He did his own thing.