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My ds12 is in 6th grade. He's very small, about the same size as the 3rd grader next door. We aren't sure what's causing the growth delay yet, but he doctor thinks he's just a late bloomer. The bigger problem is that he has ADHD, and he has trouble socially. He's impulsive and just says anything that comes into his head. When kids tease him about his height, he can get emotional and cry, or angry and beligerent, depending on the day. He's highly gifted and is subject accelerated in math and science. He has kids to eat lunch with and sit on the bus with, but sometimes they're mean too. Because of his size, he thinks he has to prove he's just as (atheletic, smart, important) as other kids.

Right now, he goes to public school. There are about 500 kids in his grade (there were 400 in his elementary school). The school is so big, they just process the kids. Ds has been physically attacked in the hall (attacker has been removed from the school), pushed around, and teased. I think middle school kids must try to make themselves more important by pushing other kids down.

Option 1 is to leave him in the same school (public) for next year. The kids (and ds) might mature, and the academics are as good as it gets around here.

Option 2 is a small private school that specializes in kids with ADHD and other learning issues. They absolutely don't tolerate bullying, the kids are closely supervised, and he'd have individual help with organization, emotions, etc. The class sizes are less than 10 kids, with maybe 15 kids per grade. The academics are not as good, but they are willing to continue with the math acceleration. The science acceleration is up in the air. I'm thinking he could go there for the rest of middle school and then go back to public school. It's expensive, and they don't provide transportation.

I guess there might be an option 3: one of several private schools around. They have varying academics, cost various amounts of money, are much smaller than the public school, and will not help him with specific social issues. They all say they will work with an ADHD student. I don't know parents who send their kids to any of them, so I don't know.

Ds is open to talking about a different school, but not enthusiastic about going to one.

What would you do?

Is it possible to transfer him to a different public school in the same district? The way the school runs is typically a result of local administration.. Also, are there charter schools in your area? Do any of the private schools give scholarships? Is homeschooling an option?

Aw, I wish that we had a hugs smilie!

My 6th grader is also a peanut. For her, as a girl, I suspect that it isn't quite as hard, but she's had difficulty with her size as well. At the start of the year, one of her friends kept picking her up and swinging her around and then essentially tossing her when she let her go. She got knee-ed in the leg and fell a few times with other kids who were being too rough. Just yesterday, two of the boys thought that it was funny to push down on her backpack as she was walking with this huge backpack full of stuff from cleaning out her locker, which hurt her back and made her fall.

I know that we probably permanently pissed off the mom of the friend @ the start of the year with dh talking to the principal of the school rather than the parents about the bruising dd had sustained, but we can't let her get hurt and we didn't trust the other parents not to make light of it and blame our dd, which is what they did anyway when the school got involved.

It sounds like you've done the same -- dealing with the physical bullying/excessive roughness through the school -- and that it hasn't been enough.

There is just a lot in what you write that resonates with me. My dd11 is also HG, also has ADD, and is also subject accelerated in math. None of your options sound perfect, but isn't that usually the case with kiddos like these?

First, do you have any charter school options and have you explored all of the other public school options? My dd is choiced to a different middle school than our assigned one. It is not a charter, but is one of those funny options where it is not an assigned school for anyone (it is choice only). Due to that, the parent population is pretty involved and there seems to be more oversight although that hasn't fully protected dd from some kids behaving poorly at times as I mentioned.

If you really have no choices but the three you mention, I'd probably rule out the third option b/c it doesn't sound like it would deal effectively with either the ADD or the giftedness. If you could make school #2 work (the private one for kids with LD and ADD), I might consider it but only if they have the ability to significantly accelerate and/or other gifted kids, not just ND kids with LDs.

Is homeschooling off the table? Could you use an online charter to homeschool the rest of middle school with the intent of transitioning back to ps for high school after remediating some of the behavior issues?

The good thing is, you have options! Like Cricket said, it's not usually possible to find one perfect fit option for our 2e kids, but trust that you know your ds well and that you'll make a good decision. I too wish we had a hugs smilie!

FWIW, our ds12 just completed 6th grade, which is the first year of middle school here. He asked to change schools so we were in kind-of the same place last summer as you are now (the "kind-of" is that in our case, our ds asked to switch schools, he was extremely frustrated at the school he was at). DS has dyspraxia, dysgraphia, an expressive language disorder, and wanted subject acceleration but had been denied it at his previous school due to his LD. He's great at math and science but extremely challenged with written expression and organizational skills.

We chose a school for him that is private and very small. It was recommended by our neuropsych because it is very technology-friendly and for other nebulous reasons. We didn't really *get* the nebulous reasons until we were there, but I thought I'd mention them to you because once ds was enrolled we found things that we hadn't planned on that were in fact extremely good for ds. For instance, the private school couldn't provide the services listed in ds' IEP (which the public school wasn't really providing anyway) other than ds' classroom and testing accommodations for writing. So on the one hand, that might seem like a red flag - but in reality, what we got with the private school were teachers who truly cared about their students and who were fully invested in developing the students to the best of their potential. When we have a concern as parents, the teaches listen to us. There was also a lot of quick action when any kind of social challenges arose among the students - quick caring action that was aimed at developing good caring citizens, and because it was a small school where the kids have close relationships with the teachers it works fairly well. The school also has a more challenging curriculum overall than the public schools do, as well as allowing kids to subject accelerate in some areas. In the areas where subject acceleration isn't offered, the teachers challenged ds to go above and beyond, and it worked much better than anything he'd previously had simply because the teachers recognized he is exceptionally bright and are proud of it, rather than trying to make him just like everyone else fitting into the middle-average, which was how our public school tried to approach teaching.

Gotta run, but fwiw, that was our experience.

Good luck searching - it can be really scary and confusing trying to know what to do!

polarbear

Thanks for the advice. We don't have charter school options here. I'd really like him to go to school because I'd like him to socialize with people (although, other middle school students might not be the best choice). I've tried to find him volunteer work, but I can't find anything he can do with other people (the SPCA says he can foster animals, but he already gets along great with animals) at his age. To join a home school group, I'd have to quit my job, but we might break even if the alternative is private school.