Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion What would you do differently?

MumofThree

Our middle kid repeated 2nd grade after she moved from a private school with end of calendar year cutoff date to the public school with a September cutoff date. The public school was fine with her going into 3rd grade - the testing said she was ready - but let us make the decision for social reasons.

She was likely bored for a couple of years, though she is quiet in school and didn't complain. She is now in 9th grade and doing well. I should note that when she was young, we didn't think she was an academics type - when she was four, I said she was not college material.

We were wrong about not only the academics, but also the athletics. At age 11 or 12, we said she would never play middle or high school sports (just not very athletic). This year as a 9th grader she played a fall sport and the coaches for her spring sport are already talking to her about winter workouts (even though tryouts don't take place until spring). I think that she would not have played sports in school if we hadn't had her repeat 2nd grade. She was a small kid, but eventually did grow though she will always be a lightweight(now 5'-4" and almost 100 lbs).

In the end, she was probably better off with the repeat, though it is tough to know what is right at the time. It does help to know that our school district has some challenging HS courses and a bunch of bright kids (24 National Merit Semifinalists, or 8 percent of the class this year).

I'm not sure I could do it for DS4, though he's going to school in the same district my husband and I did. The full-time G/T program doesn't exist anymore. At this point, he'll be entering K next year, reading at... well, I don't know where, but he's reading second-grade early chapter books (Fly Guy and the like) with spot-on comprehension right now, so... yeah. He also still throws tantrums, totally misses social clues as far as annoying people goes, and would happily spend the rest of his life zooming cars around the house.

*sigh* I don't want to hold him back academically because of his emotional immaturity (or... whatever you call it), but I also don't want to get him in over his head, socially or responsibility-wise, because his academic/cognitive abilities are so beyond his ability to cope with life.

smacca, I think my DS and yours were separated at birth (and by 7 years.) DS is exactly as you describe: ADHD, sensitive, prone to tantrums (still), socially clueless, loves cars and toy guns, etc. etc.

After he "failed" K I expected our school to retain him. With a February birthday and rampant red-shirting he would not have been way outside the normal birthday range for the next year K class. When I suggested this to his K teacher at the spring conference she looked at me like I was crazy. "He's WAAAYY too smart to repeat kindergarten!"

Fast forward to 6th grade: DS has started back to counseling for basically being a social outcast and continual maladaptive struggles with keeping up with homework. DS is maturing bit by bit but just much behind his peers at school.

I often wonder what would have happened if he had just repeated K but he was simply too bright to be considered for that.

I wish I'd spent more time in the classroom when DD was in her first school in K and 1 (this was very hard, though, bc I had a young toddler then who was not allowed to come). It would have given me a slightly better sense of exactly how bad or not bad things were. I also wish I'd tried harder to get her more in-class acceleration.

I sometimes slightly regret our school switch. Though overall I think the quality of education is much better, I feel the pressure on DD and the amount of HW are really excessive. Maybe if I'd advocated for her better, she would have been able to remain at school 1. They just completely stonewalled me, though, and I have no idea why.

Yeah, it makes me sad when he gets SO upset about little things (example: last night I gently reminded him not to run over his little brother with the Cozy Coupe, and he put on his super-angry face and yelled, "I'M MAD AT YOU, MAMA!").

I just foresee a hard road for him... mostly because it was a hard road for me. I won't let him slip through the cracks academically like my parents did (no blame... my mom heard a few bad things about one teacher in the gifted program and wouldn't get my sister or me tested; they genuinely thought they were doing what was best), but I have no clue how to support him socially/emotionally because, well, I have no clue what I'd have done with me as a kid. I sort of bumbled through and figured out how to mostly cope. I want to do better by DS4, but... I have not a clue where to start.

Nerdnproud - I agree with the lonliness thing...no one to talk to about things and I have found it hard to find other families since we live in a very small, rural town. I have figured out from talking to our daughter that we have a total of 3 (one being my DD8) gifted kids in our elementary school (K-5). The other 2 happen to be boys.
I also like what you said about worrying that my child wasn't really gifted for whatever reason. DH and I tossed this back and forth many times wondering if we were just imagining how bright she is or that maybe she isn't that different from every other child. Glad to know we aren't the only ones!

Oh, one more note to self...

adolescent PG kids who have never really had much exposure to other PG people may be tempted to tolerate pretty unhealthy relationship dynamics--

from OTHER PG people when they finally do meet one who is remotely compatible with themselves. The danger is fairly real since HG+ kids in undifferentiated environments can all too often become pretty damaged as people by the time they reach their teens. Being so smart also makes them incredibly destructive, manipulative, and clever... including with one another... and they also have "I'm the smartest person I know" as such a core part of their identity that they have a need to 'kill' threats to it.




So yeah, meeting other HG+ kids? More important than you're thinking (speaking to the parent that I was when DD was four and I was just putting together exactly what we were dealing with).