Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Twice Exceptional 2E suspicions/turbo parent?

Maybe it is that I know I am about to spending time with my relatives and I am gearing up for the "he seems fine, quit worrying about him so much" line but did any of you with 2e kids ever feel like everyone thinks you are crazy.

We had private IQ testing done to help us decide on early kindergarten and now we are heading towards seeing someone about suspicions of dyslexia.

All this and by the calendar he isn't even supposed to be in kindergarten until next September. I can see why some people might think this is crazy.

On the other hand, he has a Sept. birthday, he was bored with preschool and early kindergarten seemed to make sense - and it has worked out well.

As for the dyslexia, there is family history and plenty of other indicators. Of course the indicators are all within the realm of normal too so when I voice concern I feel like I am some sort of turbo academic stage mom.

Call me crazy too.

You have enough clues to be worried about this. I'd go get the dyslexia testing. If you find an issue, you can work on it earlier. If there is no issue then you can stop worrying. We knew that dyslexia ran in my husband's family. The school thought that we were crazy (and still does). We waited to test until after first grade. I wish that we had tested after kindergarten. We might have been able to avoid the "year of tears." Remember, when your kid is 2e, the normal rules just don't apply. You will need to get used to not caring what other people think.

Better crazy now than sorry you missed something and have to play catch-up later on - especially when it is your own child you're worried about.

I really don't stress too much about what other people (relatives, friends, etc) think about this type of 2e thing though - I really don't discuss it with them. When we get together with extended family we just have fun touching base and asking about what the other folks are up to, or talk about the fun things we've been up to in our own family. It's not that we're trying to hide anything - when questions come up I don't mind talking about it, especially if we have some experience that might help someone else who's not as far along in a similar journey. It's just not something that I feel like I need to talk about with family. OTOH, our family doesn't usually ask us things like "how is school going?" and they aren't the type of folks who brag about their kids being in gifted programs or great athletes or whatever, they're just more about hanging out and having fun

Re being concerned - I think most of us 2e parents here can really empathize with how it feels to be concerned when your child is really young and the things that you're worried about are also things that might still be within the normal range of development. My only regret about that time is not relying more on my mom-instinct when I asked about those vary same things and ds' teachers were so quick to reassure us that "it's completely normal". My gut feeling now (ha!) is that most of the time when a mom has one of those gut feelings that something isn't quite right - there's a reason for the feeling. I've met quite a few 2e moms who've had their suspicions confirmed - it wasn't always exactly what they suspected but it was *something* - and honestly, I've never met a mom who was questioning at that stage who had a child who was typically developing. I'm a very small statistically insignificant sample, so my stats really mean nothing, but I'm just sayin' - that gut instinct is most likely there for a reason. You might find out it was nothing - which will be great. If you find out it wasn't nothing, you'll be very glad you didn't worry about other people thinking you were turbo-parenting.

Hope you have a Happy Thanksgiving!

polarbear

I am in the "need to know" camp when it comes to relatives and testing/info on my kiddo's academic progress and issues. That includes my parents and siblings. I have shared a couple of writups with my parents over the years about younger D with my parents, but most of the time I have not mentioned what is going on. In fact, my parents were making me so crazy about my D's college search this year that I finally put a moratorium on discussing it with them. Told 'em we would let them know on May 1 (the day she needs to commit) what she has decided. They have stopped asking, although they do try to pump info out of my older daughter or get my siblings to do it. But we are wise to these tactics.

I think the trouble I have at keeping everyone at arms length when it comes to our kid's issues is that many of our relatives have relevant experience. We have people who were accelerated, people who went to gifted magnets, gifted people who went to plain old public schools and even other 2e's.

The trouble is that since they (or their kids) turned out just fine they think what they did or didn't do is the way to go. Actually everyone turned out better than fine. You could play a game of Scrabble with all the post-nominal initials gathered around the table.

I get comments like

"Who cares if he is dyslexic. It isn't like he'll be illiterate. He'll figure it all out without any greedy therapists involved in his little five year old life. He'll figure out what works for him and be fine. He is an engineering type. There are worse things than being an engineer you know...(cough)...lawyer...(cough)"

And

"I am pretty sure the gifted program at my school was cancelled to provide new carpet for the football locker room. I turned out fine. Just pick a house you like. It isn't like you are trying to choose between the school district where they might be maimed and the one where they might become drug addicts."

Everyone means well and I know they are trying to help by minimizing the stress of our parenting decisions. It still makes me feel crazy.

I think that "feeling crazy" is probably a universal experience for 2E parents - especially if your child's combination of E's have them dazzling the world with their giftedness at a young age. I picked up on DD's hand-eye coordination/fine motor issues at 18 months. It took 3 1/2 years - until age five - to even convince the pediatrician to send her for an evaluation. "She's just SO FAR ahead of the curve that things that are age appropriate appear to be deficits even when they're not." We picked up on what we thought was likely dyslexia at age 4 and were patted on the head, the arm, the shoulder - whatever body part was accessible - by just about everyone. The school refused to even consider her for testing "She'd never qualify she's too smart." That "mom gut" is real - it knew all along but I couldn't convince people - people who were essential to be convinced. Forget "civilians" like family or friends. They would actually laugh at the idea of there being an issue. Or worse - speak to me in that patronizing tone of voice that I am sure all the 2E parents here know all too well.

With the last set of tests showing her scores ranging from above the 99th percentile to below the 1st percentile I don't get much of that anymore. I still get "Oh, not DD! That's not possible!" That 99th/1st percentile set of numbers convinces everyone pretty quick these days. Throughout this process I have said "knowledge is power" and sought as much info as I could get. It is a rough road that is full of lots of curves and bends. I have learned there are certain people I would never reveal anything to and others to whom I can bare my soul. There are lots of LD issues in DH's family but sadly even more denial. My 85 year old FIL - who turned down spec ed services over and over for DH while he was still in elementary school - cries his eyes out if we mention any of this around him. Not over concern for DD or guilt over DH but because of his own awful school experiences with undiagnosed LD. "They used to tell me I was dumb and that I wasn't trying hard enough. It didn't matter how hard I worked I just couldn't do it." You really never know what is behind that other person's reaction. I think you need to just stick with your gut on this. As others have said if you feel like there is a problem there is a good chance you could be right. Especially with family history.

Good luck!

I am you, and you have my son!

DS4 will be 5 next September. I have been worried about the 'red flags' for the past year. This is a child that did not talk until he was 3.5 yrs old, but knew all his numbers and shapes and colours by 18 months. He could put together 30+ piece puzzles by 2 yrs of age. He has been building the most intricate train tracks around our house since he could fit the tracks together at around a year of age. He is smart. Scary smart. BUT.... he can't learn his letters. He has been trying, but they just don't stick. He refuses to hold a pencil, he has never coloured a picture (just a scribble or two before bifting the crayon across the room in frustration).

His sister has dysgraphia and mild dyslexia. I feel I have valid reason for concern. Everyone else thinks I have lost my marbles. "He is only 4! He isn't supposed to know his letters and be able to print yet!" I get tired of talking about it. I have one friend with a gifted son the same age and she gets it. Her son can do these things and she understands why I am worried. If DS had normal development aside from the letters/printing, I would be less than concerned. It just is out of keeping with what I see and know. He learns everything else incredibly quickly.

Maybe it is my mommy-sense on overdrive. I am so determined to NOT let him fall through the cracks for so long, like his sister did. I do feel that I have reason to be concerned. For the time being, there is little I can do about it. I won't have him tested until he is in school and the difficulties can be corroborated by his teacher. My daughter's pyschologist suggested that testing for diabilities is more reliable at an older age, so we will wait. For now, we are using all the tips and tricks I have learned from helping my daughter. I figure, it can't hurt for him to have the extra help with learning his letters!

To a certain extent they are right ... most kids with high IQ's eventually figure out how to overcome the obstacles in front of them or how to go around them. My husband kept telling me that when our youngest hit midschool, things would start to kick in and he'd catch up. And they have started to kick in, and his isn't just catching up, he is now excelling and starting to show more of his Giftedness instead of just his learning disabilities. So, the been there, done that, and don't make your kid feel awful because of overreacting is coming from their own experience and a good thing to keep in mind. His voice of reason is what helped me make decisions like not making my son study for hours for a spelling test he was going to fail anyway. It is just a good thing to keep in the back of our minds that it is all a balance.

That being said, it in no way changes the fact that if your child is 2e that early intervention and therapy would be a huge help and give your kiddo more tools to really succeed. My huge regret is that I didn't listen to my gut and get him tested earlier than second grade, he went through years if speech therapy, occupational therapy and is in special Ed where his education has focused on remediation not acceleration. Had we started earlier, maybe he wouldn't have had to struggle so hard, but I'll never know because I didn't push.

Recently my husband made the comment that while he has certainly done well in life, he often watches how hard I fight for changes at school for my son and how much I've worked to find the right help and he wonders just what more might have been possible if someone had fought like that for him,

See, these comments are beacons of hope for me. I don't have experience with learning disabilities in my family (turns out my dh's brother might have undiagnosed dyslexia), so I love hearing things will turn out fine. I actually do think that's true in regards to my 2E son, but I like hearing it. Still, it doesn't stop me from getting tutoring and services and I wish I had been educated enough to know I should have pressed on when my son was quite young.

I KNEW when my son was 4 that something was wrong, but anyone I mentioned it to ignored me because he was so young. Plus, his twin is a huge outlier and people always said, "don't compare him to his twin," "it would be hard for ANYONE to be a sibling to [PG boy]." But I also knew they were similar intellectually, so my son's reading and writing misses didn't make sense.

Finally in 2nd grade, I had him privately tested and the tester said she knew immediately he had dyslexia-- from his writing sample I sent in before the test. (Now why wouldn't the school/teacher recognize that?!!) The school still wasn't in a hurry to remediate, so we hired a private tutor who worked with him 2-3 x week for almost 3 years. He's still not where he should be in writing, but he's an advanced, but slow reader now in 5th grade. I wish we could have started tutoring in K to avoid the year of tears, as someone mentioned, but also before he got the attitude that he wasn't good at school.

We're still working to undue the damage as he heads to middle school next year.

If I were you, I wouldn't talk about testing to your family if their comments bother you or dissuade you from testing. And I think you should absolutely be testing now, rather than later. If it turns out there's no problem, it's one less thing to worry about!