Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Twice Exceptional Ever feel like it is E/e?

A couple of weeks have gone by since my original posts and I have given it all more thought.

First, I think the concept of a 2e kid challenges a lot of what I thought coming into parenthood.

The idea that a kid can be smart, try hard and have supportive parents but still do poorly in school wasn't really on my radar until the last year or so. It is kind of throwing me for a loop.

Here is an example: spelling tests

When I was a kid if I had a spelling test my mom would have me practice at the table while she cooked dinner. She'd call out the word and I would write it down. We might do this twice. She would also make me a deal that if I got an A on the test, I could get milkshake after school.

With my son, he writes them on paper, with chalk on slate, on a whiteboard, with dough, in the sand, in the tub, on the computer, on the iPad, etc. He really does study for these little tests. If I make him the same deal with the milkshake, what do I do when he comes home and failed because cot was "kot", dot was "bot" and pot was "Pot"?
He certainly studied much harder than I ever did. Was he anxious or distracted? Did he try hard or did he decide he didn't want a milkshake? What if he is upset? What if he isn't?

I know I will feel better about all this once we have the Eides' assessment. Right now the dyslexia is just a good guess based on family history and the challenges we are seeing. Honestly at this point I would not be surprised if he had all four - dyscalculia, dyslexia, dysgraphia and dyspraxia.

We have conferences with the teachers coming up in a few weeks. I am curious what their take on all this will be.

Take heart KJP. I don't think many of us are prepared for these 2e kids. I certainly wasn't with my eg/pg. And he, too, has flipped the way I learned and what I knew about education too.

Unfortunately, I found that since most teachers and schools were either unprepared or not equipped to deal with the eg/pg part, we were at a double loss with the E part and why we ended up homeschooling this year. It became a least worst situation and at the this point the only way that we could deal with the 2e.

Someone once said to me that I need to create my own map and to start with a blank slate on what do with DS and his education. Though this was quite terrifying and scary advice at the time, she was correct - that I had to disregard what how other kids learn, go to school, and don't have the same issues/struggles that DS has.

It can be very hard to make heads or tails out of things with 2e kids and what they need or how they brain processes information differently than the norm. Some teachers/parents may be knowledgeable about ADHD but then not the gifted part. Or not really understand when you've got multiple things like you have going on with your DS or I've had with my DS.

From what your saying about your DS, it could be a processing situation, test anxiety, or something else like dyslexia you've said. Hard to say. You need more information. Hopefully it can be resolved and the teachers will work with you. But like I said, unfortunately not all teachers, schools, or even gifted schools are created equal in dealing with 2e kids. I really wish they were though.

For ages, dd has had the habit of randomly renaming a classmate or two each year. No idea why, whether it's that she doesn't remember that the short kid with glasses is Erin or that she just thinks Erin makes a better Charlotte. (For the most part Erin/Charlotte just answers to whatever it is she's being called, which strikes me as even odder than the renaming.)

KJP, it sounds like you are pursuing all avenues and doing a really, really great job. And it is a full time job.

Last year my now dd7 was skipped from 1/2 day K to 1st in March. The principal has a rep for being very anti-skipping, so it was a big deal (that pissed some other parents off in our neighborhood school that uses the W&M gifted curriculum across the board, but no gifted services beyond that.)

My daughter has Asperger's, sensory, and vision/convergence issues. The school viewed her as MG (since tested as DYS eligable) requiring no IEP/504, etc. "She's not even on the radar. We have kids here with real problems." I was really cautious about not being "that parent" so I gave things months when they should have been addressed that day. Regarding getting appropriate math via worksheets, I was told "That would be too much work for the teacher. She does have 24 other kids, you know. Besides, what would your dd do next year." I finally requested a formal, in writing "full evaluation per IDEA" and suddenly dd was on their radar. Once a psychologist asked if she was in the right grade, they offered an immediate grade skip. Unfortunately, other things weren't addressed and we took a "wait and see" approach due to the skip. This pushed the actual IEP meeting to a couple days before the end of school and I was completely pressured to accept what they offered. Which was a list of things my daughter was supposed to work on, with basically no help and documented via observation that was supposed to spontaneously happen. Things that she was actually already doing, but that took place during things like lunch and recess (major challenges for Aspies) when her main teacher wasn't present.

Ugh, sorry for the novella . . . but . . .
I didn't find out how hard things were for dd until the day before the IEP meeting (not for lack of trying, on my part.) One heartbreaking day I asked dd about her day and she slumped down in the dining room chair while picking at her snack and said "I don't want to talk right now. I had a really rough day." She was only 6, sigh. When asked what that meant she said she had cried twice that day and she usually only cried once.

I had planned to homeschool the following January after I finished an MFA program, but realized that I just couldn't send her back. The things that the school saw as "problems to be solved" were that dd, very creatively, tried to alter assignments to play to her strengths while still meeting the requirements. Such as writing about her actual experiences with frogs rather than copying facts straight from the book. Basically, we could get her to fit in, at the expense of the creativity that is prized later in life, when it can't really be taught.

Ultimately, the thought of her spending over half of her waking hours with people who might see her as a burden with a psycho mother rather than the fascinating, insightful, if challenging, delight that she can be was not something that I could stomach.

I was pretty terrified of homeschooling her, given her intensity, curiosity, and energy. But I hadn't realized that, since she spent every bit of her coping allotment holding herself together at school and letting loose at home where is was "safe," it really wasn't harder being with her all day. And, since she was so much more relaxed, her amazingly fun and delightful side got tons of room to shine.

At this point, I couldn't possibly send her back to school, and am completely at peace with my decision to put my final semester on hold. There are still many, many challenges. But I think a number of them are related to my wanting things to be easier for her and trying to protect her, rather than fully accepting how things are. Full disclosure, we have been able to find amazing homeschool groups full of 2e kids and that has been wonderful, if exhausting given all of the group activity options.

And this isn't even addressing the issue that she is now actually learning tons at her pace. We are pretty much unschooling, with whatever bits of curriculum that strike our fancy. I am pretty waffly as to whether I should push certain things like rote math, so that the she can enjoy her gifts of conceptual math that are far above her mechanics. Or just wait until she realizes the benefits of putting in the effort to make that happen. I hope that makes sense.

Short version: If you can possibly homeschool, try it.

Best of luck to you!!!

PS: She and I both struggle with names and faces. It is a major liability in life. I don't know whether to introduce myself to people or address them with a hearty "Great to see you again!" Thus, I constantly have a deer in headlights look in social situations. Once it registers who they are, I can remember to ask about their knee surgery or dog's hernia. Oddly, dd and I tend to remember clothing and jewelry. (superficial much?)

We are definitely giving homeschooling some thought.
The school he attends is a small private Montessori school. There are about 100 kids in the whole school. The tentative plan is for him to continue there part time and get tutoring/remediation/therapies (what ever is recommended) outside of school.
Right now this is school in the afternoon M-F and OT one morning a week. If the Eides make additional recommendations, we will try to fit those in on other mornings.
The problem I foresee is that we'll just be shuffling him around a lot and it might get tiresome for him (and me).

The good news is that his first week back from holiday break was great. He got a 100% on his spelling test!