Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy Pulling an 11 year old out of school to "unschool"

I can't easily go back through other threads in my phone. For my own benefit and hopefully yours I am making some dot points to try and get it all in one place

1) he's well behaved And achieving fine at school, really difficult at home?
2) one idea is ADHD
3) one idea is that school is the problem at home / task avoidant perfectionism gone crazy
3) he's heavily scheduled but wants to do more not less

Have I missed any critical points?

I have a bunch of random thoughts, my main one is that there are a variety of things that could be wrong here, producing the same behavious, which you would need to "fix" in very different ways and you need a professional you trust, not us to help you figure out which it is.

It seems to me that it's not an uncommon pattern for gifted kids to bottle all their bad up for home, and that it can happen wih a variety of causes.

My eldest DD has aspergers and has been quite hard to get diagnosed because through great effort on our part and hers she looks pretty normal out in the world.

My second DD has ADHD, the vast majority of her problems occurr at home too. She's socially normal, HG+ and in a group environment (in yr1) these attributes mean that she's well behaved and also well able to keep up by figuring out what everyone else is doing or reading instructions. She also hates to be told what to do, but doesnt seem to take group instructions personally, and so will do as she's told at school. At home she's unable to get dressed or eat without supervision (unless she's had her medication) she has trouble going to sleep, is oppositional, I could go on and on... School enables her to hide her ADHD (at this age) in a way that home does not.

Most of your posts make HK think task avoidant perfectionism, I see aspergers or ADHD, because that is what I see at home...

Preservative, flavour, coloring, GF/CF and salicylate free diet has changes my kids lives, don't procrastinate, just do it, 2 weeks o doing it properly will tell you if t helps. Just because food is not causing obvious gut issues does not mean its not causing emotional/behaviour issues. Alcohol causes behaviour changes way before it makes you vomit. Food intolerance is not just mild allergy, allergy can be dramatic and life threatening or mild, intolerance can also be extreme (not usually life threatening) or mild, it's a load issue like alcohol, a little might not be a problem, a lot will be, how much is a problem varies between people, some are way way more sensitive than others.

And now for a completely left field idea. Is there a chance that a physical condition/illness that is causing your son's difficulties with sleep, tiredness, executive function, etc. You know the saying they teach drs "when you hear hoof beats dot think zebras."... sometimes it IS a zebra. I myself have two very rare health problems, one of which it is estimated that less than 5% of sufferers are diagnosed (all that not thinking of zebras). It's conceivable he does not have a psychiatric disorder but a physical problem which impacts brain function.

If the root of the problem is task-avoidance due to lack of challenge in school, then deschooling can help. If the problem is lack of unstructured time to play/explore/think (which is vital for healthy child development), then deschooling can help.

However, given the costs for a child who is otherwise doing well in school and craves social interaction, I would be reluctant to pull him from school as long as I can reasonably suspect that the problem is the latter. The more elegant solution there would be to scale back on the after-school activities. Not only would it give him the space he needs to be himself for several hours a week while preserving his social standing, but it would also reduce stress on you, and save some money.

So basically, before I would pull him out of school, I would start cancelling certain after-school activities.

We have a DD7 with a lot of drive and diverse interests, too, and we've acted as a brake in this way, when she starts pushing to go overboard. Once she has enough activities going, assuming there are no other scheduling conflicts, we offer her a choice... if you want to take up this new activity, pick the one that will end. We've also found that on days where she's overscheduled, she blows up. For example, her drama class ramped up to 3-hour nights for the week before her performance, and the first night, when it was time for bed and she realized she'd had no time to play, she was very upset. So, we pushed bedtime back an hour (yay homeschooling) and reminded her it was only for a week, and she was fine.

She gets it now, and has even been able to act as her own brake from time to time. This past summer, she declared she wanted to do nothing... no classes, no sports, no camps. Just play. And proving how constructive that can be, she learned to roller skate, and swim underwater.

All excellent points raised here

Yes, lots to think about. Like I said, it wasn't something that I was prepared to do right away or anything, just an idea that popped into my head. Benefits and disadvantages both. Thanks.

We were driving to boy scouts last night and talking about the "Suicide Prevention" presentation they had at school yesterday. And, then he said, "I realized that I do what they call cutting, you know, causing yourself physical pain to avoid emotional pain". My heart dropped. I tried to be calm and asked, "Oh, do you mean when you pick at your fingers (he picks at them until they bleed)?" and he said "no, not that". I asked what form his cutting took. "This is awkward telling you this. When I get angry at home or am in trouble, I push my fingernails into my skin until it hurts and I bang my head on things.".

Now I'm more worried.

Petunia, if he were mine, I'd get a cognitive-behavior therapist on board immediately and arrange for neuropsych testing ASAP. Self-harm can escalate, and he clearly needs and wants help in managing thoughts and feelings, which is what CBTs work on.

Hang in there--
DeeDee

Not sure what his medication status is currently. But it is worth noting that self-injury and thoughts of suicide are known side effects of both Strattera and Prozac.

This was true in my son's case. His fatigue issues are definitely due to a physical problem that causes fatigue and not a psychiatric disorder. His anxiety is because of bad experiences with medical professionals. My son and I kept going to doctors trying to find out why he was born with mild hypotonia and why he had fatigue and endurance issues and needed to stop and rest while the other kids kept going and why he had joint and muscle pain and his hands hurt after writing for only five minutes. It was frustrating to hear doctors say it was just growing pains and developmental coordination disorder or dyspraxia when his balance and timing and coordination were really good until the fatigue set in. He wondered why what he had would be considered a learning disability when he didn't have trouble learning anything. My son didn't think it did him any good to see a doctor. It caused anxiety when the doctors could not tell him what was wrong. Then he read about OCCAMs razor several years ago and we both realized that was what the doctors were using on him instead of looking for more evidence of what he really had. We finally have an appointment to see a geneticist after all these years because his orthopedic surgeon listened to us and suspects that it could be something that is rare. It could explain why the scoliosis brace did not work as well as it should have and why he got scoliosis in the first place when nobody in our family has it or the hypotonia. We went through so many doctors that did not really listen to us and that caused so much stress and loss of confidence in doctors.

I used to do that and I never told anyone. It is good that he can talk to you about it. I only did it when I was in a lot of pain and felt that nobody would understood my pain and I would just have to suffer in silence and isolation. I was a very sensitive kid. I never went to any kind of therapy or took any kind of drugs for it. The thing that helped me most was talking to my mother and feeling that she really understood.

Petunia, it is soooo good that your ds opened up and talked to you about his cutting. I'd do everything I could (as his mom) to keep the lines of communication open and help him realize what a strong and understanding ally he has in you.

I don't think homeschooling or unschooling or whatever should even be on the radar at the moment - jmo, but I think your first priority is to understand what's going on with your ds... and fwiw, it seems like he's doing ok at school, at least socially and emotionally. Changing up the school situation would only throw one more complicating factor into the mix to sort through.

I agree that you need to see a neuropsych. It also sounds like your ds might benefit from having a counselor or another trusted adult to talk through to sort through his feelings. And definitely you need to keep those lines of communication open, talk to him as much as possible, try to keep digging to find out more of what's going on with him.

Best wishes,

polarbear

Lori I have sent you a message.