Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy bubble bursting

LOL, bianca!

DS6 came home on the first day of 1st grade, threw down his backpack and said in a serious voice, "I'm NOT going back...and if you MAKE me go back, there's no WAY I'm going to 2nd grade because it will be even LONGER and MORE BORING!"

This from the kid who had enjoyed all 3 years of pre-K and K...We pulled him out for emergency homeschooling before the end of September.

Sometimes they make it VERY clear that it's not working!

Hey, gang. I feel it's time to post as "me , the really weird kid" vs. DD9's mom again. Confession time so that there's an example of the (completely strange but toothsome ) PG kid. I admit now, that that's who I was. I did skip four grades, went to university classes at eleven, " ahem" went from "I know it's how it's done but REALLY there must be a better way" to having sex with 30-year -old -men at 13 to graduating high -school but my parents deciding I was to young for college but letting me go to Europe for four years alone, during which I ahd international reviews performing, went to University in France(both fancy and un-) and studied with very fancy folk, worked as a call girl in London then returned to the US, hung out in various ways, decided to go to graduate school so I'd better pick up a BA. (And a major international scholar on the way who let me ride along as cute young thing as he was doing the world scholar routine} did that in 2 years, got a full ride to an Ivy League Graduate school... and at 35 realized I needed a life (hence marriage, child, and so on).

As a brilliant therapist-astrologer said to me at (? 13?) "You'll always be weird, so get used to it!"

As I rant, what I really want to get across is: your kids will always be weird, so help them be who they are!"
Aline

Aline-

I see you are putting your life story out there with a chuckle, but it's really a very sad tale. I feel for the little girl who had so little guidance and support. What a tough way to grow up! I hope that you've found your niche with the family you've made.

best wishes-

Watching DD3 this past year, a couple of observations and I would appreciate any experience and comments.

As mentioned, she is in a good Montessori and I am pleased. As a September 3 year old, she is one of the younger and made friends with 3s, as the "older" girls had relationships from last year and were cliquish. She seems to have dropped her 3 year old peers and is playing with the 4s. All of those she plays with now are moving on to K this fall. There will be 3 older kids left next year, 2 European and 1 Japanese, whose parents are keeping them there rather than putting them in K here and moving back and K again.

Many people have posted about peer relationships and sorry, I read but didn't make a solid file. Did you see behavioral issues escalate as desire for older playmates increase combined with availability restrictions?

Perhaps I should have posted a new topic but I thought it combined the above, sort of.

Ren

Yes, though I think our bigger problem was that the decrease in the number of true peers in the age-based 1st grade class coincided with the complete lack of challenging schoolwork.

Unhappy kids have trouble fitting in. Kids don't usually like to be friends with a child who's in trouble a lot. It all kind of comes together as a package deal of negativity a lot of the time, I think.

Lorel,

Thanks for your post. I wasn't trying to "woe is me" at all, rather to come clean a bit about the actual social challenges some of these kids face. My best advocacy line for why Gifted Ed is necessary (here in NM it's under Special Ed) is that one isn't worried about whether or not the child will go to Harvard but rather about whether or not they will become the Unabomber. Somewhere in this thread there was a reference to the same thing. The asynchronous development issue can really blow up during adolescence. I know many (relatively) people -- especially girls who have a similar developmental history. As a Mom, I really do hope guidance makes a difference! My family was under tremendous emotional stress but apart from that they were highly conscious of education, very cosmo, very smart, had tremendous access and enough money.

aline

I agree with this statement wholeheartedly. My son was well liked by his teachers and peers when he entered his 3-5 year old preschool/daycare class. As he become more and more frustrated with the school situation, his social relationships quickly become non-existent.

Interesting question. We are going to be in the exact position next year with DD3.5 at preschool. She definitely gravitates toward the kids 1 to almost 2 years older than her in this environment, all who are going off to kindergarten. Her preschool teacher last week told me she is ready for K except for her RE (rampant emotionalism) issues and newly found perfectionism. She is still very much a mama's girl.

I'm hoping she'll be ok since she has a summer birthday and will still kind of be in the middle of the group. And this year has been all about the social for her - she absolutely LOVES the older girls. I am hoping she'll dig in more to learning opportunities. This preschool is very small, flexible, open ended, and I know a number of HG+ kids who've gone through there.

Anyway - I guess we'll watch and wait!

Aline-

I've always been full of regret for my own turbulent adolescence. But my life appears as dull and squeaky clean as Leave it to Beaver next to yours!

I didn't see you looking for pity, but I feel for your inner child anyway. Where were the adults in your life while that 30 year old was committing statutory rape?

hugs-

I think a super smart kid with a certain kind of personality can get away with a whole lot even if the parent is paying attention.
I was immature and determined to do whatever the h@#$ I wanted to do and smart enough to fool ALL the adults involved. My parents weren't the greatest, but certainly not neglectful. They did the best with what skills they had.
I just read a book that I heard about at OGTOC. It's called Help is on the Way by Jenna Forrest. She basically tells her life story growing up and it focuses alot on extreme sensivities. It's an interest read especially if you want to understand someone who suffers from RE!- hee hee hee.
Seriously, though, there was a part of the book where she was like 9 or 10 and she walked right up to her teacher and told her that her mom was picking her up for a doctor's appointment and was going to be waiting outside. The teacher told her to go ahead. She just walked out of school, went home, her mom was at work so she just let herself in with her key and hung out...AT NINE!
In the book she eventually gets caught, but I did that stuff all the time and I never got caught! In fact, at the end of 8th grade the vice principal came up and said what a model citizen I was. You would die if I told you what all I was up to that year!
I never got caught so the behavior escalated. I kept upping the anty and I think there was a small part of me that wanted to get caught. It never happened.
That's too much heady power for a little kid.
Which brings me back to wanting to make sure really smart kids are engaged at school. Like my eight year old says, six and a half hours is a really long time to be sitting around doing nothing. Mix that with a certain personality and you could have some really regretful results. It especially upsets me because it's really not that hard to fend that off by keeping the child engaged during the day.