Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy Bored and unhappy

DS, six-turning-seven and HG+, is complaining again of boredom, with tears and (this morning) howls that he doesn't learn ANYTHING at school. He is a dramatic kid and young for his age emotionally and my husband feels this is normal. I'm less sure.

Last year in K was a yearlong struggle with a teacher who did not understand him, finally bringing his case to the school "solutions committee" for daily offenses like wriggling, dawdling, and losing his pencil. We suggested he was bored, supplied private test results, and they reined her in. He finished the year fairly happily, with some differentiation, and I made a strong request for a teacher who would challenge him this year.

This year's first-grade teacher is kind and solid and has always been sincerely upset by the idea that he might be unhappy. She says he's never unhappy in the classroom. But she seems focused on small points. At our December conference she was calling him an "emergent reader" (he reads at a fifth-grade level now, probably third-grade then) because he doesn't slow down for punctuation. She was concerned that his Thanksgiving "personal essay," which included the personal experience of seeing a wild turkey in the back yard, evolved into a comparison of turkeys with turkey vultures. (Not personal enough.)

(On the other hand, when I asked about differentiating math she said he had a challenge pack to work on whenever he finishes the classwork. She showed me that day's sheet and he had skipped three out of four questions, including "circle the crayon that is longer." So, I can sympathize somewhat: the regular work should take him under five minutes to do and if he dawdles and daydreams through that, no challenge pack.)

While free reading seems to be at a reasonable level, phonics, spelling, and math instruction are very slow and there is little science for my science-mad kid. The district (which includes a superzip) is well-resourced but has no official gifted program. As far as I can tell, the elementary levels are painfully gentle and slow, many parents supplement aggressively, and in middle school the pace picks up substantially. I just joined a strategic planning committee working on instructional issues - of course that won't help immediately, but I am hoping to make contacts above the school level and also learn from some of the parents of older kids.

We supplement math, vocabulary, and some science at home and he attends a weekend science class for gifted kids. I plan to do more with math and science over the summer and maybe start piano. So he does have intellectual stimulation. We have a lot going on right now and I've been willing to let him coast at school as long as he's happy.

But now he's not happy.

Not sure where to take hold. I feel like I walk away from every encounter with the school thinking that every point they raise sounds eminently reasonable but once again, we've gotten nowhere.

You describe how our issues started, except we were at a gifted school in the pre school section. If he is unhappy you need to listen to that! He may want to be using his time after school to just unwind, play, think, just be and now because he doesn't get what he SHOULD at school (where he spends a large portion of his day), he needs to do it at home in his free time.

Thats how my oldest son explained it to his therapist eventually. He had music classes, we did extra fun stuff, all of it stuff he enjoyed and loved. but he was unhappy and I still wish we had listened to the howling and screaming and quietness and lack of interest that followed and taken him seriously. It would have saved our entire family so much angst and worry and heartache...

I fail to see the need for him to complete class work before doing something interesting (although even his maths pack doesn't sound that intruiging for him). My son also would dawdle and not be interested in doing boring work. I can think of half a dozen smart kids who faced the same issue. Incidentally we are all homeschooling now - aside from 1 who is having major issues in their grade 1 class after less than a month of grade 1.

And I, too, would walk away from teacher and admin meetings feeling they were reasonable and I was odd/crazy/silly/weird/mad/pushy, whatever. But I wasn't and I wish I had trusted both him and myself more when I could have circumvented all the problems.

So I have no advice, except to say LISTEN to him. And take action. Either advocate for his real needs, or change schools or homeschool him.

best of luck!

also would say that you must listen to your child.

What the school says probably sounds reasonable to you because it is...but the school is saying these things based on their experience with the vast majority of their students, who fall into a more typical range.

The "problem" with the gifties on the higher scales is the speed in which they learn, and it's part of them. We listened to DD and tried to make changes, she's in private now and already needs adjustments but they're super-focused on her challenges (mainly writing) and when she's clearly bored they say their curricululm is fine, and she just needs to deal with it to build character...the usual thing.

I think the earlier you start listening to your child saying this stuff the better (and it's good he's telling you, not making you guess!)

I loved how you described the academic pace as "painfully gentle and slow" it does cause pain for the gifties!

I think the earlier you start listening to your child saying this stuff the better (and it's good he's telling you, not making you guess!)

Frameworthy.

(The entire post, really, but that was my favorite part.)

Yes, listen to your child and follow your instincts. I would also walk away from parent-teacher conferences thinking I was the one who was way off base. For years, I doubted my son's giftedness because his schools, and there were quite a few, would always claim that he was getting a great education. His inability to pay attention was claimed to be ADD - two separate evaluations proved otherwise. Several teachers even claimed he was "playing me" or "pulling the wool over my eyes." I even had a gifted supervisor from our school system tell me he was "playing me."

Absolutely, listen to your child and your instincts! The schools - private or public - rarely know better than you!

When I told my son's teacher his test results she said 'but he is very young, and x, y and z' need work. She said it nicely, she's a great teacher and he only had 2 more weeks in her class. I agreed - it was all true; just completely irrelevant to his need for more maths challenge.

I am reading for tips, our new school year starts Thursday.

Good luck.

Thanks so much for the feedback. I will talk to the teacher again about offering some alternatives. I asked DS to go through school yesterday as a detective figuring out when exactly he was bored or daydreaming or out of sync with the class, and it seems to be mostly during the whole-class instructional sections. I wouldn't have much patience for long phonics reviews either. If she will agree to let him work quietly on some science reading (which we can send in) during those times, that would help a lot, I think.

And, I now have the district gifted policy and will think about how to leverage some of its language with the school. It does maintain that the standard curriculum is ideal for the many gifted students in the district (what they were telling me last year) but also that the highest 1-3% may need additional solutions. We have the test scores so there's my opening.

You've been given lots of great advice already, so this is just more commiseration...

Your son's situation almost exactly mirrors mine's. DS7, who is also very science-y, also began crying (brokenheartedly) about never learning anything at school.

Last summer I went to the school armed with writing samples, a write-up of his personality & accomplishments (playing 3 instruments, youngest member of youth orchestra, took 2nd grade EPGY math over the summer, etc). They already had his IQ scores since they're the ones who did the testing. They had his reading scores showing he was above grade level in reading. I stressed that he absolutely did not need any phonics instruction and since he'd completed 2nd grade math, could he skip to 2nd in the fall? They agreed, and DS and I were so excited.

Well, a couple months into the year, he began complaining of boredom and finally broke down in tears. My conversations with the teachers went nowhere. I could have gone back to the Asst Principal (who okayed the skip) to push for more challenge, esp. in math, but I decided to withdraw him around Thanksgiving.

(He made it through K the previous year with a lot of grace and patience re: learning material, but I think he just couldn't take it anymore - not being challenged, that is.)

I no longer work from home, so I couldn't keep him with me, but my mother agreed to care for him during the day while he did the work I sent for him.

So he is now happily homeschooling, and gets to do science EVERY day.

I am all for after-schooling--that's how we made it through K. But, at some point, like you or someone else mentioned in this thread, it's hard on kids for most or all of their learning to happen once school lets out for the day (esp. if there are other after-school activities on your family's plate).

If your DS can homeschool, maybe even just for the remainder of the current year until you find a better school/sort out the appropriate classroom environment at his current school, etc., that might be best.

My son was wilting - there's really no other way to describe what I witnessed - but like your son, he's very good about expressing himself. So it's great he has YOU to listen to him and make sure he gets what he needs.

:-)