Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Learning Environments Is Public School enough for DD?

8yo DD attends a decent public school in our neighborhood. She's very happy there and has never complained of boredom. In fact, she will often state that math is "too hard", or other assignments are "hard". Yesterday her class was asked to read a poem then answer questions. She told me her teacher made her start over because her writing was too tiny and basically illegible. DD said the questions were hard for her, but when she recounted them they were not hard at all...

This is a child who gets only A's and whose GAI is >99.9% on the WISC IV. What is going on with her? Is she really finding the work hard, or is something else at play? Do we leave her in her school where she appears quite happy overall, or should we move her to a gifted program?

She is obviously extremely bright but perhaps not always self-motivated. She has also said at times that very few kids "get" her, though she does have friends. What would you do with a child like this? She appears to be happy but maybe we're missing something?

Really hoping for some feedback. Thank you,
Rachel

Is she a perfectionist?

What I've read here is that is called learned underachievement It comes from too much time spent in forced underachievement. Balance that with the hothousing and hurried child articles and try to figure it out if it's ok or not.

Also, I think the concern about learned underachievement has nothing to do with "they might have cured cancer" and more to do with spending eight hours a day learning to underachive, and restricting goals to social skills like "doing boring work", while other kids are learning to and better themselves by learning, advancing, and developing.
But those are just thoughts and the reality is many brilliant kids grew up in public school anyway, and the results have varied by individual.

I would google "gifted girls underachievement perfectionism" and start reading and reading and thinking about how to meet her needs. What you choose to do depends on many factors, but if her GAI is >99.9% I would say she needs some intentional advocacy in some area to learn how to work and exert effort and also some time around like-minded peers.

She sounds like my son (six today). Maths is too hard - it is stuff he could have done when he was four. School is boring and he hates it. This is new and I suspect it is boring but the main problem seem to be the "do your best every time" policy. He has a lot of trouble completing pages of basic maths neatly. The extension work he was given was more of the same.

Her being very happy at school is worth a lot; I'd be reluctant to move her. But maybe a chat with her teacher about how she's doing in school, and go from there? It is really important to have challenges other than perfection on easy work, but don't assume from another school's type that it'd provide that better. Could be the teacher is differentiating fantastically, could be your DD has an unidentified LD that makes things hard, could be lots of things.

Well, I'm noticing that you used the phrase "appears to be happy" twice in your post. Some kids are kind of quiet and compliant by nature, and aren't going to express their dissatisfaction in any direct way. It is possible that the "hard" comments are a quiet complaint of some kind. Possibly, there are some 2e issues that are in fact making the work hard. Maybe most likely, however, is the possibility that she is dumbing herself down to fit in. If the work is so far beneath her level that it is confusing and/or demoralizing to her to be asked to do it, then she might be choosing to act as if it is hard to be "normal."

We have always homeschooled, but I think my daughter might have looked like this in school. I think she would have "gone underground" very easily rather than have made any loud noise if she were unhappy.

50% of grades given are As, so I would discount grades as a measure of success.

My PG child has very real difficulties with reading comprehension. It doesn't mean everything else isn't streets ahead, but yes, there is grade level work which she can't really do.

Riding a bike at sixty feet per hour is "too hard".