Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy I'm looking for any options

I'm brand new to this site so please bare with me if this question is in the wrong place. We have a 6 yr old son (we'll call him LD) who is in 1st grade. We placed him in kindergarten early (missed the cut off by 4 whole days) because of his intelligence and height we felt he'd socially fit in well with kids a little older. His teacher never spoke with any parents of the 22 kids in her class unless we begged. In November we discovered LD was doing work he did when he was 3. He was bored stiff. We asked the teacher for months to challenge him more, allow us to volunteer during school so he could be challenged, anything. Nothing happened. By March and several meetings later I went to the principal. She was awful. She told me twice that I just had a smart kid, there's nothing they can do and I should find extra-curricular activities for LD to challenge him. She added that she choose that path for her daughter who was graduating in 2006. I quote, "Sure she was bored in school for 12 years, but she had 4-H." I haven't beaten my head against a wall enough to accept that as an option. Our family loves a first grade teacher so we managed to get him into her class for this year. She is fantastic and the class size is only 16 this year, but LD is still bored. We live in Massachusetts and they have the MCAS requirements that hogtie teachers into teaching to the bottom of the class. As great a teacher as LD has, all her time is spent on teaching the more than half the class that are still trying to sound out 2 and 3 letter words (I volunteer once a week now and can't help my son because they only see the remidial kids as needing help) They were excited to tell us that they raised his computer literacy level to include hard words like muffin and pancake. At home he's struggling but succeeding sounding out encyclopedia. He breezes through anything I've written here. His math skills are similar.
I've gone to 3 private schools and talked with parents of 2 other private school and parents in the 5 surrounding districts. This seems to be the norm. HELP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I do stay home so homeschooling is an option BUT what about his social skills???? We know LD is smart, we don't know if he is "gifted" How do we find out and what difference does it make? How do people work with districts like this? Incidentally, my husband recently became chairman of the district school board. Is there anything he can do (keep it legal and ethical please)?

Welcome LD parents!
So glad you found your way here. This sort of post usually goes on the Advocacy Forum, but I don't think anyone will mind - LOL!

How "new" are you to the idea of Gifted? What books have you read? What has the social and emotional effect been on LD?

I would seek professional help, probably from Dee Lovecki in Rhode Island, unless a big trip is an financial option. I'd also urge you to read Deb Ruf's Loosing Our Minds - gifted Children left behind. She explains that as many as the top 10-15 (I think!) of the class may be severely left behind in todays classrooms, even though they wouldn't test into a gifted program. I'd also encourage you to read around and see if anything sounds familiar.

Best Wishes,
Trinity

I was labeled Gifted from 5th-8th grade. Which meant that we met for 1 period in 5th grade and did extra projects and brain teasers, etc. 6th-8th I was in the gifted math program and just got pulled for math. High school had no gifted program but had some teachers very against the entire idea of labeling kids. They made it their mission to verbally and academically belittle us for 4 years beginning the first day of 9th grade. Students knew of no recourse and I don't believe any teacher was ever reprimanded. So it's been a cheery experience.

As a parent, I've been understandably apprehensive about labeling my kids. I've read quite a few books about teaching your kids and try to subsidize his school work with work he's capable of doing. I haven't read anything specifically about gifted kids. Hopefully we'll find the books you've listed at our next trip to the library. (thanks for the recommendations) The social and emotional effect of LD are that he's bored and fidgits when he has nothing to do. Last year's teacher suggested we put him in special ed because he couldn't sit still. He would have sat if he had something to do for 90% of the day. His new teacher is much more understanding. She allows him to stand and pace (I'm not sold on this idea because I'm afraid next year's teacher might not be so accepting). I've made half a dozen rice-filled tubes for my son and other kids in the class to lay across their laps or over their shoulders to try to help them stay in their seats. I've seen LD in class a handful of times now thanks to being able to volunteer and I constantly see him walking around, helping other kids, fidgiting, bored. He does the work before the teacher's done explaining it. She writes stuff down on the board, then reads it out loud, then discusses it, then recites the answers verbatim for the students to print out on their papers, then they discuss it some more and wait for the kids to finish their papers. LD is usually done by the second step and waits for 10-15 minutes for the rest. Emotionally he's really outgoing although I've noticed that he doesn't raise his hand to answer questions I know he knows the answers to. On the playground he's comfortable walking up to anyone and talking to them. All the kids in his class seem to like him.

What is the professional help that you're talking about? Rhode Island's not too far away and we have some money we could use. We almost sent him to a private school this year but fell in love with the teaching sytle of his public school teacher. So that's $4,000 saved.

I've read through many messages here and LD seems to fit in with a lot of the kids here although not all. One major difference is that he's not motivated to learn outside of what the other kids are doing unless it's disquised as a computer game. If a teacher gives him an option to do more work IF he wants he'll politely say no thanks and the teacher doesn't push it.

Thanks so much for responding, it's tough feeling like you're the only parents going through this kind of thing. In our town we're looked at like a couple of freaks for wanting to even be involved in our kids' education let alone add to it.

Wow - You really hit a button with me - off I go:

My son is definitly gifted, and he takes the same approach to your son in the area of "extra schoolwork." I think that this can be understood in a few ways:

1) What is in it for him? This September our son was finally able to verbalize why he wasn't making use of the provided "in-class enrichment."
Me: Honey, You said you are bored in Math and afraid that the kids in your old school will get ahead of you, but when I asked the teacher she said that you never do the special Challenge Math Stations that she puts around the edge of the room for kids who finish early.
Son: Mom, that stuff she puts out is baby stuff. I won't do it!
((Turns out, when I brought this to the attention of the school, then took him out of 5th Grade, and but him in their Middle School for 6th Grade for everything except Math, which is their advanced 7th Grade Pre-Algebra. Math isn't his favorite subject or key strength, but he loves not being bored! The school said that he tested strongly enough on their Algebra Readiness test to go directly into Algebra, but they wanted him to have a chance to be with a particularly nice group of Math-loving 7th graders.))

2) Stamina - for my son, and yes, we got the same talk from the school that he belonged in special ed. when he was in 2nd grade, just dealing with the bordom and tring to live up to the schools behavioral expections was enough to wipe him out. He didn't have enought energy left to "score well on his behavior chart" and want to learn afterschool. Interestingly, he was willing, in exchange for more computer time, to sit and learn at his readiness level with me and seemed energized by it, but that was very occasional.

3)Awareness of peers. We want our children to have enough awareness to try and be like their peers. That's normal and good. But if we leave our children in peer-groups that are not "like" them in important ways, then we are teaching them to deny that part of themselves. Strangly enough, a child may assume that their is something wrong with them if they do not react to the classroom environment the way the other children do - even if this difference is something adults value, such as strong intellect. That was my personal experience.

I hope this helps,
Trinity

LD Parent,
I'm so sorry that your High School teachers reacted in this way. I suppose that in any profession there is a variety of people in it.

((Shaking head ruefully)) Those gifted pull-out programs are under attack from all sides, these days, aren't they? They are attacked for being elitist, and expensive, and unnescessary from one side, and for being inadaquate on the other side, after all, a child is gifted "24 hours a day." Then there are the Highly Gifted children who are just a underchallenged at the Gifted Program as they were in the regular classroom, but perhaps with less free time to pursue their own interests. Still I think that the chance to have a teacher who "gets" you and be with other children who have this exceptionality in common may be "just right" for some children, and better than nothing for others. I grew up a few years before such programs where introduced at our school, and was told by my parents, that if I could just hold on and be compliant, College awaited me and all my dreams would be realized. ((Of course, as wonderful as College was, I had ZERO study skills by the time I got there - a problem!))

If it wasn't for the school calling me to demand that I do something about my son, I would have continued to think that Giftedness was "no big deal" and "had no effect on me."

((shrug))
Trinity

The first question that is ever asked about Homeschooling is the socialzation issue. Frankly, doen't sound like your school experience was all that useful for socialization - LOL! The only way to face this is to meet your local homeschoolers and talk to lots and lots of Parents. Sometimes they can be hard to find. I called our local newspaper, and randomly asked the person on the phone if they knew any homeschoolers who would talk to me - sure enough they did. Also check at the local library, YMCA, or Nature Centers. If you will allow me to exaggerate Homeschoolers tend to fall into two main catagories: 1 - people who do it for religious reasons and
2- people who want their gifted children to get a "good fit" education without having to take on the lable or the advocacy process. ((This is excellent thinking because many of us have found that the energy to face the schools is greater than the energy to homeschool - and so often our advocacy within the school doesn't result in acutal positive results.))

Best Wishes,
Trinity

http://www.grcne.com/services.html#Assesment is Gifted Resource Center of New England
P.O. Box 40326, Providence, RI 02940-0326
(401) 421-3426
GRCNE02940@aol.com
Dr. Lovecky
She does a thing called "Educational Assesment" which is IQ tests. She will help you understand your individual child and give you some suggestions for educational ideas.
Call now and get on her waiting list, it isn't short, so even if you aren't sure, call and get on it.

Will the school do any testing? After all, they did want him in "special ed" - LOL!

Here's another wonderful professional, by Aimee Yermish,who calls herself an Educational Therapist, in your state. Contact her ayermish@ALUM.MIT.EDU She is wonderful to talk to.

Here's a link to try for general giftedness reading - http://www.hoagiesgifted.org/

Best Wishes,
Trinity

Thank you for the recommendation again. I read straight through the article and again can relate to some of the parents and kids situations. I'm hoping to meet with LD's teacher today and I think that I will ask for an IEP to help the teachers and me understand where my son fits in. When my oldest son (LD) was 3 we started going to homeschooling meetings. I only went to 4 of them and found that many of the people that were there, were there for religious reasons. I believe that the rest were there because they felt that their children were being pushed too hard. One woman was amazed that the school, which stands at the bottom of the barrel in the state, would try to teach her 8th grader how to read graphs! Graphs! "Can you believe it? I've never read a graph in my life, who needs to learn that kind of stuff?" I only went to one more meeting, which was really a field trip to a local vet's office. My son had more questions for the vet than any of the other kids.

I'm sure that there are other groups of homeschoolers in my area, I just have to find them. Has anyone reading this utilized sending their kids into school for just a few classes like gym, art, or music?

Thanks again Trinity for your time.

LDP -
That is sooo weird! i'm sure there are other homeschooling parent's around, but they are probably hiding from graph-lady!

i haven't done the part time school, but from what I hear, it can interrupt the flow of the day, but it seems worth trying, anyway. Afterschool activities become very time consuming in just a few short years, and a child could get lots of socialization time in at Karate, Scouts, and sports teams.
Best Wishes,
Trinity