Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Age or Ability Specific Forums Pre-school Maybe he's not gifted afterall ...?

Maybe he's not gifted afterall? ... that was my inner thought couple days ago about DS4.10! We haven't done ANY school work since the end of preschool and with Kindergarten in couple weeks, I figured we might start with a little refresher. So I powered up the computer, signed into Dreambox Learning ... and ... was HORRIFIED that my child couldn't tell me what 3 + 4 was!!! My thoughts were "OMG! He doesn't know! He figured out these basic problems on his own 2 years ago and now he doesn't know? He's just like any of his NT friends! He's not gifted at all! Who am I kidding!" ... I was there to guide him through 2 of the problems and then I left and let him play. Came back 10 minutes later and my child was easily doing addition and subtraction to 20 without a second thought and just kept saying ... "Oh, this is easy! I know all this!" And there he was, my child was back! I guess he let any academics completely slip off his mind back in May and I totally fell for it! lol

Please, tell me I'm not the only parent who's had this happen to them???

If your child is anything like I was, he probably hates to respond on cue as expected. He is likely bored with these types of questioning, and rather than respond like a well-trained seal, wants to do it on his own time. He probably is gifted, but rebellious. As a PG child, I was the most unmotivated student but responded well as an autodidactic learner =] Perhaps your child is the same

Nope, you're not the only one (but I sure hope we're not the only two!) DS was better in arithmetic in kindergarten than he was at the end of first grade. I don't know exactly why, but I think the constant repetition of "easy" math either made him forget what he already knew, or made him lose confidence in his math abilities.

And FWIW, DS barely passed any of his timed subtraction tests this past year (in 2nd grade), even though he was accelerated to 4th grade math. He despises timed tests, and basically shuts down and answers only a few questions. I know he knows how to subtract, he just can't always do it on command when he feels pressured.

It just sounds like he'd got a bit rusty and he just needed a little while to get back up to speed.

Oh MK, even in this early phase of DS' development, I can sympathize! It can be a real parental rollercoaster, can't it? He first spoke extremely early and in sentences for a week, then went silent for a few months, by which point I had deluded myself into thinking it was a fluke. As you know from my recent posts, it wasn't. He's also recently started skipping "4" when he counts, I think just to irk his father. He went through similar phases of fake knowledge suppression whenever he's gotten bored with the material, and is still on a kick of defining everything by what it isn't (e.g. blue is "not-red-not-green-not-yellow..." You get the idea...)

Hang in there. Trust your instincts.

Thanks! Glad I'm not alone! lol I'm sure he did get a little rusty since we haven't done any math at all for awhile. But I did have a good reason for it too. I didn't like how his math skills suffered in preschool where when he went in last fall, he did all math in his head real fast and by the end of the year he kept telling me the only way to do it was counting one by one on his fingers? Because that's what they were taught. So now he's back to the pre-preschool abilities when he didn't need anything but his brain! I did notice one thing though. When he has a math problem, he keeps looking at it and saying it's too hard and he doesn't know but then when I get firm with him and tell him "you know this. Just give him the answer!" then he gives me the correct answer right away. So maybe it's still some sort of hiding he did in pre-school? But I am really glad to see him grasping the concepts really quick once he got into it. Within an hour he was done with Kindergarten curriculum and onto a lot of 1st grade stuff. Hopefully he's done "forgetting"!

aquinas - DS3.3 was like that with reading! First he learned to read simple words. Then acted like he forgot it all for couple months, then started reading short sentences, then went into hiding again just to start reading long sentences and paragraphs couple months later! I have to learn to NOT fall for this anymore! lol

Thanks MK, that's reassuring. It's so easy to be duped, though! I find myself spiralling through this kind of thinking:

1. he's just a baby
2. give him space to play, let's take a break from academic play
3. he seems so...different
4. that's maternal bias speaking
5. OMG! What did he just do?! I'm never doubting him again.

Lather, rinse, repeat. It's very Dilbert-esque. DH and I joke that he's a benevolent, if mischevious, Stewie from Family Guy.

I still don't really believe mine are gifted.

I love when I come across these kinds of posts and realise its not just me!