Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy D is not for dear or darling today

The school recently started testing DS7 for the gifted program. We got back some rather strange scores - in particular the section with the 0 score. DS7 says "I don't like it when they try to test me. Sometimes I just decide not to do it." Turns out he answered them all wrong on purpose.

I asked him yesterday to describe his idea of the perfect school, since he's been really unhappy lately, which has a lot to do with refusing to be tested. He would read the Narnia books, study chemistry, and work on division. I explained again that the school won't provide accommodations (like rapidly accelerated math) unless he proves he is capable of doing the work. Lately he's been in trouble for not staying on task and completing assignments. The gifted program seems to emphasize/want children who are really well behaved, so he is undermining his chances at services pretty badly right now.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

Just needing to vent. DS is 7, and responding to his frustrations like a 7 year old by taking control the only way he can -- refusing to participate. I sympathize, but it's making me nuts.

Jill

My friends were in that situation - a bright student suddenly stopped doing easy addition. I have never been in that boat,so no easy answeres here. For us things became easier when my DS started 5th grade and they allowed him to do Algebra. He was doing two classes of math daily - Algebra and his regular 5th grade curriculum - the fact that he was able to understand more complex problems did not mean that he instantly knew how to compute fractions :-)
Would private testing be an answwr, can psychologist talk to your son and then againt to the teacher/principal?
Good Luck,
Ania

Unfortunately, the district's policy is to only consider their own testing, so we need to complete their process. It's not completely hopeless though. They are still testing, so more information will be gathered in next month or two, provided he decides to cooperate. (They do tests in small chunks because they do group assessments.)

When I told DS7 again that you have to do well on the tests to get into the math program he told me he would get them all right next time.