Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy To advocate or not

Sometime I wonder what if my child is bored at school all day, what kind of long term impact will it have? Underachievement? Under challenged? Not using his/her full potential?

I am first to admit, I am not using my full intellectual potential. I could be so much more than I am now career-wise, but I find a nice work/life balance. Am I underachieving? Probably. Am I under challenged? Definitely. Am I not using my full potential? No, but I made the conscious decision not to.

We live in a school district where gifted education starts at 4th grade. We opt for a private school for the children due to smaller class sizes. I would have to push pretty hard at the current school to get any accelerations/differentiations, if any.

I have no problem to relentlessly advocate since I have the typical Type A personality, but I was wondering how far is too far? How far should you push for accelerations/differentiations if your child is happy socially at school but clearly (to you) not challenged?

Am I doing my child a disservice to advocate since he is happy socially? Or am I doing my child a disservice to not advocate since he is not challenged?

I am sure there is no right or wrong answer, but I am curious to hear from BTDT.

Jaded, distrust of authority, feelings of inferiority (I must be dumb if they keep explaining the same thing over and over that I thought I understood), inadequate study skills for college, inability to meet challenges, increased perfectionism, adolescent depression (with some roots in "if my life is spent going to school and I learn nothing at school, does my life have a purpose?) complete indifference to college... Stuff like that.

Without getting into the kinds of direct actions that might lead from these and the results of those actions.

"Potential" is such an overloaded/pejorative concept, it would be the least of my considerations.

No idea whether it is a 10% risk or 90% risk or what on these, but those are some of the mindset results from being continuously bored and unchallenged.

There is a subtext that appears on this board quite frequently. Usually hidden in discussions about advocacy, college options, or career choices. There's a sense that having a highly intelligent child gives a parent a responsibility to make sure they do meet their potential... That having been given a gift, there's an obligation to use it well.

As I said, it's subtle, but it's there. For example, it's one thing to accelerate because your child is miserable being held back... but what if they aren't miserable? What if they are perfectly happy just coasting along, not having to work very hard? And if your child has a particular skill or talent in an area, do they have to grow up to take advantage of that? Certainly no parent would wish for their child to grow up to be unhappy and unsuccessful, but does that mean they have to use every bit of their intellect, skill, and talent? Or is it OK to take a job that's less stimulating and focus on other things?

If the lack of challenge in school means your child never learns to work hard, is that OK? Can they grow up and get through college and find a job and still never have to work hard? Do we mind if they do? Or is learning to work hard and strive to learn things a critical life skill?

I admit I don't know the answers. DD pushes us and was ill-equipped to be understimulated in regular school. She made our decision to accelerate easy. But at the same time I have to remind myself -- and her -- that it's not a race. What's the prize for graduating early and starting college at 14 (which is her stated goal)? Getting a graduate degree and a job early too? Starting your long working life early? Is that OK? Or maybe she should just relax and take some time to fool around and slow down?

Right now her schooling is making her happy. But I know she'd also love to be a normal kid in a normal class with age mates too. We think we made the right choice, but we'll never know. She can't have it all.

I personally hate poor work ethic - and it seemed like that was a habit my DS was developing when he was underchallenged though he was happy socially. I don't have the energy or time to advocate. So, I changed schools. My DS went on to make new friends, is socially happy and his work ethic has improved dramatically now that he is asked to work on things meaningful to him.
Yes, there is no right answer - but in our case, challenging my child and holding him to higher standards helped. Good luck.

I am hopeless at advocating. I accidentally offend people and find it really stressful. Part of the reason for this according to the counsellor I saw a few years ago is i have learned helplessness - guess why!

That said ds7 is not unhappy at school. Underchallenged in maths and science and overwhelmed in composition but not unhappy. He does say he wants to be like the other kids but he thinks if he wasn't gf, didn't have problems with his bowels and something elseif that nature he would be just like other kids.

If your child is happy and you don't see any negative effects, then I don't think it's as important to advocate. If a child complains of boredom, the work being too easy or silly, if they don't care whether they go to school (or worse not they DEFINITELY don't want to go to school), if they are developing anxiety or perfectionism, if they are becoming sloppy and not performing compared to their abilities (for instance making careless mistakes because they are racing through things), there's more of a need for it. sometimes a kid with a happy, laid-back temperament goes along with whatever happens in school and doesn't even realize things could be different or that the material is super boring, therefore they never complain. I think in those cases it's important to dig a little to find out how poor of a fit the curriculum really is and what will benefit the child. DD never complained about preschool or kindergarten, she was simply thrilled to be with other kids. But when I went in to volunteer and saw her forced to sit through lessons on how to sound out the word "cat" (she was reading well before kindergarten), I could see how inappropriate it was to make her sit through that day after day. Even if she never articulated "I'm bored", I knew she had to be.

DS is actually saying he doesn't want to go back to school. He says it's "babyish" and it's too much boring work and sitting still listening to the boring teacher. He says the only thing worth going in for is physical education. I said "what about being with the other kids" and he said that most of them are annoying. So he is one I NEED advocate for, as he is at high risk of simply refusing to go to school one day, giving up, developing major attitude or behavior issues, etc.

DD spent the second half of third grade finding passive-aggressive ways to get out of doing the work. She "lost" her math workbook a few different times, and I found a stack of blank homework in the front hall closet. As the teacher (a long term sub) became more and more negative with her she became more anxious and actually worse in terms of behavior. She's another one I had to advocate for.

Ditto on that, but most of these don't happen overnight. I am already seeing the poor work ethic in DS.

So should you proactively advocate to avoid these negative effects? Or should you advocate only after seeing the negative effects?

Of course, I prefer to be proactive, but it’s that much harder to convince everyone involved that accommodation is needed when you are not seeing any signs of trouble.

Whenever I think about advocating, I think about the HG adult I knew who rejected school, hung out with the bad kids, experimented in various substances, married badly, went from one abusive relationship to the next, worked terrible jobs due to being in crisis mode and a lack of understanding of her true abilities, and died at a fairly young age due to complications brought on from alcoholism.

And then I think about the other gifted adults I've met who were on that same trajectory, except they ended up in the military for one reason or another, and these straight-D students were tested and found to be high-achieving, they just hadn't seen any valid reason to show it in school, because school was stupid and boring.

For my DD, these are the alternatives to advocating for an appropriate education. I could see that future ahead of her the moment I found out she was pretending not to know things in kindergarten... at her teacher's orders, it turned out.

It is my understanding that state laws for gifted education apply to the public schools only, not to private schools. In choosing a private school, parents choose the school's philosophy and curriculum, foregoing other options.

Over time, in posts on other threads, parents have suggested not pressing when there is not a viable alternative educational placement option or "plan B".

Have you read advocacy resources to provide yourself with some of the best approaches?

OK, one year down and we are still at square one.

DS6, going into 1st grade, can solve some simple pre-algebra questions, but will be learning how to add and subtract in 1st grade.

I started another thread about using Mathnasium as an enrichment. Other than after-school enrichment, I don't have any ideas how to challenge him.

When he was younger, it wasn’t as obviously about his giftedness in math. Now that he is 6 doing 5th grade math, it’s much harder to deny.

What does your DS have to say about it? Are you seeing any issues developing in him?

I personally would try advocating for single subject acceleration (or some accommodation, could be taking an online course in the back of the room) if you think he'll be happier taking math at a higher level. (Actually, we did, successfully, advocate.)

This really speaks to me.

One of the things learned to accept is it's more important that he is emotionally well than he meets some imaginary potential. A child/teen can be miserable if they are pushed particularly if they aren't allowed much free/play time. While my son has a lot of potential, and gets very bored in easy classes, he also doesn't do well when the homework load & stress gets too high. It can be hard as a parents to figure out what is a good balance.

Three points I'll add:

1. DS7 is way ahead academically, but behind on his executive function/social skills. So he is working hard and learning in school - albeit not math/reading, etc. He's learning that if he tries hard and practices, he can get better at something. For us, that's the most important thing for him to be learning right now, and I'm OK if he's coasting on the other stuff for a bit. If your child struggles for self control and generalized happiness at school, this MAY be a factor for you. Of course, it MAY reflect boredom and the need to accelerate. Every kid is going to differ here, and at some point you just have to trust your gut.

2. I believe that supporting a kid's desire to accelerate is necessary; pushing a kid for achievement is toxic. But ACK!! it's hard to draw the line sometimes. In younger years, I see a red flag when a parent tries to influence what the child will be passionate about.

Example: DS7 is currently wild about Magic the Gathering, which he picked up last summer at a camp. We follow his interest by playing with him and allowing him to play in tournaments, read strategy blogs, etc. Just basically eat, breathe and sleep Magic. You know how these intense kids do.

One of his friends also loves Magic. But Friend's parents promote him playing chess instead. They play chess with him, enter him in tournaments, etc. They don't forbid Magic, but they don't support it either. Friend is quite good at chess, but never prefers it over Magic. Friend's Mom often recommends that I nudge DS to play chess instead, so the boys would play together (and stop playing Magic). DS likes chess, but prefers Magic, so I don't push chess.

I understand that chess has a certain cache that Magic lacks, and see Friend's parents' reasoning. After all, both boys like chess, and both games are about strategy. But to me - Friend's parents chose chess, not him. To me that looks like pushing, not supporting. If it is, Friend will end up hating chess, or I'll eat a deck of Magic cards!

3. Absent free time, how is a kid supposed to FIND what they are passionate about? And if a kid is perpetually seated at the zone of proximal development, well that takes a lot of energy. I DO NOT presume to know or suggest that anybody here or in real life is pushing. Heck, I can't tell when I'm doing it myself. How could I ever tell what's going on in another family? I'm just saying that sometimes, a little boredom can be good for a brain that needs to learn to think for itself about what it wants to do.

Am I way off your question, HelloBaby? I don't mean to wander. But I guess what I wanted to say is, trust your instincts on accommodation/acceleration. Push the school to give what's needed. But don't be afraid to give your son a little breathing room, too.

In any event, your son is very lucky to have parents concerned enough to be asking these questions!

Sue

I think this can really depends on the teacher. We too live in an area where gifted education starts at 4th grade. Before elementary I looked into various options and ended up deciding to just go with the public elementary for a multitude of reasons. One because their gifted program in 4th grade was supposedly excellent and the best in the area. And two because there are a large number of gifted kids in the local schools and the school had informal "gifted" clusters in the lower grades.

K-3rd grade wasn't perfect but my son seemed content enough at school in early elementary. Second grade was the biggest challenge because that teacher wouldn't allow any of the "challenge" math material until the at grade level math work was done. Problem was my son was slow (embarrassingly I've only figure out after 9th grade why) and would never get to the interesting work. I do wonder if maybe I should have pushed harder but I felt there wasn't a huge rush, it didn't keep him out of the top math track he started in 4th grace. The other teachers he had during that time were informally accommodating (not just to him), and gave him more advanced work when they could fit it into the curriculum. For example for a book report, the teacher would expect a more advanced book & more advanced writing. I could have pushed for more but I figured he was learning other important skills being in a classroom setting.

I wonder if while they are no official accelerations at your school there still are some accommodations? Most schools that I know of are aware that kids pick up reading at different speeds. Are there different reading or math groups within the classroom. Are they subjects they are allowed to work on at their own speed? Open ended projects that help keep them engaged? There other things than acceleration that can keep a gifted child engaged, although that depends on how gifted. A PG child isn't unlikely to find a in-class accommodations very helpful.

Interestingly my father asked these same sort of questions, and he decided that it was better for us to enjoy (and coast through) our lives than to try and grab some arbitrary brass ring. He also worked just enough in order to not work (he placed more value on having free time). He was also highly educated at top schools and was from a high achieving family -and suffered from anxiety- so he was moving in the opposite direction from how he was raised.

I do often have the feeling of having not ever reached my potential- knowing you are gifted often makes you feel you have a responsibility not to "squander your gifts".

If we make the analogy of a beautiful woman- does she have to become a model because she was born with these particular genes? Or someone who excels at athletics- we don't demand that they go into professional sports (well some parents do I guess).

I guess it depends on the child…but you are right, you can't have it all. I am struggling with this myself now as my children complain of being bored at school but do not seem to need acceleration…too much seems familiar to me from my own experience but I don't know what to do about it.

It is perfectly fine to choose life over a job. The problem is that if you drop out of school and start taking drugs in your teens it is not really a choice bit rather a consequence. My aim is to get my kids to adulthood with as many options open as possible.

Agreed. And I would rather my kids have the ability to support themselves so that they would be able to enjoy life instead of constantly worrying about where their next paycheck is coming from….which is hard to do without some kind of degree. I was lucky in that when I did fail out of school in 9th grade (for truancy) my mom made sure I got back into school and back on track.

I don't really know the answer but I will say this.

I was to all outside appearances a happy kid at school. I did enough to get high marks but not too much to attract attention, deliberately got things wrong in class to "blend in", played sports, had friends, etc. I knew it wasn't ideal but I also knew that A) there weren't any other options or programs and B) my mom made it clear that school was just something you had to do and she wasn't going to advocate for anything special. Even with my DS she has not understood why we would seek an IEP and now a congregated gifted program - "he has to get used to doing boring stuff", "he has to work with a variety of kids, that's how the real world works", etc. It took travelling with us for a month and then an article that happened to appear in her local paper to get her to come around. She was a teacher and had no clue about this stuff.

Anyway, all of that personal baggage to say that I would have LOVED to have had a challenge in school but likely no one would have suspected that. In the end it worked out, I plowed all of my extra time and energy into sports which I still love. I found a great career that is challenging and where I am surrounded by gifted people which I also love.

My DS9 is easy in the sense that it was really obvious that school wasn't working for him so we had to change it. DD6 isn't as obvious. She appears to be like I was as a kid so I face the same questions you are. We're testing her in the fall and hopefully that will give us an idea of what we're dealing with and we can go from there.

All of that probably isn't very useful but you definitely aren't alone.

In general, he likes to blend in, which may not be good for him long-term. When he is not challenged, he gradually starts to act out.

It’s hard for me to foresee how my actions or inactions will affect a 6-year-old in the future, especially he does well in school.

I really appreciate it this post! Thank you for sharing it. It is definitely reassuring.

It is, as you know, impossible to predict the future! We have found it helpful to research best practices for educating gifted children (based on evidence, wherever possible). In our son's case, we also saw the downside of inaction. In first grade, he was forced (there is no other good word) to sit quietly while the rest of the class learned what he already knew or had grasped very quickly. He became the class clown, was constantly in trouble and started hiding from me when it was time to go to school. So we knew we had to act. We now know, based on testing, how highly gifted he is and wish we had acted decisively at the beginning of that school year (we tried, were rejected by the principal, but should have pulled him from there posthaste).

I wouldn't say that we are obsessing over trying to get him to reach his full potential, but rather, that we are trying to balance things out so he has at least some learning that happens at school.

It is unfortunate that our school system is so focused on age, rather than letting children move through subjects as they master them. This forces us to do things that are against the norm or try to find another way to allow actual learning to take place (isn't it interesting that schools claim social over academic progress as their mantra?!). As an alternative example, my mother and her siblings attended a mixed-grade (K-8)rural school (as in one large room). They were able to progress based on mastery because the teacher was constantly grouping and regrouping students to cover different topics at their educational levels. That seems so much better.

I have read such helpful and informative things. I'm so glad I made this post. I'm not sure where we're going to wind up but I feel better prepared for what is ahead. I feel a lot less alone too!

I'm the first to admit that a big part of DS6's problem is that he is a negative child. Instead of making the best of things and enjoying what he can, he focuses on being bored and "hating" stuff. I have long known this and work on it with him, but it's a very uphill battle.

It doesn't help that he is almost pathologically shy and has a hard time with making friends and being in big groups of kids. One of the things I love about his school is how he socially grew from hiding in a corner to having good friends and feeling comfortable with all the kids. Our town is very high turnover and in most schools there are always a bunch of new kids, but in this school you are with the same 100 kids in your grade the whole way through, give or take a few that move away.

He has his formal testing scheduled for the week of August 17, so after that I plan to schedule a face to face meeting with the principal and the psychologist.

Addendum: Sorry, I somehow posted this in the wrong thread. I will add it in the proper thread.

I have no idea if this is a good book or not, but one that has been on my reading list for a while this one -my daughter can be quite negative as well - but maybe you have already read it... is http://www.amazon.com/The-Optimistic-Child-Depression-Resilience/dp/0618918094