Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Struggling...

This is really hard. I get a phone call home on average once a month due to 8 yo ds being "disrespectful" or "not listening" or "refusing to do the work." He's well above 99%ile on every test he's taken. He's bored, and frustrated, and disdainful about the work he is asked to complete.

His teacher is kind and knows his scores, but there's just such a disconnect between what he could do/wants to do and what he's being forced to do in his age-appropriate classroom. It doesnt help that he's obnoxious about it and therefore acts rudely and gets in trouble.

I'm really torn between understanding how hard it is for him to be forced to add double digit numbers day after day when he gets math scores at the HS level, and frustrated with his behavior issues and seeming inability to figure out that if you're visibly snarky and smug about the work, you will get in trouble.

He will likely be placed in a differentiated gifted program in a year, but until then, we have to survive 3rd grade. Does anyone have any tips for how to help a bright, bored kid to behave better in the classroom? If you've had a child move from a traditional classroom into a gifted classroom, did it help? Anyone BTDT?

And thanks for letting me vent. It's not the kind of thing I can say anywhere else.

Our DD9 did experience the same boredom and frustration in school your DS seems to be experiencing, but she presented differently... she tried (very successfully) to behave in school, and then had meltdowns at home. It DID get much better with daily pull-outs into a gifted classroom (ETA: plus grade skip).

If the program doesn't start until next year, have you considered skipping your DS so he can enter it early?

Respect is a two-way street, and if the teacher is not providing your DS an education, then it's also true that the teacher/school is being disrespectful, not listening, and refusing to do the work required to provide him something to learn. So I'd chalk this up as 50% your DS's fault, 50% the teacher's fault, and a bonus to the teacher's share for being the responsible adult in the room (though the teacher may be handcuffed by bad policies/bad leadership/other responsibilities).

As long as your DS isn't exhibiting the same negative behaviors at home, I'd write this off as the teacher's problem, and with the next phone call home, I'd turn the discussion away from the 8yo and towards what the school is doing to create this situation.

I understand your mixed feelings, but he's only 8, and expecting him to do work far below his level-- and be happy about it-- is asking too much. I think you need to step up your advocacy.

Can he test out of the math the other kids are doing, and then do math at his level, either through workbooks you send in or an online class? You could ask him to take the end-of-year benchmark or whatever appropriate test there is, just so they'll have it for their records. As for online classes, he could do CTY, ALEKS, Singapore Math workbooks, etc. You could also get the Life of Fred books.

Is math the only area where he's acting up? If there are other areas, I would look at trying to change those as well.

If the teacher won't differentiate appropriately, or says she can't, I would ask for a meeting with the school and try to get a gifted IEP. Ask for a plan that will detail how he will grow a full year academically.

My son was starting to get really frustrated by 3rd grade, even though he had been in a highly gifted classroom since 1st grade. In 4th, he was depressed and never wanted to go to school. If I could redo those early years, I would pay more attention to what he told me (I thought every kid claimed they never learned anything in school!) and act faster to get a better academic fit.

I am truly sorry for what your poor little guy is going through. He is too young to realize that he needs to play the game - he is being forced to do things that are below his level constantly and he is responding to it.

When my child was in such a classroom, I had several meetings with the teacher to see how we could solve the problem. Since she could not do anything above and beyond her job description, I asked her if she was open to me sending in a work packet from home every day. She was so relieved to hear me say that and even told me that she would correct the work packet after DS finished it. Her condition was that DS could quickly finish his regular math and then start on his work packet. I sent in Singapore Math material and some other stuff that year. Hope this helps.

I'd try to approach the situation in this way:

1) document every call, every complaint from school. Be sure to ask the teacher and your ds what type of work was being done when the behavior occurred, and be sure you know what your ds' objection to it is.

2) Advocate for more advanced work now. There are different things you can do - one suggestion is to ask the teacher that your ds only be required to demonstrate he understands a concept by completing every other problem (or some subset) on each worksheet, then allow him to work on differentiated challenging work that either the teacher provides or you provide. Another thing you could request is pre-test in math and allow him to work independently on challenging math during the class' math time if he scores high enough to demonstrate knowledge on the pretest. If the teacher argues that if she does this for one student, she should do this for others, suggest that's ok - do it for others too. Chances are your ds isn't the only student in class ready to move forward in math.

3) You can volunteer in the classroom - one thing that another parent did in our elementary school when her ds was clearly ready for a higher level of math than he'd get in his regular classroom was to volunteer once a week to teach a pull-out group of the higher-achieving math students advanced-for-the-classroom concepts.

4) Lastly, continue to advocate. When the calls come home, make a suggestion re something the teacher could do to prevent a future similar situation. If the teacher doesn't follow through with the differentiation, just keep keeping track of it, and after a little bit of time has passed, and things aren't improving, request a meeting. Call in your school's gifted coordinator if there's one on staff. Make a call to the district coordinator to ask what your options are. Just keep plugging away. I wouldn't let it sit for a year.

5) Last thing, I do think it's important to teach children respect. Granted, the classroom isn't a perfect fit for your child - but it's most likely not for a lot of other children either. Let your child see that you are advocating for a better fit - that's a great lesson. But at the same time let him know you expect him to be respectful of his teacher. I don't entirely see this the way Dude does, that this situation is somehow partially the fault of the teacher or lack of respect from the teacher. I think it's important that our children understand they are not the only child in the classroom, and it's not easy to teach a class of 20+ kids and make the curriculum appropriately challenging and interesting for every child all the time. You can talk to your ds about appropriate ways to respond and actually communicate to the teacher what the real frustration is. Rather than refusing to do work, share with your ds that if he actually does the work, then explains calmly to the teacher that it was easy and he'd like more challenging work etc - it may not result in anything, but it's a more promising way to approach a challenging situation.

polarbear

A skip and movement into a gifted class was very helpful for my DS8. At the bare minimum, you should reasonably expect the teacher in a gifted class to understand asynchrony and be able to target differentiation (of course that is a reasonable expectation, mileage varies horribly per past threads here.)

We also have tuning conversations with DS about better ways to phrase things to get his point communicated. Emphasizing the two-way street of respect mentioned above.

Near-term, negotiating with the teacher to swap in appropriate level work can help (DS had this in K and 1st, helped by having a TD coordinator in the school.) But effort on their should be met by some reward (e.g. compliance, politeness) on your son's side. Enrichment as extra work can feel more as punishmenet. Access to typical elementary online math resources where he could self-pace were also useful (e.g. IXL) rather than sitting in grade-level math instruction.

About 10 years ago due to an odd career detour i ended up in a 3 week course that was half science/maths. The problem was i had done science and maths to second year university level whereas the rest of the class topped out at 7 - 9th grade. It was torture and too be honest I resented my time being wasted. I survived by doing Sudoku and crosswords during class but it was awful. And I had made the choice and knew it was only 3 weeks.

ETa. There were a couple of dynamics that made it harder - sexism (I was the only woman) plus a poorly functioning instructor group. But mostly it was just mind numbing.

You've had lots of good advice already. I'd just like to hammer that the rest of the school year is too long to expect an 8yo to wait until he can be in an appropriate environment. That might work for an adult, maybe, though I've been reduced to tears in circs not dissimilar to those puffin talks about, and I couldn't do most of a year! But he's 8. Something needs to change now.

Thanks everyone. Im glad I posted - this was helpful.

We have a meeting scheduled with the teacher and the gifted specialist. I'm going to ask for accelerated placement during language arts and math instructional times. I'm also going to ask for permission to work ahead and for a decrease in the load of basic rote math worksheets - his beginning of grade testing indicated that he had already tested out of the grade level, so I'm hoping theres some flexibility there.
i know hes bored, but life can be boring. He still needs to learn to deal with others respectfully, so we'll work on that too.

The school is refusing to provide an appropriate education. They shouldn't be allowed to get away with this by their engaging in the ploy of blaming the student.