Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy am i a failure as a parent?

My dd is 9...in a gifted 4th grade class which only teaches 1school year ahead and is officially failing math because he doesn't show his work. If I fight for him and try to explain he's bored with common core math and reading about the Rats of NiMH I become the annoying parent who thinks her child can do no wrong thus resulting in him never amounting to anything. But if I don't fight for him then instead i teach him its best to conform with society and please them while numbing your mind. Either way i feel like a failure and cant seem to help hom...or stop the anxiety. Anyone ever had this issue?

Yup, I've felt that way at times. My DS is a sophmore in H.S. and there I times I've felt this way. Depends on the teacher and administrator I'm stuck with at the time. 8th grade science was one of the classes that had me feeling this way.

Curious what math books/program you son is using? There are some really dreadful books out there right now. Your son is going to have to learn to "show his work" but some of these are insisting on showing your work when none is really necessary. One way to explain this to your son is once he has finished the work, he should go back and explain how he got his answer as if he was teaching a struggling student.

The "show your work" thing is a constant bugaboo around here. It's difficult for kids who don't actually do any work to get the answers to learn to show the parts that the teacher is looking for. I have been fighting this battle for years.

It's necessary to explain (repeatedly) that if he doesn't show how he got the answer, the teacher doesn't know whether he knows how to do it or he looked in the back of the book or on his neighbor's paper or online. And also that if he doesn't show the teacher that he can do the work, he won't get to do anything more interesting and will have to keep doing the same boring thing over and over. It's much more motivating when phrased in terms of self-interest rather than conformity.

It's definitely hard enough to fight the battle with the kid to get him to learn to show something useful in the way of work, so I don't recommend adding a (losing) battle with the teacher to try and convince her that he shouldn't have to show his work. Even if "show your work" is useless when the question is "9x5=?", it will eventually become a necessary thing to do in order to keep track of his place in algebra or geometry.

But rest assured, it's a perfectly normal problem that you have.

And err...what's wrong with the Rats of NIMH? That was a good book.

Thank you for the responses! I will definitely be applying them!

And nothing wrong with NiMH I loved it too. He would prefer historical fiction or car manuals lol whereas I love a wonderful classic.

While you *might* look like that to the teacher, my take on this is housing on your ds, his needs, and what *he* sees. When you stand up and advocate for your child you are teaching your child a valuable lesson (stand up for yourself, think for yourself, and don't just follow along because that's what is expected).. and more importantly, you are showing your child that he matters to you, that you will stand up for him, and that's a really powerful message

polarbear

The only testing he did was the CogAt. From what I can tell according to his scores is that he does well on tests unless he has to show his work. He can read books about science and history no problem but struggles with fantasy books and the creative aspect of school like writing a story or art. I just don't know what else to do.

I have embraced the fact that I'm going to screw up my job as a parent in some rather spectacular ways, because I'm not going to know all the facts, I'm often going to misunderstand things, I can't possibly see the future, and I'm going to run into problems that I lack the power to solve.

So, anything I get right, accidentally or otherwise, is a big win. Woohoo! Yay me!

In related news, hindsight is 20/20, so I'd (at this point) be a FABULOUS parent relative to the parenting situation that my parents faced.

I can definitely make my OWN large errors in parenting. Yay, agency! Hurray for full ownership! My mistakes as a parent are mine-mine-mine!

Kids aren't always going to like what they have to read for school. He'll have to learn to read stuff that isn't that interesting to him personally. As long as he is given opportunity to read things that he likes in his free time, I wouldn't worry about it.

The math part would annoy me though, as long as a child can arrive at the correct answer, it shouldn't matter how they get there.

Ahh, yes. My son told me several years ago that he wasn't "a fiction kind of guy".

I felt the same way, until I was kinda forced into exploring fiction. Relying on the slim pickings of the elementary school library as your only source of reading material will do that, because the nonfiction is terrible. The library might have 30 books on astronomy, for instance, but you only have to get through four of them before you notice they're not going to talk about anything new. Yes, Jupiter is really big, and it has that storm... moving on.

Fiction is like vegetables. Keep introducing it, and eventually they'll take to it.

My DS1S isn't a huge fiction fan either. Particularly when he was younger but it's grown on him and he now appreciates it as long as he doesn't have to analyze it.

If your son likes historical fiction has he read any Richard Peck? Most of the books are a 4th-6th grade level, but many of them are historical fiction about new technology. My son did a 2nd grade report on one of his books. The project was to do a report based of a historical fiction but he was reading 2-3 grade levels above most of the kids. Most of the kids were doing American Girls or Magic Tree House. My DS read The Teacher's Funeral as a good compromise between too easy vs too hard/long and a subject matter than interested my son.

So my husband went and sat in class with our son today. The atmosphere was the complete opposite of what I witnessed and according to the teacher and my husband our son was attentive and respectful. Even the teacher made the comment my husband should do that more often. That doesn't sound like add to me...but it does sound like he's been playing the "its too hard and distracting card" with us so now I look a fool for blaming the teacher. Granted she had 36 kids today and he didn't change teachers like they usually do but still...my son has been playing the sympathy card on me. So now I'm faced with a whole new slew of issues to address :-(

Okay-- well, I have a book recommendation for you, in that case.

But even before I do that-- which parent is "dialed in" to your child? It sounds like maybe it's Dad? By that I mean the parent that your child basically can't pull ANYTHING over on-- the one that knows what is happening in that head of his most of the time-- or at least well enough that the parent just KNOWS when the child is lying, etc. THAT parent just became the gut-checker for all parenting decisions and any stories that seem even remotely out of the ordinary and expected. And probably just for the routine stuff, too-- my daughter can easily convince her dad that all vegetables make her teeth hurt, but she certainly won't try it with me. I just give her "the look" and she kind of trails off into incoherently muttering under her breath. A single Spock-like raised eyebrow is particularly effective as a tool for quelling the worst of that sort of thing. Your mileage may vary, of course. LOL.

Book time.


The Manipulative Child.

Horrible title-- but a transformative tool for parents of kids like this-- and the brighter they are, the more badly we need the help and insights. My dd was/is an extreme case. You have my sympathies.

Thank you for the information I will most definitely check it out! And yes for some reason my husband is the one they listen to and don't try stuff with lol. I'm too much of a softie when it comes to my kids.