Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Twice Exceptional stressed

My DS is in 5th grade. He is having a lot of trouble socially, and I have lobbied to have him retested for our local gifted program, which they have agreed to do (privately he tested HG but 2e, but the district didn't even find him to be gifted).

I have him in Science Olympiad which he loves. Last week I helped him study for the test they give you to be on the team, and he had the material down cold. Yesterday I got the results. Five of the regular gifted kids (non-2e) got 100% or max 1 wrong. He got four incorrect. I expected him to be one of the kids that got 100% or maybe only one wrong. He still made the team, but I'm worried something else is wrong. He knew the material, and he reads this stuff on his own so it's not like he's not interested in it.

So of course, now I'm overthinking it- I'm worried that if I manage to get him into the public HG school that he will never do as well as the non-2e gifted kids and he will feel like a failure.. I was trying to get him retested so that he could go to a school where he would at least have some peers. He really doesn't have anything to talk about with the other kids (I am working on social skills with him, but when your latest fascination is Gingko trees the other kids in 5th tend to think you are strange..)

I keep thinking I will figure it out, and then everything will fall into place for him, but I feel like instead I keep trying to plug leaks- the faster I do it the more there are. Sorry having a bad day

A couple of quick thoughts.

1) Will your district accept the private testing to get him into the HG program? Our does...

2) It sounds like he would be in the right place in the HG program. Don't worry about the grades too much. One of the benefits of the program is that he'll be exposed to smart peers and higher level thinking.

3) If he has anxiety / inattention that is diagnosed, can you get him on a 504 or IEP? That way he can get accommodations that will help his academic performance.

4) He's only in 5th grade and has a long way to go. Try to relax, kids change a lot. We saw a huge improvement in our son who is soon to be 15 during 8th grade. He's HG and not 2e, but he really got his act together and now is very self-motivated and studies hard.

I would try to take a deep breath - remember it's a journey, and it's a long journey! I would throw all worries about the Science Olympiad test out the window. The difference between missing 1 problem or missing 4 isn't the end of the world, and probably doesn't mean anything. You can ask him what he thinks he missed and why, but don't make a big deal out of it. If he tells you something that's significant (a reason why a certain type of problem was difficult), then think that through, but if not, it's one test, it's over, he's on the team. It's all good, really.

Re the HG school, really whether or not it's worth considering is most likely entirely school dependent. We kept our kids in private school through (an accelerated but not gifted program), not for accelerated academics, but because it was a very nice environment to simply *be* and enjoy life, each other and learning. Our 2e ds is in high school now - and he purposely chose a highly competitive gifted program. There are times it's been tough logistically (dealing with the 2nd e), and he doesn't have the stellar grades he most likely could have if that had been our focus and criteria for choosing a program - but he chose the program specifically so he could go to school with high ability peers, and he loves it for that reason.

Anyway, re the social skills and anxiety, are there any *other* school options available? Sometimes just looking at academics isn't really what makes a difference in a school experience. My ds has expressive and pragmatic language challenges, and making friends and feeling like he fit in was *tough* - until we found the smaller private school. It wasn't that it was a small school, that it was private, or anything else, but it was the school's atmosphere that made a huge difference for him. He felt like he fit in, he made friends, he didn't have to be somebody he wasn't etc. He wanted out of his first school like crazy and listed one of the reasons as the boring level of classroom conversations and not enough challenge... but at the end of the day, after making the switch, it was the social things that really made a huge difference for him.

Hope that makes sense!

Best wishes,

polarbear

Thanks BSM and polarbear -

I've looked at all the public and private schools that might be a fit and well, the public HG school is the only one where I really felt he should go- and I really tried to talk myself out of it, because it's pretty much putting all my eggs in one basket. And if he doesn't test HG in the district test, there will not be anything, public or private that is a close second (BSM the district doesn't accept outside testing, although I'm sure our outside test aided in their being willing to retest).

I have submitted him to a bunch of lottery public schools (private schools here have maybe a couple of openings between 5th and 6th because they change to middle school in 7th) and if nothing works I will keep looking at privates.

I hope the retesting does well, LAF! I have seen an awful lot of that HG/2E combo, where the kids know amazing things, but don't necessarily test well. Performance under a timed testing scenario may be really different than knowledge. As one example, I remember Ds's teacher calling me, mind-blown, because DS was the first kid she'd ever seen get 100% on the practice test for a province-wide assessment; his eventual scores on the real thing, however, were more in the B to C range... Or there's the 5 cases I know personally of kids who are HG on the WISC but flunked the CCAT(CoGAT).

So it can be really frustrating, can't it, when all the admin look at are the testing results, and you know there's so much missing there. I've had to let go of a lot - a LOT - of my own feelings about marks and academic performance. For your DS, it sounds like he may thrive at the HG school - but maybe that thriving won't always include stellar marks. If he could be challenged, excited, and enjoying his peers there, can you find ways to live with a potential gap between what he is learning and what he can show?

Platypus101-

Well actually I don't really care about grades..I actually thought it would be good for him to go to a school where being fascinated with gingko trees wasn't super weird…(and of course I'm making an assumption) and I was hopeful that they focused on the whole child and he would have some peers at his intellectual level. But I really want to make sure he doesn't fall into what I fell into- I decided that I wasn't really gifted and that the test was wrong, because I saw so many other (NT) people able to do things easily that were actually hard for me..

But there is another school (lottery, and very few slots) and a private. Both have no grades, very very few slots, and the private is far and $$$ but both teach to the whole child - social skills, learning how to fail and see the opportunities in that, etc. Sometimes failure redirects you onto the correct path, or makes you realize something even more important, I think it's an important life skill to have. They also don't have kids sitting at desks, and the focus on group project based learning - and working with others is something my kid needs to learn how to do.

So there are two additional choices, but there are so few spots for both, and my kid is so very 2e I don't think he will interview well with the private, and the public is a lottery i.e. luck of the draw...

My brother (likely 2e) was tested several times for the GATE program as a child, and never tested in. He has a doctorate in Artificial Intelligence.

LAF, keeping fingers and toes crossed for you, hoping one of those options proves the winner.

And thanks for sharing about your brother, which gives me hope of my own. I honestly think my DS could thrive in university - I just don't know if I can get him through elementary school. Or, in this uber-competitive world in which we live, how we can find a back door into university, recognizing he is highly-unlikely to have a 90-something average at application time in the middle of high school. Sigh. It's good to know there are wonderful places for these kids, if we can only get them there.