Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy Executive functioning issues or boredom?

So I'm scratching my head a bit here, because I am puzzling over what is going on with DYS DD10. She is young for grade, but in the correct grade for her age. She used to love school. Over the past year and a half, she has started complaining quite a bit about boredom. Her school has limited G&T programming (one gifted class per day), which she is in...but that leaves the rest of the day.

DD is intense (to put it mildly). She is extremely independent and self-directed.

She has always tested high in standardized achievement and ability tests. When she took the WISC, however, there was an almost 60-point spread between her VCI (qualified for extended norms) and her WMI. Her WMI is above average...her other scores are just much, much higher. Her PSI is in the 99th percentile. I asked the tester about the big spread in her scores and her WMI and was told that I should keep an eye on it. Her WMI is actually above-average, but TO HER, I was told, it could feel like a disability.

We had previously advocated for her needing challenge (her ability and her out-of-level testing came back very, very high), but the school insisted that she was already in the most challenging classes for grade...and the school simply does not seem to believe in grade acceleration (we never even got to the point of how this might go as they were so convinced that their curriculum was so very challenging, they believed that she MUST be challenged).

Private gifted school is simply not an option at the moment, as it is extremely expensive (and I have 2 DYS). We are not poor enough to qualify for financial aid. DD is also rather stubborn, so I fear that homeschooling her would turn into a constant battle.

Fast forward to this year and DD has devolved from a student who loved school to a student who hates school. Last year, she seemed able to manage her assignments with no check-ins necessary from parents and she continued on in her independent ways. This year, she cried for hours before school started, declared she hated school and did not want to go. She is angry often and starting homework is constantly a battle (she'd rather read a book). Having no better options available, we insisted she attend and placed her in counseling. Recently, I am finding out that she is now missing assignments. Several. I do not know if this is an executive function issue (the teachers and her counselor seem to think that she does not have ADD/ADHD), or if she is just showing all of us what she says...that she hates school and just does not care. Obviously, tardy schoolwork is not going to help any future advocacy efforts, either.

I am truly at a loss about what to do with this child. I do not know whether she has actually has an EF issue or if she is simply checked-out. Obviously, it could be a bit of both. I am trying to figure out how to help her, but at the moment, I am not really sure what direction to turn. Thank you for listening.

Completely my opinion, but as I read your post these things stuck out:
-Very high ability student in age-based classes
-School refuses to accommodate and thinks they know it all
-Your DD is checked out mentally because no one is changing anything based on what she says - this is what I am guessing vs. EF, based in part by very similar experiences with ODS.

I think it's time for another go around with the school. (Ugh, I know...) Starting with "she's refusing to go to school and we are very concerned -- it seems something isn't working for her there and it's bad enough that she's rebelling against it. What do you propose?"

I agree.

Your DD and mine are like peas in a pod. It breaks my heart to read this it really does.

We have been lucky in that we found a cognitive psychologist and our DD is working with him so things have stabilized here - or at least are horizontal instead of in a full on nose dive.

Our DD was skipped a grade but as everyone here with an HG+ kid knows that only delays the inevitable because the issue is how fast they learn not mere exposure. Kids like this can absorb, make connections and synthesize way faster than NT kids. She has been expressing the same disenchantment as your DD at times this year too.

Some of this may be just growing pains but it is an anxiety inducing experience to watch it happening with your own kid.

Sending positive thoughts your way!

Thank you, all. madeinuk - I am sorry to hear you've had similar struggles. Yes, I do think that part of it is the age, but I also strongly suspect that there is much more to it. Her teacher has the students fill out a weekly report about what they learned for the week and she seems to relish writing in big letters: "NOTHING." Her test scores suggest that she could be telling the truth. So I indeed suspect that boredom is a big component. She does have a definite absent-minded professor vibe about her at times, though (lost in her thoughts and would forget her head if it wasn't attached), so I do sometimes wonder about that WMI spread. Still, she is a phenomenal test taker and extraordinarily curious (just not about what they are studying at school), so I think that everyone has a hard time truly seeing her as underachieving...just yet. I agree that I may need to approach the school, but now I face the hurdle of her recent late assignments. Any ideas on a good approach to the school again (and yes, Connectingdots, UGH - the personnel are so sure that their curriculum is oh-so-challenging)?

HK - I went back to your old thread you'd directed another poster with a similar problem to and my jaw just about dropped. DD is taking one online class at the moment and we are experiencing many of the same issues (lying, about SILLY things, even candy sneaking) recently. I guess I felt a little better, because I know that your DD seems to have passed through this phase?

While I understand you mean that she is not grade accelerated, there is really no such thing as "correct grade for her age", and buying into that myth can be damaging to one's own gifted kiddos and to the gifted community at large.

The concept of "correct grade" for one's age highlights the difference between the positive principle of "matching the program to the child" and the common practice of "matching children to a program" (which can result in an ill fit and/or children falling through the cracks). The book Re-forming Gifted Education and the related Gifted Education Planners help parents/teachers/advocates with "matching the program to the child."

Based on the information provided, especially that your child would rather read a book (from which she is presumably receiving the mental stimulation of learning something new) I would tend to say that her school refusal is legitimate, and based on boredom... therefore her curriculum and programming need to change.

When you look at the homework assignments which she has skipped, do you find they are just "busy work" for her? Are they challenging? Or just time-consuming?

On the other hand, being "stubborn" may be related to "inflexible thinking", a possible sign of some 2e issues. A simple check for EF issues may be to observe her level of planning and follow-through at home. Does she have an assignment notebook or planner? Are homework due dates written in it? Do you discuss with her the amount of time she thinks each will take? Are her estimates fairly accurate? Is she aware of the passage of time and able to get herself ready for scheduled activities and events? Is she able to break larger assignments into smaller sub-tasks and state the order in which they need to be accomplished?

Is the counselor she is seeing familiar with giftedness and 2e? Or when speaking with the counselor, might your DD10 be compensating with her giftedness so that 2e issues are not detected (but rather attributed to negative "personality" characteristics)?

Loy, yes-- ultimately, all of DD's issue there seem to have been strongly correlated with inappropriate academics. Once she had access to collegiate environs at 14-15, those problems largely disappeared.

Now, I want to also issue the caution that it is also my belief that enduring so many YEARS of what you're describing-- that is, the living in one's own head because the day to day reality around her was unbearable otherwise... and writing "NOTHING" like that-- oy. So familiar.

Well, years and years of that fueled a lot of perfectionism and anxiety issues that formed an underlying vulnerability for even worse things, anxiety-wise.

That part has been VERY rough.

If I had it to do over again, I would have yanked her out of that inappropriate setting SO much sooner. Honestly, I'd have taken the advice of the local HS counselor when she was 12, and placed her into the local CC, even if it meant that I'd have to escort her and sit with her in class for the first 18 months.


It's only been in the past year or so that DD has finally leveled with me about what on EARTH was going on in her head when she was seemingly so tuned out, avoiding work, etc. etc. She was, to be frank, coping by devising observational/mathematical games with the inputs from the world around her-- and doing a fair amount of dissociating from that world in the process. If only she'd told us at the time.

All of her work, for many many years, was simply time-filling. Each year, she started with enthusiasm, gleefully dancing around with her brand new textbooks, and then by Halloween, once she'd read them all cover to cover, and peeked through the entire class (as one can do in an online course)-- she wilted, and began the avoidance again. She finally gave up hoping at about 10-12yo. She no longer expects ANY educational setting to deliver on her fondest hopes there (that she'll spend most of her time learning new things). Not even in college. That makes me sad, but it does save her the disappointment, I guess.

Oh, and another helpful note? I strongly recommend a quarter system for such students-- NOT a semester based one. DD can stand it for 9-10 weeks, but 12 is where her personal breakpoint is for that kind of grind.

If she has an EF issue I think it would be apparent in areas outside of schoolwork. Does she need reminders about chores? Does she follow through with things that have nothing to do with school? Does she get her stuff together on her own...whatever she needs for school like lunch, gym shoes, books? If she is given an assignment that she enjoys, like say she is allowed to write about a favorite topic, or she can do a science fair project on any topic, does she do well in terms of planning and organizing the material on her own?

I think in school there are a certain number of assignments that a child can make as complex as they want. For instance, writing a personal essay. A fifth grader could write this at a high school level if they wanted. If she's not engaged at all even with those types of assignments, there is probably something else going on besides "boredom". KWIM?

If you have a school psych, they may be able to look into this without doing a full eval, for instance the BRIEF is an standardized rating scale for executive functioning. Worth a try to at least ask about it? In any event, I think you should sit down with the teacher and maybe the principal and share all of your concerns. There could also be something completely unrelated going on, like troubles with the other girls, and she doesn't want to talk about it.

blackcat - very good questions. Well, this is where I have a hard time teasing out the self-directed, non-people-pleasing personality from the possibly EF-challenged. She DOES need reminders for some things, but these are for things she doesn't particularly see as important (or that she'd rather not do) and she is pretty fearless. That is, you might as well throw out your parenting books...she often doesn't care about the "bad consequences" that she is supposed to. If she suspects someone is trying to manipulate her that way, she'll quickly switch into "I don't care mode" and virtually NOTHING bothers her. Did I mention that she is not particularly easy to parent, either?

Soooooo...I hesitate to invite or to turn her over to a school to try to somehow psychoanalyze her, because I suspect she is one complicated little girl. Will of steel and all. I fear this could lead to some pretty scary misdiagnoses by someone who is unlikely to have met many kids like DD (which statistically, at least, should be the case). I guess from what I have seen, I am also not sure that I trust the school with that.

DD's counselor specializes in children and is extremely supportive of her. At a minimum, DD has someone else who is listening to her (which I feel she needs). She sees DD as meeting the school's homework demands about where the are meeting her needs.

I have definitely witnessed time-filling activities as homework. Once in a while, a project will excite her, and she will throw herself into it and do an outstanding job. When it is over, however, she wilts again.

Do you have any recent achievement testing data you could use with the school? There's an EXPLORE test date in June - last one of the year (deadline has passed for the one in two weeks). I would strongly consider getting this kind of objective data to see what it tells you about what she already KNOWS and to help you stand your ground w/the school, if you don't have it already.

Have you shared her earlier scores with the school? In our experience, it's necessary to also spell out what they mean in terms of ability to capture with no/limited repetition, etc.

There are some good articles on ways to work with the school and about how to advocate out on the Davidson site.