Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy Very bored with school and "no friends"

DS is in 2nd grade. He says he's "so bored in school and they don't teach me anything I don't already know." And he's right. Aside from gifted class on Friday, and Tuesday and Thursday math pull out for enrichment he's bored out of his mind, and grasps the concepts quickly and easily. He's also twice exceptional, having severe ADHD. He says he doesn't have any friends. His class doesn't have a lot of boys and the little group that there is has decided to cut him out (my words not his).

At the end of first grade he scored in the 99% on the Iowa standardized assessment, putting him at at 4th grade equivalent. He has not taken the Iowa for acceleration. He also reads at a 4.8 grade level. I just don't know what do with him. He sees a developmental pedi for his ADHD and she said that unless his social skills are ahead she doesn't recommend acceleration. His social skills are behind (he's exactly like Sheldon on Big Bang, seriously). He currently sees no value in going to school because he's not getting anything out of it. I know there's a lot of threads on acceleration, and I've read them, but does he sound like the kind of kid that would benefit from it? I have a meeting with his gifted teacher next week to discuss it, but I'd really like some input from fellow parents and your experiences. Thanks for any help you can give!

ETA: I found this quote from the link on this thread to sum everything up nicely. If I quoted this wrong forgive me. I'm new here
"In her study of exceptionally gifted children, Gross has reported that the self-esteem of exceptionally gifted students tends to be significantly lower than the self-esteem of average students, especially when the school is unwilling or unable to allow them access to other children who share their levels of intellectual, oral and psychosocial development. Thus the gifted child is placed in the forced dilemma of choosing to minimize intellectual interests and passions for the sake of sustaining peer relations or of pursuing intellectual interests at the cost of becoming socially isolated in the classroom. As Gross poignantly added "The gifted must be one of the few remaining groups in our society who are compelled, by the constraints of the educative and social system within which they operate, to choose which of two basic psychological needs should be fulfilled."
http://giftedissues.davidsongifted....icle_about_poor_school_f.html#Post229604

That's a tough situation to be in! My son has ADHD and experienced social rejection in 1st grade. I put him in a virtual charter school with continuous progress acceleration and now (4th grade/10 years old) he is homeschooled.

It's really tough. Intellectually he's at high school level. Executive functions..... HAH! This semester has been better. I pushed acceleration to the point that **he** needs to use study skills and they're not so much the annoying thing mom tells him to do. That helps. Sometimes he's super-studious and organized. But then there are days like today where he won't cooperate or participate.

The Iowa Acceleration Scale (IAS) provides a handy checklist for making sure that all pertinent information is gathered and on the table for discussion. The information gathered can be discussed in terms of a grade skip and can also be discussed in terms of what other steps than a grade skip may be beneficial. There is simply no downside to using the Iowa Acceleration Scale. Here is a brief roundup of info on the Iowa Acceleration Scale (IAS):
- IAS - Acceleration Institute
- IAS - Great Potential Press
- post discussing tests for Ability, Aptitude, Achievement
- post discussing single subject acceleration (SSA), IQ cutoff
- post discussing whether IAS forms are needed

Does your son have an IEP/504 for his ADHD? This roundup of links might possibly provide a few ideas...
- Wrightslaw.com - ADD/ADHD
- roundup on Individual Education Plans(IEP) and 504
- Wrightslaw: Writing Smart IEPs
- IEP recommendations
- possible ideas of what to include in a 504
- resources to help a child understand ADHD
- Platypus101 shared this inspiration and wisdom in a post on another thread.

Is it possible that if the school were to provide effective remediation and accommodation for ADHD, that a grade skip might be desirable?

As a mother of a 9-year-old (who has been getting social skills training for two years) and a 13-year-old (who has been getting them for one), I can't echo this enough. My 13-year-old's social skills are pretty much intractable at this point, while my 9-year-old is still growing by leaps and bounds.

Great points! Social skills are a frequent discussion topic on the forums. Many kids learn social skills by casual observation, and some need or benefit from direct teaching. Here is a small roundup of links which may be of interest, on direct teaching of social skills (body language, friendship, etc):
- direct teaching of non-verbal cues
- direct teaching of friendship
- direct teaching of perspective taking
- link to an article on the Davidson Database, Tips For Parents: Gifted Children's Friendships
- post with roundup of articles on friendship.

Thanks everyone! He has had a lot of coaching in social skills. He had speech and OT for years and it's gotten a lot better. I used the analogy of Sheldon and it's pretty fitting, but mostly I think now he just doesn't relate to kids in his class. He is very outgoing talking to people, but doesn't really get jokes, can't tell when people are lying and that kind of thing. I'm genuinely not sure he will ever learn those traits well. It's just his personality. Is he benefiting socially? Meh, I can't say that he is. He does benefit in that the boys in his class are pretty naughty and he's got a good concept of right and wrong, so that's not exactly a plus.

Yes, he has an IEP. He's actually currently in a private school, though he had an IEP in public and has current accommodations. A friend with a gifted child loaned me "Genius Denied." Is it a good read?

Does he have an IEP? The school could do a social skills curriculum with him. What about organizational ability and staying on task? Those are other things an IEP could help with. It would be in the "Other Health Disability" category. (and no, despite what the school may tell you, he does not need to have failing test scores or grades, the ADHD just has to have an impact on him academically,f or instance he loses his work, isn't listening or participating in class, or completes work more slowly than the other kids.

We accelerated DD with ADHD, she is now in middle school, and it's hard to say if it was a good or bad choice. Her executive functioning ability is impaired and I need to have numerous communications every week back and forth with her special ed teacher to figure out what work is missing. It took her a long time to figure out she can't be tardy to every class. Without the IEP, she would be in big trouble. So sometimes I think we should have given her an extra year in elementary school but how do you weigh boredom vs. these other skills. She is not behind socially and has plenty of friends, although she claims sometimes that she feels more comfortable with kids in lower grades (i.e., kids that are actually her age). And she'll complain about the grade skip. We didn't know about the ADHD when she was accelerated. If I had known, I probably would have done things differently.

In terms of your situation, is there another class with a different group of boys? A different school? Can the teacher help facilitate him making some friends? If all else fails, I would probably pull out and homeschool, at least temporarily, and try to form friendships with other homeschoolers. My DS's social skills aren't the best (mostly because he withdraws) and he had few friends when placed in a "normal" classroom but now that he is in a program for highly gifted, there are several boys he has a connection with. So what looks like poor social skills may in part be that he just feels like he doesn't fit in (because he doesn't). If you can't get an IEP or a social skills group, you could see if there is a private speech-language pathologist who can work with him on back and forth conversations, listening to the other person even if you're not interested, etc.

While the ultimate answer to this question lies in whether the book speaks to you personally, yes, it is helpful for many parents of gifted kids. "Genius Denied" is authored by Bob and Jan Davidson, the same people who provide this forum, the Davidson Young Scholars, the Davidson Database, and more.

Note that this book was written in 2004 and decries the "pernicious notion that education should have a “leveling” effect, a one-size-fits-all concept that deliberately ignores the needs of the gifted"... which unfortunately is the direction taken since the adoption of common core in 2010: schools are now dedicated to closing "achievement gaps" and "excellence gaps", which often entails capping the growth of students at the top.

With extensive testing and data collection ushered in by common core, teachers and schools are evaluated, ranked, and rated specifically on closing gaps. Equal opportunity is replaced by "equal outcomes"... with education having a pernicious leveling effect.

Rather than schools heeding the advice to support the innately gifted by matching the program to the student, schools seem to believe that the innately gifted are dispensable and easily replaced by those of the schools own manufacture: students selected to fit the "gifted" program created at that school are therefore "gifted students". Subtle, pernicious.

There is a huge difference between matching the program to the student vs. matching the student to the program.

I'll echo spaghetti and blackcat re working on social skills now. You also mentioned he's in a private school - is it a small school? It can be tough being in a small program if there's only one class per grade - even for neurotypical kids - it's challenging when social issues arise, and there are no other groups of kids to move toward when there's a falling out with one group. I don't know if that's the situation your ds is in, but if it is, honestly I'd consider maybe moving him to a different school if that's an option.

The other thing I'd look at is how is his ADHD impacting him in the classroom? He says he's bored, and he's obviously a very bright student - but is he able to focus and not be distracted when he's tasked with classwork? If he's having difficulty with that, it's possible that the difficulty isn't going to go away by advancing the level of challenge in the material (i.e. grade skipping). While it does happen that highly gifted kids can *look* like they have ADHD symptoms when they are under challenged, it's also sometimes easy to overlook as parents the very real impact of a 2e challenge. Dealing with how to accommodate, work through, and remediate challenges due to 2e is *so* much easier and so very important to tackle when a student is still in early elementary school. Not dealing with those challenges in early elementary can also take a huge toll on self esteem. Please know I'm not suggesting you aren't dealing with his ADHD, it's just a reminder that while the first thought we tend to jump to with our highly gifted kids and perceived boredom is - let's give them more academic challenge - it's really important when a student is 2e to be sure they're adequately prepared for the challenge, not only intellectually but in terms of their 2nd e.

FWIW, my 2e ds had an extremely difficult time making friends in elementary school. He's since been through several years of speech language therapy, a ton of work at home and at school etc - and he still, as a junior in high school, is dealing with not being "at grade level" compared to peers re communication. We didn't accelerate him via full grade skip, but gave him subject level acceleration as an option as soon as that was available in middle school. Elementary school is really tough - he was struggling with his challenge and also bored to tears with classroom discussions - but I'm glad we didn't accelerate him. He needed the extra time to work through the challenges of his 2nd e. We could have accommodated his 2nd e if he'd been accelerated, but the time was important too - had we lost a year of schooling we would have lost a year of working on social skills and communication.

Best wishes,

polarbear

[quote=polarbear
The other thing I'd look at is how is his ADHD impacting him in the classroom? He says he's bored, and he's obviously a very bright student - but is he able to focus and not be distracted when he's tasked with classwork? If he's having difficulty with that, it's possible that the difficulty isn't going to go away by advancing the level of challenge in the material (i.e. grade skipping). While it does happen that highly gifted kids can *look* like they have ADHD symptoms when they are under challenged, it's also sometimes easy to overlook as parents the very real impact of a 2e challenge. Dealing with how to accommodate, work through, and remediate challenges due to 2e is *so* much easier and so very important to tackle when a student is still in early elementary school. Not dealing with those challenges in early elementary can also take a huge toll on self esteem. Please know I'm not suggesting you aren't dealing with his ADHD, it's just a reminder that while the first thought we tend to jump to with our highly gifted kids and perceived boredom is - let's give them more academic challenge - it's really important when a student is 2e to be sure they're adequately prepared for the challenge, not only intellectually but in terms of their 2nd e.
[/quote]

His ADHD is pretty well managed right now. He is on medication and his teacher reports that he's doing very well, completing work etc. I don't think ADHD is playing a role in his current boredom. We've also been acutely aware of potential self esteem issues that come with the adhd package. If it wasn't for the adhd piece I feel like the acceleration would be a no-brainer for him.