Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy My partner is against testing our child

I'm not sure this is the right forum. My partner and I have a six year old boy about to start 1st grade. He had a really hard time in kindergarten making friends and constantly getting into trouble. He was reading at 4 and several years ahead in math. He has an excellent memory and is completely obsessed with George Washington and our solar system. The school suggested that we get him tested, but my partner is absolutely against it. He feels that it's absolutely a big waste of time and they're just trying to put a label on him to ship him to another school. I feel like my hands are completely tied. Does anyone have advice or has personally run into the same experience?

I'm fascinated with this "ship him off to another school" thingy.

They have a special school for people in the 99th percentile where you are?

DH and I haven't always agreed on all things gifted but through time and a lot of talk (and a bottle or two of wine haha) we've figured out ways to proceed that we both agreed on. Much of this stemmed from our own experiences as (likely) gifted kids ourselves. We had very different experiences which led to very different hang ups and views. I'll also add that as our kids have grown up and experienced things for themselves we've often had to adjust.

I see two potential concerns and it might be good to discuss them separately

1. the testing itself - the waste of time comment might suggest that he doesn't trust/believe the results? Perhaps he went through testing and didn't feel that the results matched him (either an over or under-estimation)? maybe he views testing as having too narrow of a focus? Maybe he views IQ as being not important in general?

2. what might happen as a result of the testing which also breaks down into a couple things -
being labeled - perhaps he's worried about how your DS will be treated by teachers/admins/peers, perhaps he's worried that DS will coast or become arrogant about the label, perhaps he's worried that the label will become something to live up to?

shipped off to another school - perhaps he's worried about a long commute, missed opportunities of neighbourhood classmates, explaining to others who want to know why they aren't at the local school, no longer walking to school, moving schools too often, etc


I think in order to move forward you need to dig more into WHY he is against it. Depending on the answers there might be ways around it or you might have to agree to disagree (at least for now). DH and I have talked for hours and dug into a lot of our own experiences. We both had very valid reasons for the beliefs and views that we had/have. Talking them through and seeing it from the other person's view was really useful and in the end, I think resulted in better decisions. As time went on we've also both shifted our views on some things based on what our children were experiencing.

I'll also add that one potential compromise might be to test privately (although admittedly then $$$ is a factor). We tested privately which meant that the school only knew what we wanted to share with them (might work if the label part turns out to be a key issue). In our case, we shared the whole report but if the results had not explained things or matched the child or opened doors that we felt were useful we could have kept the results to ourselves. I'll also add that we held off shipping our kids off to another school for a variety of reasons but in the end, that's what we ended up deciding to do. DH was hesitant but after we exhausting all other options he agreed to give it a try. A few months later he had no hesitation when it came to child #2. I'll also admit that there were upsides to the kids experiencing exhausting the other options.

This is the most important part of dealing with a school bureaucracy.

You only want to give a school helpful and useful (to the child) reports.

I would try to persuade a reluctant partner to test my child with these arguments:
-Testing will help us figure out why he had such a hard time in K, despite being a strong reader.
-Testing may also help you figure out why he's not connecting with his age peers.
-Knowledge is a good thing and will help us understand him better and be better parents to him.

I would test privately, though, with an experienced tester.

I'll second chay's advice - and also have a question.

What type of testing is the school suggesting? Ability/achievement or anything else? The reason I ask about the testing is you mentioned that your ds has had trouble making friends and was "constantly getting into trouble." Your dh is also worried about labels... so I'm wondering if the school is thinking there's something more going on than just a high ability kid with a poor classroom fit?

If the testing recommended is simply for ability/achievement, I don't understand what your dh has to worry about in terms or a "label". In that instance, I'm guessing the "other school" is a magnet program for high ability students... which most likely would be a better fit than a standard classroom. The school district can't force you (as parents) to send your child to a school other than your neighborhood school, so before any decision was made to change schools, you can ask other parents whose children attend the school about their experiences, talk to parents who've chosen *not* to send their high ability students to the school, and ask questions of the district such as "will bus transportation be provided" etc. I would also consider that - you've mentioned your ds had difficulty making friends this past year - a move to a program where the kids are closer to being intellectual peers, as well as a chance to start with a new group of students could be very positive in terms of finding friends. My ds is much older than your ds now, but he had an extremely difficult time finding friends in early elementary, but we left him in the same school program for several years thinking it was best to try to work with the school. In hindsight it was a huge mistake - he transferred to a school with a higher level of classroom discussion and challenge as well as motivated and generally higher ability students when he entered middle school, and it was a HUGE improvement in the social/emotional side of his education and life. When it was time to move on to high school, he was very frank with us and let us know he only wanted to be in a program with high ability students - which fortunately our district has, and it's been a good fit socially. I did worry a bit when he was younger that if he was only in high-ability classrooms he wouldn't be experiencing the full spectrum of social experiences that are present in life-after-school, but I no longer worry about that. He's had lots of opportunities to be with a wide spectrum of students in other settings - electives at school, extra curricular activities etc. and he's not turned into an intellectual snob who's unable to understand and cope in a not-always-intellectual world He has, however, benefited tremendously from being able to move at a faster pace and higher level of challenge in the classroom. When he first changed schools in middle school, he was very blunt with us (parents) in one of his reasons: he was tired of listening to kids ask questions that he already knew the answers to.

If you suspect there's more to the school's suggestion of testing or concern than simply high ability, read on - if not, you can skip this next part.

When my children were in early elementary, especially K-2, I did see kids who were acting out due to simply boredom in the classroom get singled out for testing by the school when a teacher was just unable to deal with the behavior. This did serve to identify intellectually gifted children, because ability and achievement testing were part of the package no matter what the school suspected was going on with a specific student. The school my children were in also had a tendency to suspect behaviors were tied to other issues, primarily ADHD or ASD, when the behaviors were significantly impacting the children's ability to cope in the classroom. I'm only mentioning this because it happened with our ds - in his case, he had an undiagnosed learning disability plus a poor classroom fit in terms of ability. I had no idea he had the learning disability at the time, and was fairly annoyed that his teacher thought he had ADHD, and was therefore very skeptical of the school offering testing. My dh and I chose private testing, which I am both very glad we chose, but on the other hand it came with a few pitfalls related to school. This really only applies if you happen to have more going on than just high ability being the issue, but if there's a chance your ds may have a 2e challenge, fwiw - private testing was invaluable to us in that the school testing (in our district) would have not been global and would most likely not have caught the true issue that was impacting our ds in the classroom. The downside - the school didn't want to accept an opinion from an outside evaluator. They did eventually acknowledge and accept the conclusions of the private neuropsych, but it took a *ton* of advocating on our part as parents and a lot of ability to not be intimidated into backing down when advocating for our ds' needs.

I hope some of that helps!

Best wishes,

polarbear

ps - just wanted to add - there's potentially a downside to not testing, no matter which scenario you're dealing with. Testing gives you data, which is something concrete you can advocate with. If you at some point attempt to get more challenge for a high ability student within his current school, it will be easier to advocate with solid data, especially with testing that the school accepts. If there's something else adding to the issues with behavior etc, having data that identifies the issue is critical to understanding how to deal with the challenge.

Plus...

You would also have *ALL* of the data and would not have to pull teeth to get more than a broad summary.

Bear in mind the fact that you don't have to share *ANY* data with the school if it will not help your child.

With respect to labeling, this will likely happen anyway once formal schooling begins but armed with facts you will be better able to navigate the shoals.

YMMV

He has probably already labelled a behavior problem. Everyone has some label except those with the invisible talent.

Thanks everyone for your thoughts. I few more details about our situation. Our son has never been tested for GT, so I'm not sure if he would even qualify. My son's current school offers no GT services and the closest school is about 10 miles from us. The issues in kindergarten ranged from talking back, bossing his classmates, not following directions, and not letting things go when he thinks he had been wronged. The only way he made it through this last year was by primarily being the teacher's helper or helping his peers with their work. I feel the school has tried to make some accommodations for our son; however, the school can only do so much without being able to any assessments. My partner thinks he'll emotionally mature as he gets older and will level out academically within a few years. He feels that the most boys make friends through playing sports and he needs to spend less time on his other pursuits (chess, rocks, coins, music). If I knew that in two years that he fit right in with his peers, I would happily wait. It just seems that our intense little boy has diverge so much with each passing year from his peers.

It's impossible to say from your brief description whether your son does simply needs time to mature, and will "grow out of it". I confess though, my gut reaction to what you've written is "don't count on it".

It's equally impossible to say from your description whether he is gifted. But for what it's worth, I would say he is behaving in a common way for a gifted kid in a frustrating and badly-fitting environment. Gifted kids tend to have a huge thirst to learn, and deserve to spend as much time learning, and being taught, as their peers - they are not at school to be an unpaid teacher's helper. It's helpful to compare his behaviour at school vs other places. Does he have other activities where he is being taught at a much more challenging level (say, a chess club, or lego or robotics or some other extra-curricular in which he is deeply engaged)? Do you see the same behaviours in all environments, or different ones in environments that meet his needs vs those that don't?

I really can't over-state the effects of a badly-fitting environment. The greater the outlier, the bigger the problem can be. It's quite common for gifted kids in a regular classroom to instead be labelled ADHD, oppositional/ defiant, ASD and others. With shocking frequency, those symptoms disappear if the child is placed in a class full of gifted peers (though unfortunately, such classes are far too uncommon). Of course, lots of kids are both gifted and have other exceptionalities (especially on this forum). Even so, research shows the best way to teach is by supporting their weaknesses but engaging them at the level of their intellectual strengths. Easier material is actually harder for them to cope with.

Some gifted kids, despite having different learning needs, still engage well socially and emotionally with their age-peers through some common interests. Boys especially might connect through sports, where there can be both equal intensity of interest as well as equal ability. However, not all gifted boys like sports. And many gifted kids have highly-divergent interests from their age peers - and are really intense, deep and passionate about those interests. Sound familiar? If your child is already there, I hate to say this, but I really wouldn't count on them becoming less divergent from their peers over time. More able to cope socially with those differences, yes. But also, quite likely, noticeably more different as time goes on.

Chay offers some great suggestions for talking with your husband. It sounds like you have each defined a quite different problem, and so not surprisingly, are seeing quite different solutions. Actual data to help you better understand your child's needs would likely be a helpful place to start: I found it incredibly useful to have actual numbers - imperfect as they definitely are - that objectively stated my child's needs separate from my own projections, hopes, fears, frustrations, childhood experiences and ego. If your child is an outlier, it can be incredibly freeing to see that in black and white, and realize it's ok to not expect this kid to function the way everyone else does, he actually is objectively different and has different needs.

Even knowing his needs, however, there isn't one right way to respond to them. It may be helpful to explicitly separate the issues of "gathering data to define the problem" vs. "analyzing potential solutions". We all carry baggage from our own school experiences, and as we've seen from many discussions on this forum, it's amazing how much that shapes our reactions now. As chay suggests, the more you and your husband can understand each other's school's experiences, and talk openly about what parts may or may not apply to your kids, and what ways your kids are - and are not - like you, the better you can try and see what makes sense, in the here and now, for this unique child in front of you. Many of us carry scars we don't even know about, and those can make it hard to get on the same page as our partner. It takes time, and lots of open-ended conversations. As much as possible, perhaps try to get both of you to drop for a while your ideas about both the nature of the problem, and the solution you favour. Instead, just explore your own experiences, and what you now see in this child. For myself, I had clear - and completely inaccurate - ideas of what gifted was and needed. My children's needs are so utterly, fundamentally different from my own that it is my constant challenge to meet them where they are, and not where I think they ought to be. It's been an incredible learning experience, though! Best wishes to you both.