Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy Teacher conference on Friday

DS's teacher suggested over a month ago that we have a conference - but never got her to nail down a time. This morning I emailed her yet again and she responded almost immediately with a time.

Unfortunately, we will only have 45 minutes - but hopefully it will be enough to start to understand each other about what is going on.

He is bored out of his wits and we are seeing some degradation in his behavior at home - more crying, less effort on his work, more talking to himself --- imaginary friends new at age 7 1/2 when he never had them before! (Except for the battle of the wills with his sister.....)

Starting to wonder if we shouldn't have gone for the double skip that the psych recommended.

Oh well.... wish us luck!

Mary

Oh Mary,
I'm so sorry to hear it.
I'm having a meeting also on Friday, in response to last meetings request for grade skip.
Good Luck. Try not to dwell on the meeting, as my experience is that schools run on their own time table.
Advice? Try to figure out how bad it has to be before you "pull" him from that situation - and stand guard, relaxedly if possible.
You can always pull him for a week's vacation and then re-evaluate. It took me three years to pull my kid - little glimmers of hope. There was some value in it, but I wouldn't do it again.
Love and More Love,
Trinity

I do wish you luck, Mary, and pray that the teacher will be receptive and understanding and wise.

What is DS saying about school? Does he hate it, or not want to go? We switched schools for our DD recently because she clearly expressed that she was unhappy there and "wished she could go to another school." Do you have any back-up options for your son if this school is not willing to work with you?

Keep us posted.

I wonder if the teacher's ready response means that she is seeing trouble at school also?

Nail biting,
Trinity

No back up options, but Snoopy claims to enjoy school in spite of the boredom - so I am not worried enough to pull him yet. It is just that he isn't quite the same kid he was over the summer.

Actually - we are planning a week's vacation soon - just haven't told the teacher.

I seriously wish we could homeschool - but DH stays home with the kids while I work and he and DS do not get along well in educational attempts.

DH keeps expecting him to suddenly act his mental age - and DS keeps bouncing between his chronological age less 3 and his chronological age plus 20. DH gets mad and DS gets defensive. Not a pretty site.

Oh well.... we'll see what happens.

mary

Mary - I just needed to add that we are in the same situation. I work and DH stays home. The battles that would happen if DH were to home school would not be pretty. What I have seen of the homework wars, I can only assume would be exasperated!

My DS is also 7.5. He is happy in school right now - but we have radical acceleration for math that is also taught mostly one-on-one with enrichment. Luckily, DS is happy to coast in the other subjects and can be accomodated in his 2nd grade class with some subject enrichment.

But before we got the math worked out - he was miserable about everything. At home, at school, etc. So I know what you are talking about.

Good luck with your meeting and I'd love to chat sometime about the challenges and benefits of our home arrangements and having a PG child in the mix!

Maria

Mary -
My DS10 also seems to age bounce. Maybe all kids do? At least once they become teenagers? Maybe Adults do also? ((big grin))
Trinity

I think all gifted kids "age bounce" and it certainly can be disconcerting. One minute DD5 will be asking deeply intellectual questions, and the next minute she'll be crying because she can't find her "My Little Pony" toy. It's hard to know how to treat them sometimes!

Life with a gifted child is never boring. :-)

Mary and Trinity, did you both have your meetings with your schools on Friday? If so, what happened?

Meeting got cancelled. Teacher's kid was sick. However, DH and I talked and decided that we had to give up trying to let the school do it all. So, starting this weekend, we are doing a couple of hours of Mommy school on the weekends. Physics and moviemaking.

Interesting thing - Trinity will love this - DD(6) was more interested and engaged in the physics discussion than DS (7). She took notes and was the first to guess that magnetism was a type of force - although DS ran with the idea quite well after that.

We also started planning the plot, characters, and setting for our first attempts at making a stop action movie. (First one will just be a slide show with a sound track. - although, maybe we should go with a silent movie first. Didn't think about that.)

I'll let you know when we get rescheduled for school - but maybe the enrichment at home will help.... as DD is starting to have as many problems as DS.....

Mary

P.S. yes, Trinity.... you told me so.

Mary -

Good for you and DH for taking the bull by the horns! Have fun and enjoy every minute. You've got the power!

BTW, Go DD! Go - Go DD! Yes, Yes, Yes - Go DD! Am I being obnoxious, yes! But I will try to make it up to you with this little tidbit of info. Here's an online Middle School Program that both of your kids may be able to do at school in the classrooms as enrichment without radicle acceleration.

BTW - Today is DS10's first day of Middle School, first day with the skip in place, and I feel like I have the flu - really physically bad - although emotionally I feel very pleased and confident - LOL! So maybe I am comming down with something, but I do have a better insight as to why rad/acc isn't appealing than I did yesterday!


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Dear Reasoning Minds.org



My son is almost 10 years old, and the public school he attends has decided to allow him to "place out" of math he already knows. Is it possible for him you use your program in Beta form at home or in school to learn "more math" while he waits for the other children to catch up?

X

So Mary I think your kids would get a kick out of this program, and maybe get their intellectual cake and keep current setting for a bit longer anyway.

Love and More Love,
Trinity

Interesting - I wonder how this compares to ALEKS. (Pricing is about the same.)

DS is using ALEKS and loving it. Weird thing - DD is really truly on first grade level for math. At least for now. She has never shown an interest and we have never taught her anything beyond that level.

That may change this year though....

ALEKS starts at a 3rd grade level and goes through high school.

This looks more colorful - but not sure it is really better or just more colorful. It would be neat to have a comparison though.
Mary

I have a spam filter and you should get a message saying that. Read that and respond so that I can add you to my address list and get the email. I'll get back to you as soon as I get the email.

Mary

-------------------

Conference this morning!

She started by asking what our concerns were. She said no problem, she can ratchet the academics up. She has really been spending the time up til now trying to find out what he is capable of and how hard she can push him - how little she can push him etc. She feels confident enough that she knows his limits and can correctly target things.

She said her main concern is that he can't fold a paper airplane for anything. She wants to address this by spending more time on motor skills activities for him. We agreed that was important and told her what he does at home to work on that.

She talked about how much progress he has made on social skills and playing with other kids - how there is one kid on the playground who always sticks up for him and makes sure he gets to play.

Told me about one day when he started crying about how he didn't have any friends - how every single kid in the class came over and said that they are his friend - real Hollywood unbelievable moment - and how touching it was - said Mark stopped complaining about no friends after that.

I said something about last weekend when he played 5th grade Cluefinders for the first time in a long time. She asked if I had a problem with it when he plays 3rd grade cluefinders instead - and I said no - just that when he never does anything more challenging that I get concerned because it drags him down to never be challenged and he doesn't always see that it drags him down.

Anyway - bottom line, no major changes - but lots of comfort. This teacher really does understand our son and is really meeting his needs so well.

Third grade was the right decision this year.... not sure what will be right next year - but right now, I feel really good about this year.

Mary