Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Is it possible??

Is it possible for a (then) 6 y/o to buffalo a group of adults?? How can that be??

Last year at school my son was having behavioral issues That brought about all the testing. This year he tried the same issues, but they didn't work with the new teacher.

All behavioral issues have come to a complete halt. I asked him one day, "why, what's different to make all the problems stop?" He looked at me and said, "I have a good teacher this year"

How can a 6 y/o do this? These are trained school personal. I know children can be manipulative, but to this degree?

The funny thing is, I told the school he didn't behave like that at home, but it fell upon deaf ears.

Has anyone else seen this happen before?

I have not had the same exact experience but...

My kids went to a preschool that was similar to Montessori. This school really understood feelings and child development.

My kids changed school and it's a new ball game. There have been many time where a teacher has responded to something where I have thought "WRONG ANSWER". The other issue is they don't know gifted like I have read. Despite that, this school is caring and very parent involved. There are many things special things I appreciate that they do. I need to have realistic expectations and know a trained professional is not going to believe, do and know everything that I wish they did. I expect there will be many times ahead I will experience deaf ears. But I plan to be kind but persitent and try to appreciate teacher for what they do. It's a hard job. If you have an opportunity to volunteer try to do this.

There are so many factors that go into behavior in class. So times just growing up helps. Sometimes it's what's happening in the class. Last year, there were behavior issues in my ds's 2nd grade class. He felt like he was getting yelled at all day even when he was doing nothing wrong. He is very sensitive. This situation caused him stress which reflects in his behavior. He is very sensitive to things feeling unfair. New teacher this year and it's much better. She is keeping the kids busy, the class behavior is better. My son is better.

I have been very supportive to the school. I absolutely adore his teacher, my other son had her last year, so I know her very well. I do volunteer at the school, I teach the computer class for 1st graders.

I'm just surprised the counselors didn't see this, especially after reviewing his scores. One would think, they have dealt with gifted children in the past and the characteristics of these children. I could be wrong, all kids are different.

Maybe, the faculty was on a certain path in their minds and wasn't able to back away and see the whole picture.

I talked to one of the counselors yesterday. She said, "it's like he is a different child this year." He has much more confidence."

I have a lot of hope for this school year. It's the first time he has had a good match. Best part is, he doesn't come home saying he hates school. YEAH!!

So it is possible?

After a few meetings with the school, I said to my husband that I thought my son had them all fooled, but I wasn't sure I believed myself.(hope that makes sense)It sounds crazy when you think about it. He fooled 1 teacher, 1 psycholgist, 2 counselors. The only one who pegged him IMO, was the Speech Path. I find it mind boggling that a child could do this.

It is pretty amazing. While teachers are trained and good teachers do well with the teaching part, there isn't much training in behavior management and dealing with that aspect. And some children act out behaviorally when it is not an academic fit. Especially when they are younger and not able of comfortable verbalizing their feelings. Soo...teachers see behaviors as top priority and not academic needs. Which causes the behaviors to continue because teacher gets exhausted putting out fires and doesn't spend time trying to meet academic needs. It is understandable, but frustrating as a parent. My DS5 had on preschool setting that was awful. They were describing behaviors we had never seen at home. It was a very unstructure play based preschool setting and there were way too many kids and no behavior system because they thought since kids were all playing there would be no behaviors. He didn't last there long. Then in a montessori setting they didn't see those behaviors, so it was clearly just not a match as nothing else had changed.

I have a friend whose DD regularly pulls one over on her teachers. She's got innocent eyes and a mind like an evil genius, though she's not evil. She just has a low tolerance for being underestimated.

I think the notion of "getting stuck" is right on, kcab. Once a GT kid starts down a given path, it can be hard to change directions unless there's a really good reason. I remember a couple of things like that in my childhood, too.

That makes it hard for parents to know when to act and when it's best to let things ride for a while and not make a big deal about them. Sometimes a light touch with a problem isn't a bad idea.

I do think that with a GT child showing behavioral problems, the very first stop must be classroom fit. Not all behavioral problems are caused by a bad fit, of course, but I'd bet the *vast* majority have that as one component at the very least. Bored GT kids can be a scary bunch!

LOL Bear does that alot. He was participating in a university childhood development study and I just sat there and watched him mess with the poor tester. It was very funny and sad really...

Another time Wolf's grandma was reading him a numbers book (he was maybe 2 at the time), really exagerating the numbers and asking him if he could say them, which number is this, etc... He just patiently humored her, even baby talking the numbers, until the last page that listed all the numbers where he very deliberately looked at them, looked at her and counted very clearly and precisely pointing at each one, 1-2-3-4-5. I had told her through the whole process that he knew his numbers...

I think GT kids really quickly figure out that most people will underestimate their abilities and that they can think and talk circles around a majority of people.

It's completely possible BECAUSE the adults won't see what they don't believe. Before I met my son, I believed that being smart was an advantage in school, and the smarter the bigger the advantage. If we keep believing that it isn't important to meet the needs of gifted kids because really they don't have special needs, then it will be possible to fool the adults every time.

Sad but true,
Grinity

Yes, completely possible. I'm afraid that my son does it all the time (even to me sometimes)!

Absolutely possible and probable! My son sometimes does this without realizing it. If a teacher asks an easy question he tries to find out what she really wants to know and why she's asking this and what the right answer might be. The clincher was when the principal told me that he didn't know his math facts because when she asked him what 5X1 was, he couldn't answer. He was 11 years old and in a gifted school. Needless to say, I was speechless for so many reasons. I did NOT say "You are a principal of gifted kids and you seriously believe that he doesn't know the answer. You can't imagine any other reason that he might not answer this including being offended, knowing that he's in "trouble" and doesn't want to make it worse, trying to decide which answer will make her go away."

Instead we've been working with our son on communicating his thoughts more.