Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy How to deal with emotional sensitivities

Home schooling is not an option for me as a single parent. Plus I want to make the school do their job not only for my son but all the others going through similar situations who don't have advocates.

Kriston, you have such great insight and advice. Thank you for putting it in perspective.

We are strict with our children. Both of our parents were strict with us, so it's the only thing we know.

Now to get my letter of intent out to the superintendent. I want to pull them before Christmas and give them a little time to decompress. I was going to wait till after the holidays, but because of resent developments, I want them out NOW.

I can understand where you're coming from. I felt the same way, but I have been hitting a brick wall since the beginning. I'm tired of fighting. I want to use my energy in other avenues now.

We don't have gifted ed in our state and I don't see it coming any time soon.

I will keep cheering for you though. Keep up the good work.

I hope it helps. Keep talking if it does.

And since it sounds like you've made the choice to homeschool, be sure you remember that the first year--especially starting mid-year--is a MAJOR learning experience for the parent far more than it is for the child. I strongly recommend having a "I have a lot to figure out because I've never done this before, so you will have to be just as patient with me as I am with you; this will only work if we're in it together" talk with your son. It does so much to set the right tone for a cooperative homeschooling venture.

I also talk a lot about my son being responsible for his own learning. If he wants to study something, that's up to him. I never accept "I'm bored with this." Never. If he's bored with what we're doing it's up to him to come up with a better idea. Then I find the resources.

I refuse to entertain him, but I do what I can to help him motivate himself.

I think that might also be relevant to your concerns about his getting his way. If he has MORE responsibility for his education, not less, he isn't getting his way. It's a step forward, not backward, I think.

Whether you home school or not, make sure you address the social issues that seem to be popping up. If your son doesn't relate to kids his age, that may be because he just is "beyond" them, but it may also be because he has issues in this area. Keep an eye on it and help him work on it.

Given your post, my main concern is that he views the other kids at school as beneath him - that may be a self-protecting mechanism because it is hard for him to relate, and may resolve once he finds himself in a happier place for learning, but you don't want to let that go unaddressed if you can. Most gifted kids are highly compassionate and patient with others, but the ones I know who are arrogant (not saying yours is at all, I actually think he is just sad right now) are really and truly intolerable. It is really our job to help them engage with the world in a balanced way.

Cat

I'd say fix the academics first. A child who finds schoolwork intolerable often has social problems. Unhappy kids do not make good friends, and a child who has never been challenged is often haughty.

If the academics are close to right and there are still social problems, then I think you figure there's something else going on.

Good point about the lack of challenge. My DS had a friend who was very bright and very arrogant (and rude to adults, something I can't abide). Yet he became a much more pleasant guest once I beat him in a game

Cat

Interesting thoughts. My son is never rude or disrespectful to us or other adults. He is only this way at school. Or maybe, he knows better than to do it when we are around. No, I take that back. He's not rude even when we are not around.

He is very compassionate, but becomes agitated with others quickly. He has a low tolerance for other children who he finds annoying. The sad part is, the annoying children are just doing the stuff, kids do. Right or wrong, it's what kids do. They like to annoy. His bother is really good at it.

I like the part of him being responsible for his own learning.

This Miraca Gross article comes to mind:
http://www.hoagiesgifted.org/underserved.htm

It says, "Hollingworth, in her landmark work on children of IQ 180+, warned that extremely gifted children must learn to accept that the majority of people they will encounter in life are very different from themselves. "The highly intelligent child must learn to suffer fools gladly-not sneeringly, not angrily, not despairingly, not weepingly-but gladly if personal development is to proceed successfully in the world as it is" (Hollingworth, 1942, p. 299).

No matter how appropriate the interventions that are made for extremely gifted students in school, they will live as adults in a world where the vast majority of people they encounter will find it difficult to relate to their remarkable intellectual capacities, atypical interests, and different values and perceptions. This does not mean, however, that our schools can absolve themselves from the obligation to assist the extremely gifted child in forming facilitative peer relationships in school. A child who receives affection and approval from other children is learning and practicing the skills that will assist her to form sound relationships in adulthood. A child who is ostracized by his peers has little opportunity to practice these skills."

Opps Cat - over the line here! Or do you have references for above?
Your main idea that we MUST get help for these 'at risk' children is totally right on, though.

Some gifted kids are highly compasssionate, but there is no evidence that 'Most' are, or that this is a hallmark of giftedness. It is a common myth though.
http://positivedisintegration.com/Ruf09.pdf
(especially page 10)

Lets face it - very few of us are 'easygoing.' I think 'really and truly intolerable' is somewhat eye of the beholder, and I haven't seen that.

What I have seen are children, usually boys, who happen to have the type of personality where they are very sensitive to being 'disrespected.' If they are surrounded by work and expectations that are too far below their 'readiness level' then they experience their worlds as shaming places.

Before my son was born, I didn't pay much attention to the difference between guilt and shame. In listening to an audiolecture about 'The Illid' I heard that in that culture, a Man's Reputation was based entirely on what other's thought and said about him, so that to strip Achilles of his 'war prize' diminished him personally. The fact that he knew that he was a mighty warrior didn't mean a thing in that cultural time and place. There was no 'heaven' that good people went to - there was only reputation, standing in the other men's eyes. (who knows what the women were thinking?) Shame was defined as the experience of being tarnished in other people's eyes. Guilt was our internal knowlege that we as individuals have 'missed the mark.'

This blew my mind, because it fit all these odd data points that I hadn't been able to make sence of. My son, at age 5-8, couldn't really be expected to function like a self-actualized adult at all moments, able to generate his own sense of his internal worth without any positive feedback from the school environment. That's why the first social reports from first grade were 'Bob is the fastest runner, Jim is the strongest, Billy is the funniest, John knows the most bad songs, I read the fastest, except for a girl, and girls don't count.'

So I do think that being 'held back' by being placed with agemates is percieved as shaming if the 'readiness level' gap is large enough, and if the child is predisposed by their personality to think in this way. So children will internalize their unhappiness. Some will act out. I am so grateful that my son's tendency was to act out, becuase that's what was needed to get him into a better fit situation. But it was painful and embarrassing (wink)

Love and More Love,
Grinity