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

To be honest, I've only ever once found a school counselor who did 'understand' and she was instrumental in getting my son his gradeskip.

I think in this case that 'his parents' are the right person that he needs to communicate his feelings too. It is so hard to really 'take in' what it must feel like to spend 6 hours a day 'being good' while the other kids are learning to work hard, with people you don't respect, who don't see or like you. I'm not saying that he isn't able to 'put this aside' from time to time, but it never goes away until the child gets into a learning situation where they are busy learning to learn.

My son used to bristle at the other children 'ignoring him.' I think it was a combination of them not really wanting to match him in his level of intensity of interest, and them not being able to. For weeks he complained about a little girl in daycare who 'wouldn't' talk to him. They were 3. I asked about it, and the teachers explained that she was shy and didn't talk at all except at home to her parents. I think that when keen observation is coupled with lack of experience, misunderstandings are bound to occur.

As for you son being less mature than others his age, I beg you to consider that he has lots more to handle than others his age. If a 7 year old was suddenly asked to care for younger sibs, cook dinner, and keep the house clean,(and I know that some of you did this) it would be visible and understandable if they didn't measure up to the expected standard. Maybe dinner would be peanut butter and jelly sandwiches every night. I really think that a highly sensitive gifted child in a poor fit classroom, who feels unliked and unseen on a daily basis, and isn't learning, faces a similarly adult-sized task of keepinging their emotions 'on hold' during the school day.

I will say that in some ways, classrooms designed for older kids are less stressful for the highly gifted child than age designed classrooms, in that people expect middle school aged children to have opinions and preferences. People also expect a certian level of crankiness due to 'puberty' - personally, I've observed that the expectations have gotten easier as the years go by. 'Blind obedience' isn't nearly as large on the teaching agenda as one gets older.

((hugs))
Grinity

I am wrestling with the homeschool issue as well for many of the same reasons. I dont want him to think that he does not have to follow the rules of school/society. On the other hand Kriston I hear what you are saying and this keeps me seriously thinking of homeschooling. My worry is that financially I may not always be able to homeschool and will he adapt back into school or will he be less able to handle being back? The other very big issue is that DD7 is in a perfect school situation, great teacher, appropriately challenging and she is very adept socially BUT she will go crazy if her brother gets to homeschool and not her. I honestly feel that she is better off for now where she is but my two seem so jealous of each other.

Here as well. The irony is that what he finds annoying in others is what they find annoying in him but he seems to overlook that part! :-)

Just because DS acts like he can't read other's emotions, doesn't mean that he isn't reading them. Reading them, wishing he could make the other person happy, knowing that he would have to erase too much of himself to do so, and decieding to behave as if he doesn't notice other people's feelings.

I do know that as they get older, they are more mature, more able to deal with frustration, more flexable (if you've been working at it) more able to handle challenges - at least until puberty hits.

I say: met their needs today, and try to build bridges to the skills he would need to return to school if he should ever have to, but trust that when the future arrives, you will figure out some way to deal with it.

Grinity

This is a very big issue. Are you sure that you can't bribe her to at least finish out the year? (horseback riding lessons?)

It is perfectly ok to tell her 'NO, you go to school, he homeschools, you don't have to like it, but Mom knows best.' She might be stronger than you think...

OTOH, can you get appropriate accomidations for your son? Are subject or full grade acceleration(s) possible? Is an alternate school possible?

That's a tough one!
Grinity

We homeschool now, and this is a real issue for us with the economy where it is and DH bringing home a healthy salary that might change if he had to find a new job. I like to think that every year we can do it, is a year closer to jr. high or high school where there are more options in our area. It's definitely a year to year proposition for us at this point.


This is hard. I have a 5 year old that started homeschooling this year instead of attending kindergarten. She is extroverted and very social. Kindergarten would have been mostly great for her. But last year when she went to preschool, she was bitter all year about her brother homeschooling. The previous year, she was delighted with preschool. Anyway, it's hard to know what to do. DD5 is extremely sensitive, as was I as a child. And I personally carry a lot of baggage about my own schooling! So that guided me quite a bit.

Anyway, I do think if you present it as a year to year proposition and say she has a really good fit this year that might buy you some time to try it out with one child. That's really hard! Good luck!

What about after her school day you have some special one on one with her. That can make a kid feel valued too.

Homeschoolers can keeps in touche with their old school connections by contiuing boy/girl scouts, playdates and birthday parties. It would be fun to have a summer party even if there is not a birthday.

Well, I try not to get too far ahead of myself. I think that I have to find the best fit for *now*, and then in a year or two or 10 I'll figure out the best fit for then, depending on the circumstances.

Who knows? You could win the lottery next year and never have to worry about money again! You can't predict the future.

Homeschooling is not the best fit for every family or even every child. There's so much that goes into that sort of choice! But it seems a shame to me to choose not to homeschool a child whom you think could use it because of a "what-if." I take it one year at a time--at most!--and try to make it work for that year. We re-evaluate every year.

As for the sibling rivalry: that's tougher, I think. I firmly believe that the education choices you make HAVE to fit into the family's needs overall. If the perfect school is a 3-hour commute each day, it's probably not the perfect school. If there's a school that is wonderful, but you have to live in poverty to afford it, it may not be a good choice for your family. Big picture!

So if homeschooling your son would make your daughter miserable, and there's nothing that would fix that, then maybe it's not a workable solution for you. I think it's okay to decide that family unity matters. But maybe talking with your daughter about why she'd want to leave an ideal school situation just because of her brother would solve the problem. Maybe she'd be more understanding than you think she would, especially if she got plenty of mom-time with you as onthegomom suggested to make it more palatable for her.

I am biased. We have one kid at home and one at public school right now, so I regularly push the "Different kids have different needs and we serve those needs in different ways" philosophy to my kids. "Fair" doesn't equal "the same." It is okay to make that clear to her. We talk about that a LOT around our house!

IMHO, it seems problematic not to give her brother what he needs because she doesn't like it... that does seem to me to border on letting the child run the show--just the other child. Or maybe you homeschool both, perfect school fit or no. Sometimes you give a kid what she wants and let her see that it isn't what she thought. Many ways to approach it...

Regardless of what you decide, family dynamics are complicated. I think you're right to keep them in mind as you look at the big picture.

"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


Opps Cat - over the line here! Or do you have references for above?"
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Hi Grinity,

First, thanks for your amazing post - I need to spend some time thinking on the shame vs. guilt issue, and I think you got to the core of what I was trying (rather inelegantly) to say, which was simply, that in this case, I think a school change will make a world of difference, but if it doesn't resolve some of the issues, particularly the social issues, then I think it is important to try to help in that area. In particular, I was thinking that for a child who may have difficulty reading other's emotions (including intellectual peers and chronological peers), it might be helpful to have some assessment done, since that could indicate some other issues.

As for references re: the above, I was thinking about this at the time: http://www.sengifted.org/articles_s...tInGiftedChildrenMoralSensitivity.shtml. I didn't realize it was considered a myth, so I will definitely look at the Ruf article, I am the first to admit I have a lot to learn in this area (even about my own son - which by the way, thanky you for your post). And I will admit that I may be very incorrect in connecting patience with compassion - to me they are related, but I can definitely see how that is purely based on my own experiences (which may not be all that helpful on this forum anyway, since my experience tends to be with family and friends who are probably in the HG area, but likely not hitting IQ's of 160 or not PG, which is no doubt an entirely different thing).

I too keep thinking about homeschooling, and if you had asked me 3 months ago what I thought of homeschoolers, I would have had some very very serious concerns.

Cat

Kriston- Funny... we've been having the "fair does not equal the same" conversation with DS's school. "Appropriate does not equal the same" either...


Cat-
Your comment about patience vs. compassion really jumped out at me. My DS(6 1/2) is extremely compassionate with those he believes genuinely need it. He will show my 2 year old niece the same thing 10 times without frustration. He was a play therapy buddy for a neighbor's autistic daughter for two years, not once losing his cool. He has a deep understanding of those who are younger or less capable.

However he has no patience at all! He doesn't understand why adults underestimate him- even those who have been proven wrong repeatedly. He will absolutely not repeat himself to an adult who should have been listening, gets agitated with classmates for poor behavior (not academics, just behavior), is very sensitive to classmates teasing others and will not leave it alone.

I've divided these into my head in two very different categories having see how it plays out in his head.