Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy How long should we wait to tell the teacher?

I've decided not to tell the teacher anything about my DD's abilities. But assuming there are no signs of differentiation how long do I wait before I do ask for a conference?

And what are the signs she's being given differentiated work? Would the teacher contact us, necessarily?

What are your reasons for not telling?

Do you mean not telling at all, or...?

I want to have the teacher on side, not alienate her or get typecast as a pushy parent. I'd like to have her be excited at her discovery and pleased that she figured it out. And I'm not 100% sure that DD's got any advanced mental abilities beyond an interest in the topic and a bored parent. I'd feel a right loon if I went in there claiming brilliance when it's not the case.

But I'm not going to let it go on forever if DD doesn't get challenging work. Some of DD's personality traits make me think that she won't show her abilities/knowledge unless the person knows or suspects that she can do it. Like, she'll say to me "what's five times three?" and if I say "five threes? What do you think?" she'll say "I don't know", but if I say "three fives? A hundred and forty four!" she'll laugh and say "no, silly, it's five, ten, fifteen." But if I wasn't expecting her to know the answer I wouldn't push her for it. And she doesn't like to be challenged, and she's kind of spacey. And she gets things wrong a lot as well.

I will talk to the teacher about it, but I'm not sure how long it is reasonable to wait to allow her time to get to know the children, get them comfortable in the school environment and figure out where they all are in terms of development/knowledge. Definitely two weeks, but is a month too long or still too short? How long does it take them to get the kids settled down and to fully assess them?

YMMV, but around here I don't think they *do* assess children first entering school, and certainly not for whether they can do multiplication. My experience was - ah, actually explained in the first thread I ever started, but the short version is that DS's teacher, despite noticing his advanced reading on Day 1, didn't notice his maths for more than half a term, until I send in a note.

Still, my DS was probably difficult to spot at that point, and it sounds as though your DD is somewhat similar. He'd grab on to and be fascinated by advanced concepts, but he'd also make mistakes in, or be unwilling to try, apparently simpler problems; I'm not sure he'd have assessed that well, and on the whole I'm glad I didn't push it at the very beginning. I think with hindsight I'd have contacted his teacher a *bit* earlier, since as it was DS had been complaining about maths being boring for some weeks before he got any differentiation. I vote a month ;-) Obviously if the teacher asks, or gives you an obvious opportunity to talk about your DD, before then, go for it then!

I had the privilege to meet with Susan Assouline (one of the authors of the Iowa Acceleration Scale) once and asked the very same question - should I wait till he gives trouble in school or should I advocate from Day 1? She didn't have a ready reply although she favoured waiting, since the child needed time to adjust to so many aspects of school.

In our case, I had spoken to the school/gifted officer before he formally entered elementary school. DS was already not fitting into kindy, and I was hoping that with a differentiated programme, he'd be fine. It didn't turn out that way, but that's another story. In retrospect, speaking up early was good for us in that his teacher looked out for him and tried to get to understand him better. I think she actually "gets" him.

I really don't know if he would have been spotted on his own. His kindy teachers were in 2 camps - those who really liked him and were dazzled by his abilities, and those who really loathed him and thought he was too outspoken. Bizarre but true!

The teacher won't nescessarily contact you. Usually the schools don't want the 'other parents' to know, so they won't tell you. Sometimes parents themselves 'bug out' so they think 'what good can come of it?' and stay quiet.

In 2nd grade the staff saw that there were a whole bunch of reading boys. (all of them except my summer baby had been held back in Kindy, so were a whole year to 18 months older) So they decided to 'try an experiement' and put them all together in a single classroom of about 20 kids.

Back then my son is very age appropriate in speed, handwriting, self-discipline, and wiggliness. They gave that group of kids 5th grade books to read in their reading group. They didn't mention it to me until about 6 weeks before school was over.

In October at back to school the teacher was raving about DS. By December she was convinced that the had 'the worst case of ADHD she had ever seen.' How much of this was due to the fact that she was looking at him compared to a classroom full of regular age girls and boys who are 12-18 months older? We had school meetings about how it was all the parent's fault because I was an older mom, and a working,professional mom. They never mentioned the sneak cluster group.

I was grateful that he was able to read 5th grade level books in school. The teacher reported that during classroom discussions he was 'her angel' who rescued her when the class just sat there looking blankly, so she knew he understood things. He just couldn't keep up with his reading group in speed when it came to filling out worksheets. The group task was to find words from their books in a dictionary and write down the definitions. The boys quickly starting acting like it was a race and letting DS know that he was holding the group back because he wrote so slowly. In retrospect, he probably didn't write any more slowly than the average 7 year old boy.

She made a big deal in class about DS's behavior, and all the kids started to treat him as though there was something wrong with him. Ds also internalized that there was 'something wrong with him.' It was our very worst year. Luckily it lead to testing that included information that led us to Davidson. But it was a hard and heavy road. Unluckily it sent us down the rabbit hole of NonVerbal Learning Disorder - a misdiagnosis.

Personally I'm grateful, because otherwise I never would have understood the heaviness of heart reserved for parents of children who are told that they child has something wrong with them. One wakes up with it every day. It's hard not to let it poison the relationship with that child, and the other parent. But I don't like learning amazing life lessons at my child's expense.

The very next year DS had a teacher who totally got DS with no help from me at all! He was happy socially, academically, spiritually. He stopped believing that something was wrong with him. I had nothing to do with it. She invented a lot of activites for DS to be a class leader in and never told us until the end of the year. She acted like it was 'just normal' to send a kid who 'finished early' to the single classroom computer to look up more information about the topic of the day and then give the class a minilecture about what he had learned. Even though she never had done that before. She was amazing.

So my long answer is - it varies. The 2nd grade teacher was impervious, even after IQ scores were on the table. The 3rd grade teacher didn't need any guidance at all.

Bottom Line: Start the relationship building right away. Send an email every week about how excited your daughter is to be in this teacher's class, and what DD talks about during dinner. Teacher are so starved for positive feedback. A 3 line email is perfect! We'll tend to think that praising someone for planting seeds in dixie cups isn't big enough to praise someone for - we are wrong! Just being noticed by another adult is very validating.

Follow the 'if you can't say anything nice, find something nice to say - small is better that silence' rule. Do not complain at all. After about 4-6 weeks of this, you can request a meeting to ask for more feedback about how DD is doing. By then you will have established your reputation as 'amazing.' You are still building the relationship and playing detective, but you can ask more direct questions at this point. Depending on the rapport, you can share your worry 'as a worry' gently, or share a 'what I'm hoping for' statement. Then make plans to follow up. It's a relationship you are building.

I hope that helps,
Love and More Love,
Grinity

I think Grinity has great advice. We have been very careful to toe the line between advocating and being pushy. It is different with each teacher. Some are great and some are not. This year is a little different for us because we will be talking about subject acceleration instead of just ADHD. I plan to take the same approach as we have before... " We want to work with you. Please let us know your ideas and what works so we can support your efforts at home." All teachers thus far have been very receptive to us. Last year DD's teacher and I exchanged emails a couple of times a month. It was great because we didn't have to chase each other or take time away for constant meetings. Just a few lines to say what was or wasn't working or what to work on that week.

Good luck!

This year I was very proactive and went to speak to the teachers ahead of time. I wanted to make sure the year got off to a great start as last year DS ended up hating school, hating himself and leaving early to HS. The teachers seemed very receptive. We have only had three days of school so far so I can't say if there was any impact on the academics but DS is really liking the teachers and seems very excited about school so far. I am keeping my fingers crossed!

Wonderful replies, thank you.

They will do the NNAT at some point during the year, but I was really thinking of the sort of assessment of where the kids are put into small groups for reading (and possibly math?).

I think I will say something in later years. It seems much easier to say "last year Mrs Jones was doing xyz, I wonder if we can talk about what you might do?".

ETA: Colin'smum, you are me! Well, Colin is my DD, really. That kind of scares me, because I thought in a recent post of yours how advanced he was and how tricky it must be for you to make accommodation for him. And yet he was at the same point at the same age as my DD. But, I'm glad to know her shakiness on place value despite loving division isn't indicative of some learning issue. It's kind of been like that forever, though. Even when she could only count to four or five she could add and subtract within that limit, and the same for my younger DS. He can only count to three, but he can tell me how many I have if I take one or two away from the three or put them back.

There were some great suggestions in your thread too. Particularly the one to use that puzzlement and concern over what she doesn't quite grasp as the starting point for the conversation with the teacher. I was thinking of taking in the second grade singapore math book we're working through and plopping it down and saying "so...". But, then again, maybe not

We decided not to tell the K teacher anything when he started school. We'd had no testing (or any reason to think to do it), but we knew he could read, do math, etc. However, we weren't sure what *he* would feel comfortable showing the teacher, so we just let it go for a bit. As others have said, I believe alot depends on the teacher. DSs teacher contacted us after a month or so to ask if we were aware that DS could read... That let us know that DS was not shy about revealing what he could do and so we let her know the other things we'd seen - and she clued us in to how unusual they were given his age. She initiated subject acceleration and GT testing and we were on our way.

It all worked out for us, but it really was dependent on the teacher and how she handled what she saw. Had she never contacted us and DS continued with A is for apple type stuff, we most likely would have put a bug in her ear. Good luck!