Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion How to handle this?

Do your kids know they are doing advance work? Ds has always done workbooks about 2 year+ above his actual age and a lot of games he plays are for older kids. A year ago he started noticing the age and grade recommendations written on the books and the games and we would casually tell him that this were just a suggestions. Now he is in kindergarten in a g&t class and the work has begun to be less easy for him. He is now having to think for 5 seconds before answering a question and he just wants to give up. We are now encouraging him by praising him for taking the time to think and the effort he puts into his homework. (If anyone else has advice on what else to do that would be great). Today though while a bit frustrated with completing his homework he told me that he thinks that his teacher is crazy because she is teaching kindergartners, 1st grade stuff. I asked him how he knows this and he says that he saw it on her teacher's manual. He then tells me that kindergartners can't understand this stuff and that when she is teaching all he hears is, "blah, blah, blah, blah". I'm not sure if this means he doesn't understand the material, if he's actually shuts his mind off because he thinks its too hard, or if he's just pulling one on me. I didn't know what to say to him. Has anyone gone through this type of situation with their child? Any advice would be very appreciated!

Just a thought: have you tried to determine whether it's the actual material or its presentation-- or even the environment?

Environment: Is he sensitive to sounds, smells, sensory stimuli in general? Is he distracted: by visuals, other children, etc. How does he generally handle sitting at a desk? Could there be anything about the classroom environment that distracts him?

Presentation: How would you rate his overall auditory processing/attention/learning? How does it compare to how he takes in info/processes info via other channels? Does he generally do better if he sees/reads material or if you tell him, read aloud, discuss it? Does he typically move around a lot while he's learning at home? Maybe try an experiment... Maybe he does hear blah blah when his teacher talks. Maybe he'd do better with visual presentation, or some hands-on, or kinesthetic experiences. Or maybe blah blah is a little boy describing his teacher (the charlie brown grown up talk version) or it's a cover for something else.

Anyway, could be many many things, but just wanted to toss these out there as a few possibilities.

Good luck!

Ugh! That is so frustrating. I know, because my daughter (age 6) does it all the time, too. She's done it for quite a while and frankly, I have no solutions to offer you. All I can do is commiserate and say, "Hang in there!"

When Boo was very young her abilities re: academics were such that she often was the subject of various comments. Often surprise that she could do something, and sadly, just as often remarks about how she must have been "pushed", or how "freakish" she was. Then she started to really notice the age ranges on games and workbooks. Shortly after that, when asked something that she already knew, she'd respond, "I don't know that, yet, ask me when I'm four". She was almost three at the time and was confused about the negative comments she received regarding her abilities.

Then we enrolled her in preschool. I'm still kicking myself! It was a non-academic school. So I figured, "Great! She'll just play with the other kids!" Since, she's my first, I didn't know a lot about how three-year-olds play. I figured they'd all be into Magic Tree House Books, and Upwords, and strategy games and writing and directing their own plays. Wrong!

Boo suddenly had this intense *need* to research "course of study" and child development information on the internet. More and more she resorted to "kids my age don't know/do that" and "I'm not old enough to play that" and "kids my age are into X and not Y". She began to drastically alter her behavior. Things she loved like games were suddenly shirked; she claimed she didn't understand them. Books she loved, small chapter books - Henry and Mudge, Frog and Toad, Magic Tree House, beautiful picture books, gave way to BOB Books and ABC board books, sentences became shorter and more rudimentary, "Wow! Did you see that squirrel with the big busy tail and bright eyes! He's so silly scampering about like that" became, "Swirl silly!"

She, also, became interested in fashion and barbie/fashion dolls and things that were "cool". And on it went.

At first, I thought she was simply trying to find her footing. Noticing what the other children were into and immersing herself in that "culture". She cried at first going to preschool, I thought it was because she wasn't used to it. But then the tears stopped. What I thought was a sign that she was adjusting was really resignation on her part. She gave up, and I didn't know it!

Finally, one day I noticed sand in her hair when I picked her up from school. She'd always been a chatty kid, but was generally quiet when I picked her up. I thought she was just tired and pensive from a busy day. It turns out that she was being bullied - in PRESCHOOL, three and four-year-olds! She'd been in school for months, I'd gone and observed via a one-way mirror from time to time (admittedly only a few minutes here and there), and never noticed anything amiss. This was the day before parent/teacher conferences.

At the conference, I told the teacher about what I had found. She admitted to "noticing tension" but not thinking it was a "big deal". She also said that it was clear that Boo knew all the curricula for the rest of the year and was beyond the most advanced curricula for the school. (The school went through Kindergarten.) I asked what would be done about the bullying. The answer was that the teacher would just "keep an eye on it". That didn't exactly warm my heart. There was no discussion of trying to separate the kids (a group of about 5 girls that harassed my daughter) and my daughter or *any*thing. Regarding the curricula, I was told "she'll just have to learn to be bored". (That is a *direct* quote!)

Anyway, we'd always been interested in homeschooling, and that was just the shove we needed to change gears. I pulled her the next day. Soon after, I came across the essays, "Small Poppies" and "Is It a Cheetah?" on the Hoagies gifted website. And both of those spoke to my heart! I realized Boo was going "underground" and if I didn't do something fast, I wasn't sure how she'd ever find her way up.

We've been homeschooling for three years now. Although, a lot of people don't count anything before age 5/6. (I think it's because they don't have children like ours! ) She's still not willing to share her abilities with everyone, and that's okay. I try not to push too much on that, as she's told me, "MOM! I'm not a performing monkey!" when I've gotten to insistent. It's just while she's getting better at showing her immediate family, she still hides from most people. This is, unfortunately, a disservice to herself, as there are classes, etc. that she's interested in, but her fear of "being different" gets in her way. She's getting better at just being herself and not worrying so much about what others think.

That's an incredibly long-winded way for me to say, perhaps your son is a "Small Poppy"? It may be the environment, but not necessarily the physical one. He might be receiving the message that he isn't like the other kids and that he needs to change. If that's the case, I urge you to re-evaluate his placement in school and look into advocating for him within the school or moving him some where (another school, class, homeschool, grade) that he can truly be himself.

With much warmth,

Mizzou - who is feeling wide awake and chatty at 3 AM!

Tangent - I'm one of those people. It's got nothing to do with whether or what the kid is learning. It's that until you hit your state's age of compulsory education, you don't have to comply with whatever homeschooling requirements your state has. To me, teaching your kid when you aren't legally required to do so, is parenting, not homeschooling.

It's a semantic issue.

Thanks for all your thought provoking questions!

School has just been running about a month or 2 and I have never been in the classroom to actually watch the teacher teach. I have met the teacher and she seems pretty well spoken and organized. There are only 12 kids in the class and a teachers assistant. From what I could tell most of the kids are generally well behaved and the classroom isn't too cluttered. Ds is generally very attentive in class and has very good receptive skills. He doesn't need to have visuals or hands on things to stay focused. They don't spend too much time at their desk but do a combination of group work, small work, discussion but sometimes they do have to just listen to the teacher.

The funny thing is that the text book he is referring to his teacher using is one that teaches 1st grade phonic skills. DS reads at a 2-3 grade level so I doubt the material is too hard for him.

If I had to hedge my bet I would guess that he is just being sarcastic. It's his way of pointing out that 5 year olds shouldn't be doing 1st grade work. Yesterday I just told him to go to bed but I feel like I should have a "wiser" response for him next time. What is a good way to explain why he is doing more advanced work?

I am going to get his hearing checked next week too!

graceful mom,
We had the same issue with DD7 when she was about 3 and had started going part time to a day care/preschool and she was the only "day care" kid doing the "prep for kindergarten" stuff and doing it better than the kids in that class.
We told her that the ages written on books and games and things were with respect to what age her brain works on, not what age her body actually is. (It was truly a moment of mommy inspiration when I came up with that one ) She thought about that for a minute and then must have agreed that I was right, because it wasn't until about a year ago when we started buying stuff for DD2 that was above her "body" age that DD7 remembered that and made some comment about it.

I feel like DS might have the same feelings as your daughter, Mizzoumommy! I am not sure though. I don't think he is quite as advanced as she is. The school he went to last year was pretty play-based and the teacher was a veteran teacher who always made him feel prefectly fine for being himself. There was also two other girls in his class that were just as bright if not brighter than he is.
The classroom he is in now is a gifted and talented class and I have met most of the kids. They are a very bright bunch. DS is the only one reading at a 2-3 grade level but most of the kids are not far behind him. There are several kids more advanced than him in science and math so I think that he's pretty well placed peer-wise. Of course, I could be wrong since I am not in the classroom observing the kids in lessons. The teacher differentiates her lessons but I think my ds is feeling like why should he (and his friends) have to do more advanced work if he is in Kindergarten. I don't think he knows that other kids (perhaps not in his class) may find kindergartner challenging and that they might not know all the material. He doesn't really want to be challenged these days and wants to do easy work so his reasoning may be that if other kids get to do easy kindergarten work than why can't he. I'm just not sure though.

Kerry
That's genius!! DS 4.5 hasn't said anything about that yet but I'm sure he's noticed so I am filing that answer away for when he asks!!!

DeHe

Mizzou,

You described our experience with our first attempt at preschool. We decided to put DD in a social preschool using the same logic you discussed and we witnessed the same exact issues. We dealt with 2 to 3 word sentences when the child's speech was equivalent to teenagers. She also would complain about being too young to do things she was able to do before age 1. Thank goodness we didn't ride it out but pulled her after 2 months.

We placed her in an Immersion program which is academically 2 years ahead of the public schools which means she started with Kindergarten curriculum at age 3. It really was a wake up call because DD was definitely more advanced than Kindergarten but the fact that she had to learn it all in Spanish gave us a cushion while she adjusted.

If I can give our experience a positive spin it is that we quickly learned that DD's personality is the type that will go underground and thanks to our social preschool experience we are able to see the signs and work on it. DD is a shy little girl and still doesn't fully show her abilities, but the teachers at her school are always talking about how intelligent she is. Sometimes I want to say: If only you knew just how intelligent she really is. <Sigh> Perhaps one day she will fully accept that it's fine to be a little different and feel comfortable with letting her teachers in on her abilities.

Hmm, I'd be careful with this one, actually. It's OK if you have a very synchronous DC for whom the same age stuff will always be appropriate, but it could be very confusing if there comes a time when, say, your DC needs fiction for 7-12yos and logic puzzles for 12-15yos, or vice versa. I prefer "it's just a guideline, every child is different" since it doesn't suggest that there is a single well-defined "brain age".