Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Learning Environments This could be good or bad...opinions?

I feel like I have used up every available option. The school is throwing up roadblocks at every opportunity. There are no good private schools in the area. Homeschooling is not an option for various reasons. We supplement at home, but ds7 has, in a span of six months, gone from enjoying school to being so bored that he doesn't even want to go. He loves our at-home lessons, though. I have an idea that I've been tossing around, though. Maybe once or twice during each nine week grading period, I'm thinking about letting him skip a day of school to do educational activities. Math, reading, maybe some science experiments, etc. I think overall, it would be good for his education. But I'm not sure if it would be good for his attitude about school, as I don't want him to get into the habit of thinking that skipping school is not a big deal. Any thoughts on this idea?

That's a really difficult situation - but from a UK perspective, which might not be relevant, I'd be really reluctant to do what you suggest. Here missing school other than for illness is a big deal; state schools are assessed partly on their attendance records, and so really disapprove of parents taking children out. It may be different there, but here to take a child out regularly for non-illness reasons would put the child in an impossible situation at school.

I don't know what else you should do, though, with all the usual avenues blocked :-(

I guess I would attempt to do similar on 'one weekend day per month' basis first and defer if you have to take such a drastic step.

Tell us more about the roadblocks - maybe we can find a crack to put the wedge in. What is that saying about a fulcrum and a lever long enough?

Love and More Love,
Grinity

That might be helpful, although it may eventually backfire if ds7 ends up loving his skip days and wants to do it more often. Would partial homeschooling be an option (sort of what it seems like you're wanting to try), or has that been dismissed by the school as well? Also, do you have any after-school or weekend opportunities available (talent search...)?

DC20 tried this approach over the years, but it would sometimes backfire and make the situation at school worse. However, provided you monitor his attitude after trying it a few times, it seems like a solution for now. Good luck It sounds like a difficult situation...

Treecritter, we did something very like that during the worst of first grade (right before we managed to swing the skip from the end of first to the beginning of third. It made a tremendous difference.

We actually only started about the end of March, so did it for about 2 and a half months and we did a day off, every two -three weeks. They were preplanned, usually in the middle of the week - something for my then DD7 to look forward to.

One thing that we had a problem with though, was that by the time we started, she was so fried on school, that we actually spent most of the first couple of days doing little or no homeschool, rather just decompressing. Other places on here, I've seen something like "about one month of unschooling to decompress from each year of bad-fit schooling". We didn't have that long, but complete decompress for 3-5 hours the first couple of days we did this was enough to generate some interest by the middle of the afternoon. By the third or fourth 'homeschool day' she generally only needed an hour or so before she was looking for 'school stuff' to do.

Good luck.

yes, we absolutely do this with DS10. I made a conscious decision to do it this year. He's been healthier (fewer "stomach aches") and actually missed less school in general than last year.

we usually shoot for something just fun though, a sanity day.

Thanks for all the input. I still don't know if I'm going to do it, but you guys have definitely given me some points to consider. Colinsmum - attendance is important here, too. But since we're halfway through the year and so far he has perfect attendance, I don't think one day will be too awful. Besides, this will certainly not be a regular thing. Maybe 2-3 times during a school year AT THE MOST.
Grinity - basically, the school's gifted program is a joke (30 minutes a week, and it's in the same classroom with the rest of the kids). He's not learning a thing in school because the curriculum is dumbed down to the lowest common denominator. His teacher tries, but she has 14 other kids in the class and her hands are tied by idiotic district policies. She's open to letting him read higher level books, tries to have enrichment projects for him to do whenever possible (again, she has 14 other kids - so she simply CAN'T keep him challenged as much as he should be), and even let me send him some worksheets to do when he is done with his class assignments. But he still has to do regular assignments, which bore him to tears and he sees them as a waste of his time (which, to be honest, they are). I spoke to administrators about possibly skipping a grade. They're resistant to doing it at all, but won't even consider it until the end of the year (which I suppose is understandable). When a seven year old starts telling you without being prompted that he needs something harder to do at school, you know there's a big problem.
I am a little worried about skewing his attitude about school, though. It's sad, but I'm thinking if we can just fight through elementary school, he will have more options when he hits middle school and it may be easier. But not if he learns to hate school by that point, and he's well on his way already. In any case, if I do let him do this, I want him to see it as a learning opportunity and not as a reason to just take a day off. And I certainly don't want him to start thinking that regular school attendance is not important.

Treecritter, if the teacher is not that bad, try homeschooling by proxy by sending him with appropriate level work from home in a nice binder, divided into whatever sections the other kids do so the teacher just has to pull them out and hand them over. We did that when we tried pre-K (in a gifted school) and even having advanced puzzles and mazes made my dd a little happier (she only lasted 3 mos though, but that's another story). I would just get a subscription for edhelper.com and you can print worksheets, puzzles, and even comprehension/discussion questions for the books he's reading and it's only about $25 a year. They even come with correct answers to reduce the teacher's workload if that's a further concern.

I've actually done something similar. Sent him with a notebook of stuff to do that was doable, but challenging for him. It did help. but by school policy he still has to do what the other kids are doing first - THEN move on to other things, if he chooses to. Basically, he feels stupid counting dots and filling in the missing letters in words, and doesn't see the point in it. The other issue is that he wants to interact with the other kids - but feels a little left out when he's not doing what they're doing. Even though he despises what they are doing. That's the mind of a seven year old for you.

I remember taking my 5.5 year old out of full time school 1 day per week. We chose Wednesdays to break up the week. Unfortunately the school then blamed EVERYTHING that went even slightly pear-shaped on the fact that my daughter wasn't at school full time. Apparently missing 1 day a week threw everything into chaos!!! So beware for some opposition.

What might work for you is for you or a tutor to go to school during school hours for 1:1 work. By the time you add in a music lesson and perhaps a language lesson, much of the day has gone!!
Would this be an option open to you?

jojo