As many of you were so helpful when I was here talking about the behavior problems my DS was having at Montessori, I thought I'd give an update. Just a quick recap: he was getting in trouble for not following rules, having disinterest in his peers, and even hitting and kicking! Basically, he was very difficult to have in the classroom. The Montessori teacher and head of the school were pushing for us to investigate medication.

As of right now, we are pulling DS out of the Montessori and he'll stay home with me until he starts the new preschool (a private gifted school) in the fall. I am looking forward to his last day, honestly, because every day he is there I am just waiting for a phone call to go and pick him up.

But he is really trying, and since we improved communications with the school (thanks, in no small part, to Grinity's suggestion to provide them with a short little daily sheet to fill out for us) and started providing incentives for him to follow the rules, things have gotten a bit better. I am glad he can at least end his Montessori experience on a more positive note and at a natural break. But... yeah, he won't be coming back.

We asked our pediatrician for a recommendation to a behavior specialist, and she referred us to a pediatric psychologist. The psych met with us, and then later met with DS. I thought she seemed a bit cold at first, but she was fine and DS seemed to like her. I wasn't there for most of the evaluation time she had with DS, so I don't know everything that she did with him.

I just got a call from the psych with the results of her evaluation. She told me that DS was "very unique". She did a few tests (mostly play-based, I believe) and concluded that he was very highly gifted and also quite strong willed and self-directed. The combination, she explained, really made it not at all surprising that DS was having trouble in a preschool setting.

My husband and I were both surprised that she thought DS was so highly gifted. She talked about his language skills, his memory, and "incredible inferences" that he was able to make. We were also surprised as how she seemed to attribute much of his behavior issues to his giftedness. For example, it made sense to her that he wasn't interested in other children, but he did like interacting with adults.

The fact that he is so strong willed/stubborn and self-directed means that when he is involved in a project that he is interested in (usually of his own making) then he does NOT want to be pulled away to do something else. And this is where the "bad behavior" shows up. She could see him engaging in what she called "power struggles" even during her evaluation.

OK... and here is the part that will be keeping me up at night. She was glad to hear we are pulling him out of the Montessori, as that obviously isn't working for him. She is glad that we are sending him to a private gifted school (it is one she is familiar with) for the fall. HOWEVER... she told me that school might always be a major challenge for DS. His level of intelligence (and, again, I'm skeptical that she could really thoroughly evaluate his level of intelligence in the hour that she had with him) and his personality (strong-will and self directed) might make it extremely difficult to find a school that will work for him.

Not.

What.

I.

Wanted.

To.

Hear.

But... I'm also not surprised. You all have warned me of this many times on this board. But, I really didn't expect to hear those words from a psychologist. Especially one that seemed rather conservative.

Once again, I am typing a post here on this board while feeling exhausted and bewildered. Sorry if I am rambling or this doesn't make sense.

My husband is also in a bit of shock. He confided in my that he felt extremely guilty for even for a moment considering the recommendation of medication when the behavior issues appear to be due to a combination of personality and intelligence.

Thanks for letting me talk this all out here. I really don't know what to take from all of this. The psychologist wants to keep tabs on DS, but no therapy or treatment is needed. She said that if he has any problems at the new preschool in the fall that we need to get him in to see her (or a few other references she gave us). She made me feel like he will likely have problems at the new school... or any school for that matter. That the gifted school was great and they may be able to do well with him... but that he is well beyond 'gifted' and there really aren't any schools that are prepared to handle a kid like him.

Whaat? Really?!

I feel both validated and depressed. Mostly, though, just emotionally drained.

I really want to believe this private gifted school can indeed handle him, encourage him, and keep him engaged. I believe they've had a few PG kids pass through their doors. But... I think the psych was saying problem (if you can call it that) is not just how off-the-charts he is but also that he has such a strong-willed and self-directed personality. Challenging combo, to say the least.

Thank you for listening. I know many of you here understand what we are going through, and I so appreciate your support and feedback. This message board feels like the only place where I can talk so openly about these things.

If it gives you any comfort, we were in that spot with dd13 when she was younger and she has made it in public school but it hasn't been simple. The exact quote from our district GT coordinator when dd was 7 was,

"highly gifted kids don't last long in the public school system, have you considered homeschooling?"

That was followed, when I pressed further about options with,

"the higher ups in the district are philosophically opposed to meeting your daughter's needs."

My kiddo, too, has a unique personality but is generally a really neat person. She is amazingly single minded and directed, a very "old soul," for want of a better term, and very intense. We have changed schools a few times, homeschooled for a while, grade skipped, subject accelerated, been very involved in advocacy, etc. It is working to an extent, though, in public school.

The middle school years were actually quite good especially b/c the school GT coordinator went way, way out of her way to make it work. She called me every year to talk through teachers, put her in classes with specific kids who were a good fit, split her btwn "teams" of teachers to get her with the right ones, and really helped tremendously. She was underchallenged in certain areas and I see it more in retrospect now that she's in high school. However, it hasn't been such that we can't make it work.

The early years were somewhat harder b/c she was less mature herself and didn't deal well with poor fits. She cried, alienated other students and teachers, and dug her heels in. Now that she's older, she has a much more mature approach to things and is learning the social skills involved in finessing teachers you don't like, etc.

Just so you don't feel alone -

My older son was screened in kindergarten, and after it, we were told he would need to be moved to a school with full-day gifted special ed - that he would never function well in a public school.

My special ed chair for my younger son just asked me again yesterday if we'd considered a magnet technology school (which a horrid record for academics) for my son since public school was so difficult for him.

If you decide to, you can make it work, but it will also be a sort-of fit, and you will spend a great deal of time solving problems you never knew existed, negotiating truces with teachers who assume things about your child that might be true for 98% of the kids but not for yours, and cajoling and bribing your kid to just play the game well enough to get through the day.

We decided to not homeschool, because I thought the kids needed the rest of what school offered, but it has not been easy for a single year since my oldest started. I am often envious of parents who just show up for parent conferences and leave it all to their kids. As parents of highly gifted kids with the strong personalities that often coexist with that high IQ, we never have that option. But we got in that line when we had kids, so ...

I would really wait and see. Your son is only 3 years old, right? How can anyone really say that "no school will ever work." Who knows in a 3 year old? Maybe your son needs to mature a little more; maybe at 4 or 5 or 6, he can follow more rules in a group, etc.
For what it's worth- Montessori schools tend to be very unstructured. Maybe your son will do alot better with more structure- I don't mean telling him rigidly what to do. What I mean is- when my son was in a "real" Montessori, they wanted him in first grade to go in, make a list of things he would do, then do them. Well, he never did that! He wandered around the classroom, ultimately doing some math, and wasting the whole day.
In a good public school where they have some kind of structure, it's been alot better.

I would also take this with a grain of salt given that he's three and was not given an IQ test (right?) You will know more later. It's true that some kids are very hard to "fit" in school, but I get nervous when professionals make sweeping pronouncements like this about a toddler.

My DD is also verrrry strong willed and self-directed. Preschool was tough. Kindergarten had its moments. However, as she's matured, she's actually become a model student 95% of the time (the 5% is an occasional crying fit at school, but it's become quite rare). Home is another matter--but school, behaviorally, is okay. (Is it a great fit? Not necessarily...but is she getting kicked out of class? No. If you'd seen her in preschool, though, you might well have been worried.)

Schools will too work, some schools, sometimes. Parenting the gifted child just means you have to be more flexible and more adaptable. You just can't set the timer and walk away. Disclaimer: I get all my opinions off reading the Internet. You can try literally any school and hope for the best as you keep an eye on it and monitor for a bad fit situation. My dad said "just pick any school and show your kids that you value education because most teachers want to teach and if a child wants to learn they will learn anywhere". I kind of agree, in theory, and I kind of disagree, in theory. I remember many years being teachers helper, unpaid underage tutor. Now I don't call that the teacher teaching. A couple years I got a bad fit teacher. A couple years I got an engaging teacher for me. So that's why I kind of disagree in theory.
I just signed my kid up for public school pre-k. (I'll make another post about that). My mom asked why I don't put him in private school instead of losing all the work he's already done. The part that's relevant to this thread is that most of those mediocre-fit teachers I described above were in private schools- they're not that much more academic than public schools in my experience. The other two reasons were that all the good private schools here are Catholic and we're not: and I will be after schooling. I'm just going to send him to school because I think he'll like it (I did, mostly) and he'll go as long as he likes it and behaves himself.
I heard something similar to what you heard. Some gifted personnel told me that, "school will probably never meet the needs of a kid like that" when I told her that I completely believe he'll be able to write a book report independantly by the first grade. I just helped him write a three paragraph essay about his family last month and he's not in pre-k yet. Texas law says they can not enter public school using early entry and they can do "credit by examination" (skip a grade) up to one grade a year, beginning with skipping kindergarten. While I think that's less than efficient I still don't see where it hurts to try to send him, be flexible enough to pull him out if it's just not working, and even be not afraid to try again at a later date if he wants to because it will be a different teacher and a different situation. But I do wish they would test him with the MAP test and put him with similar ability groups in the different subjects according to his ability test results (heard about that here) and not ration grade skips on a schedule and only by whole grades. Who wants to skip kindergarten anyway? That's the fun year.

Ps, looking forward to- there's a ton of stuff around the country for gifted kids starting in middle school. But, like thE hubby says, gotta start saving up now because it all costs money.

That cracked me up!


Thank you, everyone, for your great responses. I agree that it is way too early to make such a sweeping statement. I believe the psychologist was just trying to prepare me. I don't think she was saying "definitely no school will ever work"... just that it is a possibility and we should be mentally prepared for that possibility. We are all hopeful that the new preschool in the fall will work out well. It's a pre-k, and most the kids will be about a year older than him - so maybe that will be a good thing.

He hasn't had a full IQ test yet. He did have a gifted screening to get into this new school. He was very bored with it and didn't even finish a couple of the subtests - but he still hit the ceilings for their scoring. They say their screening correlates well with the IQ tests they use for kindergarten on up - but I'm sorry that I don't even know the name of this screening test or the IQ test that they use.

He is very intense, and has been intense since literally day 1. I am sure his personality type would be difficult in some situations no matter his intellectual ability. But having both the intensity/strong will/self-drive that he has in addition to being so far ahead of his age-mates just spells out trouble in a lot of academic settings.

Maybe he'll mellow out a bit with age. Like you all say, this child is only three fer cryin' out loud!

I know... I'll admit that today the thought crossed my mind "I wonder if we'll move to Reno in 8 years" LOL! At least the Davidson Academy is free, although a move is a pretty major deal.

And, yeah, gifted kids can be very expensive.

Tahoe is a beautiful place!

I agree with the other posters that supposing no school will work for a 3 year-old is pretty suspect. I have seen so many posts like this over the years and I think generally, testers and psychologists do a serious disservice by making such claims for much older kids, let alone 3 yo. I had such advice given to me and it freaked me out and as I learned way more about PG kids, I came to recognize that it was quite short-sighted.

I like jack'smom response about structure. Pretty much the point of early education is teaching children to follow rules and make transitions between what they want to do and what needs to be done next and learning to interact in groups. 3 yo are not usually good at such things and part of growing up is mastering enough self-control to interact well with others. These are things anyone needs to learn eventually to function in the real world unless they have some very, very unusual situation where everyone caters to their every desire. I don't know anyone like that. A more structured situation may actually work better and your son may adapt as necessary.

In large gatherings of PG parents, I've seen an astonishing array of choices made and educational situations from college at super early ages to lock-step education in a regular classroom have worked wonderfully for very, very smart kids. I don't think IQ precludes any particular educational option and the interaction of IQ, available options, personality, teacher, other activities, etc., matter a great deal. Some PG kids can daydream and create poetry in their heads while bored in a regular school and some go nuts. Some kids find great outlets for their energy and talent that aren't related to school and school becomes secondary to high level sports training or music or whatever. Some PG kids get along great with their age peers and some prefer other ages depending on emotional maturity. Some local areas have great school options for really smart kids and some areas have nothing worthwhile. It's pretty hard to predict those things for a 3 yo and seeing how things unfold over time might be more useful than scary predictions made by someone who met a kid for an hour.

I too think three years old is way waaaay too early for anyone (parent or professional) to be making dire predictions about what will and won't work in a child's life. You've tried one preschool so far - it happened to be Montessori but even Montessori's come in many different flavors and the staff who run them can be extremely influential in the experience children will have there. I also think it's too early for a psych to know for sure with limited testing that a child is PG. If *you* see signs in your child that you feel indicate PG, then yes, your child probably is - but I wouldn't trust that from one session with one psychologist.

I especially think 3 is way way way too early to forward-predict behavioral challenges. I do absolutely believe that for kids who truly have behavioral challenges they can and do show up at and before 3. But I've also known a lot of 3 year olds (including my own kids lol) who have behavioral challenges that are situation-dependent sometimes, other times they are simply because the child is 3. You've done exactly what I would have done in this situation re the behaviors - pull him out of this school and try another school after a break. As time goes on, keep watching. If the challenges with behaviors stop suddenly you'll know it was situational re this school; if they continue then do your best to observe them and understand what sets them off, and then move forward to figure out how to help your ds to cope.

I also think it's important to try to remember that it's not easy to tease out what is giftedness vs something else and sometimes it's easy for us as parents to say "oh, he does ___ but that's because he's gifted/bored/not challenged/etc." Sometimes that is the case, but sometimes our kids are acting out due to other reasons too, so it's important to keep an open mind and really observe what's going on so if there *are* other challenges you recognize them early on.

Best wishes,

polarbear

Difficult isn't the same thing as "no school will work" for your DS. Yes, it likely will be difficult. I will even go so far as to agree that "no school is likely to work for him" WITHOUT ACCOMMODATIONS. Here is where you come in as parents. You will be advocates and you will work with the schools to try to meet your kiddo's needs. Difficult? Yes. Impossible? No. And depending on where you live, there may be options in different school settings. And homeschooling is a lovely option, if you can swing it.

We were told the same thing by our DS's tester. We were also told that at some point our DS would need to skip a grade, even if he was in a program for GT kids. And it proved to be quite true. We worked with our local school the spring before kindergarten to get help getting a teacher who wanted him and who was good at differentiation. We worked again with the local schools to get a grade skip. Things probably would have been OK for a little longer, but it was still a lot of work advocating in our local district. Then we discovered an opening in a school for HG kids. With DS's grade skip, the accelerated program was perfect, and it's been great so far. The best part is that I haven't had to advocate for more yet, so it's been a nice little rest.

Others here have different paths, but the similar story of "it will be difficult for your kid to fit in". I would say that is true only if you do not do anything to advocate for appropriate materials for your kiddo. Do not despair! Even though it's hard to hear, it will be OK.

Just wanted to share my son's story in the hopes of encouraging you.
My DS went to pre-k at 3 yo and it was much like you described, disinterest in age-peers, hitting, kicking at times. My boy disliked the 'arts/crafts' bit, he was bored by it and has always wanted activities with a tangible purpose/job or complex pretend play. He actually was disorganized and frustrated seeming at times. His behavior perplexed the teachers and frustrated everyone, including my son.

Fast forward to NOW...he entered his 2nd year of pre-k this past fall, and somehow something had just 'jelled' for him neuro or behavior-wise. He has control over his hands, emotions, he waits and attends, his teachers are amazed at his high level of empathy, and I am relieved.

So, there is the hope that some of your LO's current school issues may disappear or lessen as your LO matures. I had a wise friend who is a Pre-K director in another state and the parent of 3 gifted girls remind me that although my LO is gifted, he is STILL only 3 yo emotionally, and he just couldn't hold all of his pre-k angst together last year.

In addition, my LO has some psychomotor OE, he is incredibly intense, I now realize he is also very sensitive, but he just didn't show/verbalize things as well at 3. He is an only child who was in a quiet home, and then thrust into a class with 8 other kids, and he was possibly affected by more sensory stim than he was used to! ALSO, during the summer in between both years, I made it a point to get him a sitter with some kids older and younger so he would work out more social rules- he has always preferred adults, but he needed to learn how to be with kids, IYKWIM??

Anyway, I just wanted to throw my experiences out there in case anyone can glean something useful.

Bottom line- maybe your LO just needs more time to grow into his big cognitive skills, and ? if asynchronous dev is what was the problem for my bright active sweet boy?

PS- he's doing great now, the teachers LOVE having him in class and find him a 'non-issue'. Last year he was THAT kid and head on tackler. Go figure!

Keep your eyes on the prize, don't give up, and wish us luck in full-day kindergarten next year!!!

PPS- Montessori wouldn't have worked well for him, he's just too individual and thrives with structure/framework...

I love you guys!! Thanks for all the great responses.

I'm so sorry for my terrible and misleading title for this thread. I wanted to have the title be "probably" no school will work, or something similar... but I ran into the issue of character limits! So it was a terrible choice of titles that I landed on, and making it sound like the psych was far more harsh and definitive than what she was in her statements.

Oh, and polarbear... just to touch on something you mentioned. This is actually my son's second preschool. So the new one we are starting in the fall will be his third.

I don't know if I think DS is PG. I really don't. Our DD seems to be obviously going that way. I've read the Ruf's book on levels of giftedness, and DS definitely fits the descriptions of level 5 kids - meeting or exceeding the milestones indicated in that book for other level 5 kids. But I really don't feel I (or anyone) can say how gifted he is at this point. He's still just way too young. I'm sure many people who are greater experts than me would disagree, but from what I understand I don't feel even an IQ test would be definitive at this age. He's certainly highly gifted, but it is way too early to say much more IMHO --- and I'd say the same for any kid his age.

This is SO Wolf! I wouldn't be at all surprised to have heard myself say exactly the same thing about him.

Wolf skipped K and is subject accelerated in most areas on top of that. He didn't miss skipping K since it's really not much more than preK and he'd attended preK for a while.

Bear is the the OP reminds me of the most though. When he was three there was no way I could imagine sending him to preK or school ever really due to the tantrums, single mindedness, irritation with peers, etc. Now he has been at the local special ed preschool once a week for an hour or two for about four months and has had two years of growth. He is a totally different kid. Several of the issues he had just months ago are nearly gone. It's not due to the school either, at least not in my mind. It's physical growth and skills.

No need to apologize. The truth is, when the psychologist told us normal schools probably wouldn't work for our DS, what I heard at the time was "no school will work".

Mr W is in the same boat right now. We'll give him a year or two of homeschool and then see. Things change!

It depends on the school. Really. I have a child like what you described and it does make it harder. I think it could work though if we found a school that would even be willing to work with us. We have 1, yes 1 option where we live. Seriously there is one school within 800 air miles. And they are adamantly opposed to trying anything...even though they know that the standard won't work for her. In a closed meeting (I had an insider tell me this) they all decided we should homeschool and that it would be easier on them and so they when pushed won't budge on anything. But we have an odd situation here. We can't explore others schools or other methods. I do know some schools will radically accelerate or will compact curriculum and be inventive for a child. I went to one of those...but now we live thousands of miles from that school LOL. So all this is to say it is true he might always have a problem in school, but you may also be able to find a fit somewhere with persistence and a little luck.