I suspect there's an ADHD component here too. BTW, he's not exactly behaving -- I think this is just the first teacher not to complain. DS tells me he's out of his chair every few minutes at school, as he is at home; I think the teacher just knows how to manage it -- a rare find, in my experience!
Remember I mentioned 'LOG or personality' as being reasons why some kids don't tolerate not getting their 'Daily health requirement' for learning?
Ok, so personality is sort of a polite coverall for things like 'Stubborn' and 'ADHD component' - so you are in a pickle! He's immature/ADHD/intense enough that he needs to learn to help him stay focused at school and increase his good behavior, but his '2Eishness' itself makes a skip (or 2 if needed) very scary. We were in your shoes, but it was easy because DS behaved in ways to get the teachers to complain enough that we 'had to do something.' Problem was that by the time we figured out DS's code, the public school wouldn't skip him because they saw him as 'so immature.' So we had to go to a private school, try and see that didn't do it, then a skip, etc. A lot of time was wasted.
Meanwhile I sat on the fence about the ADD - how much was boredom? How much immaturity? How much ADD? I felt that until we got the challenge level to be 'somewhere in the ballpark' that I 'just couldn't' do the trial of medication thing. Sadly, there is no blood test for ADD - science is at the primitive stage of 'try some medication, see if it helps, then pick a diagnosis.' This drove my fears and perfectionism into a log jam.
So advice time -
1) Hot house your child's behavior at home until you and he have ironclad security in his ability to control himself. This can be done kindly, but is time and energy consuming. Read 'Transforming the Difficult Child Workbook' by Lisa Bravo for explicit instructions. I will help any way I can to answer questions.
2) Take him to a local ADHD diagnoser and see what they say. Children know if they can't do what the other (less bright) kids can do, and it colors their self perception and closes many doors (musical instruments/academic confidence/developing work ethic) Don't diagnose him to make a teacher happy, do it so he can feel comfortable in his own skin and have the full benefit of his mind, instead of a constant feeling of 'something isn't right!!!' on the inside.
3) Demand that DH sit and observe the classroom. This will work if DH has any clue at all about what DS is doing at home. (My DS was hiding his abilities and 'learning needs' from DH at this stage - I worked on that too!) Once DH sees what DS is up against at school, he will change his tune about the skip.
4) Check out what community sports are still available by age group, so that DS still gets to hang out with his age-group peers.
5) Whatever they offer from the school, make sure that he gets to have learning peers. I'm just not impressed with the idea of a lone kid sitting in the back of the room with an upper level book or computer program. Fine for short sprints, but not a long term solution.
6) Remember that every step in the right direction makes such a large positive difference.
7) It's tough to negotiate between 'equal partners' - in some families there is a parent who takes on the majority of the childcare duties and gets more of the 'say.' I had the worst of both worlds. I 'believed' in equal decision making, but was doing all the work. Then I felt that I had to 'explain and persuade' as if doing the actual work (plus a 9-3 job) wasn't enough. But I had a picture in my head of what a 'proper' marriage was like and I was going to try my hardest to make it happen. (When said by an intense giftie, those are scary words, I know know.)
If one parent isn't willing/ or able to observe the school, read the books, go online, attend the meetings, then they get a big say, but not an equal say. They need to 'deputize' the involved parent to have the final say. If they don't see the need of this, then I recommend that the other parent 'self-deputize' because the job of figuring this education question out is too important and too big to turn into a relationship issue.
About the 'short issue.' It's entirely possible that you DH who grew up short blamed all of his normal emotional cuts and bruises on his height, while in fact the bumps were either a) normal and important steps on his path of development, or b) due to an IQ difference or c) due to an IQ difference plus a '2Eishness' such as some degree of ADHD. We are human, and it is a human tendency - particularly as children - to pick some visible difference and blame everything on that. I know boys who are very very small and well beloved because they have amazing social skills.
No doubt your DH was gifted also, and we gifted people have a tendency to view situations through a lens of 'how could that have been better?' instead of the lens of 'what do I have to be grateful for there?' And we often have such vivid imaginations that we 'live' in that pretend 'better' world. (See me and my ideal of 'proper' marriage above.)
Do you resemble these remarks?
Love and More Love,
Grinity
