Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy Pulling an 11 year old out of school to "unschool"

I can't easily go back through other threads in my phone. For my own benefit and hopefully yours I am making some dot points to try and get it all in one place

1) he's well behaved And achieving fine at school, really difficult at home?
2) one idea is ADHD
3) one idea is that school is the problem at home / task avoidant perfectionism gone crazy
3) he's heavily scheduled but wants to do more not less

Have I missed any critical points?

I have a bunch of random thoughts, my main one is that there are a variety of things that could be wrong here, producing the same behavious, which you would need to "fix" in very different ways and you need a professional you trust, not us to help you figure out which it is.

It seems to me that it's not an uncommon pattern for gifted kids to bottle all their bad up for home, and that it can happen wih a variety of causes.

My eldest DD has aspergers and has been quite hard to get diagnosed because through great effort on our part and hers she looks pretty normal out in the world.

My second DD has ADHD, the vast majority of her problems occurr at home too. She's socially normal, HG+ and in a group environment (in yr1) these attributes mean that she's well behaved and also well able to keep up by figuring out what everyone else is doing or reading instructions. She also hates to be told what to do, but doesnt seem to take group instructions personally, and so will do as she's told at school. At home she's unable to get dressed or eat without supervision (unless she's had her medication) she has trouble going to sleep, is oppositional, I could go on and on... School enables her to hide her ADHD (at this age) in a way that home does not.

Most of your posts make HK think task avoidant perfectionism, I see aspergers or ADHD, because that is what I see at home...

Preservative, flavour, coloring, GF/CF and salicylate free diet has changes my kids lives, don't procrastinate, just do it, 2 weeks o doing it properly will tell you if t helps. Just because food is not causing obvious gut issues does not mean its not causing emotional/behaviour issues. Alcohol causes behaviour changes way before it makes you vomit. Food intolerance is not just mild allergy, allergy can be dramatic and life threatening or mild, intolerance can also be extreme (not usually life threatening) or mild, it's a load issue like alcohol, a little might not be a problem, a lot will be, how much is a problem varies between people, some are way way more sensitive than others.

And now for a completely left field idea. Is there a chance that a physical condition/illness that is causing your son's difficulties with sleep, tiredness, executive function, etc. You know the saying they teach drs "when you hear hoof beats dot think zebras."... sometimes it IS a zebra. I myself have two very rare health problems, one of which it is estimated that less than 5% of sufferers are diagnosed (all that not thinking of zebras). It's conceivable he does not have a psychiatric disorder but a physical problem which impacts brain function.