Thanks for the feedback.
Val, DS9 sounds like your second son. DS9's perfectionism manifests itself by either 1) outright refusing to do something if he doesn't get it right or understand it immediately, 2) not wanting to do something if he is not going to be the absolute best at it, or 3) putting forth no effort and turning in very sloppy work. His teacher actually thought he needed extra help in math -- until he got the results of the NCLB predictive tests (all the little tests kids here have to take to prep for the big test).
For an example of perfectionism, he finally learned to ride a bike last fall (at 8!), when I took him out to the park and said, "This is it. We are going to stay out here however long it take for you to learn to ride a bike. No matter how much you cry. You may think I'm a mean mom, but I know you will learn if you just keep trying,and that's why I'm making you try. You are going to learn and find out that bike riding is fun."
Tantrums ensued, bike falls, crying, people staring and probably wondering why I was making my crying son get back up on the bike. Every previous attempt I would give in to the tears and let him go home. This time, I persisted, he did keep trying, and he did finally learn to ride a bike.
I had previously thought the tantrums were the result of overpressure and never put on ANY pressure because of the tantrums. Now, I've read Sylvia Rimm's book on underachievement (Trinity's recommendation), and realized I had been applying too little pressure of any sort, always allowing him to stay in his comfort zone, and never stretch. The protests, tears and tantrums were his reaction to having to stretch.
Now, I remind him of the bike riding lessons when he wails that math is too hard and uninteresting -- but it's still not working. I'm thinking that if someone else is applying the pressure (i.e., expecting him to learn something that's relatively harder for him) he might respond better.
We are definitely suffering from goldilocks syndrome. The math work at school is too easy, but when I've tried independent study of Singapore Math or Aleks at home, he gets tantrumy because it's too hard, and he doesn't understand (after trying for two seoconds!), and he seems to have brain freeze when I try to show him. In the meantime, the IQ and achievement tests tell us he is gifted in math (just much more gifted in verbal areas). He's otherwise such a well-behaved kid who would happily sit for hours devouring science or history books.
I've used the bikeriding as lesson in how hard work pays off, and things that did seem hard can become easy, etc. I've also talked about how important math is to science and tried to talk about the math in the science he is studying.
I've also explained to him that his elementary school doesn't do math at the pace that would put him at the knowledge and skill level necessary for him to test into one of the great free gifted and talented middle schools or private gifted schools there are here in our city. He understands that but still has a meltdown whenever I ask for him to do more math.
I guess the answer is, instead of looking for some magic pill, to keep plugging away with this message and to hire a (cheaper) math tutor to force him to stretch in math.
As part of this effort to help him stretch, I made an appointment with the principal for Thursday a.m. to ask for a math grade skip and curriculum adjustment for him.
I realized that the first half of each year's math seems to be a review of the last year's math. I am going to ask that DS9, who will be in 4th grade next year, get placed in 5th grade for math, where he will spend the first part of the year covering 4th grade math for the first time and the second half of the year learning actual 5th grade math. I think the pace will still be slow, but he will actually be learning new material --- and by then we should have to tutor in place to help deal with any bumpy patches.
The principal is very good at saying yes, but not getting pinned down to anything. I have fallen for so many yeses before! Wish me luck.
This time I am going in armed with RE-Forming Gifted Education and its various worksheets. I am going to start of talking about DS's behavior and how I've learned its actually the result of a gifted child not being challenged enough, and that I want this math grade skip so he can experience challenge in this one area.
I'm also going to ask whether any of the teachers for 4th and 5th have gifted training, and which teachers would be best prepared to give him a differentiated curriculum with more info to learn, more complex, deeper assignments, etc. in his other subjects. For back up, we ahve last year's IQ and achievement tests and the results of all those predictive tests.
Thanks again, everyone. You are such a great resource and I'm hoping other people can also learn from my experiences and your advice.
bk
