I am new here. I have a 7 year old son, who we are in the process of getting tested, though there is no question that he is gifted - more a matter of how gifted.
My question is, can giftedness look like ADD and/or ODD in a classroom that doesn't differentiate enough to keep him engaged?
The long story: He started to read at 3, could do simple math not that much later, could read the clock and do simple fractions by 4. He now reads and comprehends pretty much anything you put in front of him, though he would still rather read picture books or encyclopedias (they have pictures but tell true things so they are the "best"). He understands advanced math concepts and does math in his head/verbally but hates to write it down (I can't tell if it is that the worksheets they give him are too easy/repetitive so he refuses to do them or if he really doesn't want to write as he doesn�t like to write either). Science is one of his biggest loves - when he gets into a topic I often have to go to the HS or college level to satisfy his curiosity. Like when he wanted to understand the immune system it wasn't good enough to tell him a general description of how the body fights disease, I had to go find a website that showed how cells reproduce and how the virus would take it over and then how the body fought it with all the technical terms and cell diagrams to go with it. Now he is finding history to be just as interesting and we have to deep dive every topic he finds fascinating.
As you can expect this is a problem in school. We started seeing some problems in preschool � more with other kids, they didn�t like that he could read and he felt bad about it so he tried to hide it. So we did a half day preK class half day preschool. The preK class was with kindergarteners and he studied with them since he was already ahead of them for the most part - already reading ect. The next year he did K in a K/1st split class with the same teacher and she had him work with the 1st graders and she knew he was still not challenged, her pretest for the 1st graders at the beginning of the year showed her he knew everything she was going to teach that year, she tried hard to find things he didn�t know but struggled to incorporate it in her classroom. The best days were days I would come to pick him up and she would say, �I found something he didn�t know!!� However, both years his behavior was horrible, he would throw fits and didn't want to do assignments, which we both understood a bit as he was still young and he was beyond what was being asked. She assured me it would get better with maturity and as his classes got harder.
So then he entered 1st grade, I didn�t want to try to advance him because socially he was still a bit awkward and his behavior in the classroom wasn�t good enough to move up. But I found a private school that was willing to take him on and find a way to challenge him. It didn�t go all that well. At first he was good. I think he was learning the routine and the kids and that was enough to keep him occupied. But as the year wore on he went downhill. By Thanksgiving he was acting out and being defiant. His teacher was sure she was challenging him but I knew she wasn�t. But I couldn�t prove it because he wouldn�t perform for her. He would only do what was expected of him, and often not even that. He has to be right so he hates working in front of people and the chance of being wrong, so reading out loud or doing math in front of the class were a strain on him (both common in the class) and he would either refuse or when pushed start yelling. He got to spend a lot of time in the Head of School�s office doing his work there (where he very happily did it and returned to class calmly). By the end of the school year he would cry most days when I picked him up, but he wanted to go back so he could play with his friends. His teacher is sure he has ADD and or ODD, but he doesn�t display these behaviors anywhere else, not even at the summer day camp he is currently at (both parents work full time). And the psychologist that I have taken him to has been unable to pinpoint anything. The assessment from the teacher and my assessment were so radically different that he had a hard time believing they were for the same kid.
So that brings me back to the question. Can his behavior be caused by being bored in class? If he were appropriately challenged could his behavior improve? I know the test will help and that I need to continue pursuing the psych visits � but have any of you experienced something like this? My gut reaction all along has been that he is bored out of his mind � could I be right?
Thank you for reading all of this and helping out. I am at wits end and I am already starting to stress out over school next year. My dream is to homeschool, but financially we can�t do that right now. In the mean time I have to figure out how to make a classroom work for him.
