This weekend provided some new insights into how it's going for DD9.
She had a robotics meet. We spent the whole afternoon there, mingling amongst the teacher, parent advisers, other parents, and the students themselves. We found DD9 to be positively bubbly, and the other kids in good spirits, but the main parent adviser seemed to be rather stressed out.
I asked him if he was getting nervous, and he talked about how the kids were getting tense, but the adults were helping them cope and try to keep it about having fun. I thought that was odd. So I mentioned how my DD was in a great mood, and he responded with, "Well, DD is the youngest by far in the team, but she's hanging in there."
GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR
Sorry to hear this Dude, that must be a real pain. Anyone you can talk to about this adviser? Seems like he may be playing favorites.
Myst be frustrating that school and the gifted program isn't going well for your daughter either.
This has raised concerns on our part of whether the class she's in is truly a gifted class, or whether it's full of hothoused high achievers. We did hear Parent Adviser say, "How do these kids have time for all these activities? DS is up doing homework until 8."
But as for this, keep in mind that not ALL gifted students move at the same speed. My son spend a few years in upper elementary in a gifted program where he was drowning in homework. (I laughed at the doing homework till 8pm quote, my son was doing homework easily till 11pm. He had more homework then than his sister had in H.S., and that he now has in H.S. And he was by far not the only one. In fact it was the gifted kids, that were having more problems with the homework load than the 'highly motivated' kids. Looking back on it now I suspect it had to do with two things his executive functioning skills and processing speed. Plus my son problems have always been a odd form of 'perfectionism' that means that he can't/won't write something quickly that will 'please' the teacher. Means he agonizes over writing answers to the simplest questions sometimes.
Just wanting to give you another perspective to the situation.
