My DD was in public school, K-2 and was often in trouble for melt downs, arguing with the teacher, and refusing to do work. We pulled her out and put her in a gifted school last July for 3rd grade. However, the school suddenly shut down in December, and we had two weeks to find a new solution. Her behaviors didn't improve at the gifted school, so we chose a therapeutic school for kids with emotional problems.
The new school is PreK-5, but only goes to 3rd this year because they don't have 4th/5th. Her class is maxed out at 10 kids, none of whom are gifted, and all of whom have emotional/behavioral issues. The school has a psychoanalytic approach rather than CBT, is staffed with psychologists, and the kids are required to see a therapist 2x a week as part of the school's wrap around support.
My kid hates it. She doesn't have friends, she hates her therapist, and she's distraught by the chaos of the kids in her class. She's pinching/punching herself, calling herself an idiot, feeling isolated, and says she needs to be taught another way. She's begging for homeschooling. She's verbally gifted and is being given harder spelling words, but that's the extent of the differentiation, and no one at the school has experience with giftedness.
DH and the therapist think things will improve, and that she's going through a rough period now because she's having to work through her emotions. They think it's an improvement that she's calling herself an idiot because before, she'd just meltdown and not use words to describe how she felt about her perfectionism. She's doing a tad more work than she's done at other schools, but still doesn't do a whole lot of it, is still emotionally explosive, and still argues with teachers. DH thinks that while some gifted kids do better with more challenging material, she won't; that her behaviors will not improve with a different educational approach or environment. He thinks she has to be able to do all the work put in front of her to the best of her ability, without complaining, or arguing with the teacher, and have good classroom behavior before we can consider giving her more challenging work. He thinks I put too much emphasis on the giftedness and not enough on the deficits. And, he strongly believes that if we homeschool, she'll still refuse to do any work.
My gut tells me that he's wrong, but I don't have research to back up his thinking or mine. Is there a certain percentage of kids with high IQs who are more successful when they deal with their behavioral issues to the exclusion of their academic needs? Are her behaviors and lack of motivation outside the realm of "normal" gifted behaviors, and if not, how do we address them so that she's doing schoolwork without the self-hate?
I know every kid is different, so here's some info:
- the gap between processing speed and verbal is 57 points (WISC-V)
- dx with ADHD
- dx with ASD, but we both think it's a misdiagnosis
- dx with ODD, but we both think it's a misdiagnosis
- bibliophile
- poor fine and gross motor (can't ride a bike, writing is difficult)
- completely unmotivated to do anything except read fiction or create dictate-to-scribe books (I've typed hundreds of pages of books she's "written" orally)
- highly anxious
