A lot of the times when we find a way to label something differently, DS responds a lot better. Naps--when he thought he was too old for naps--became "quiet time". Nothing else really changed. When he comes home from school, if he's noticeably tired, he gets "brain break".
Today he actually got what appeared to be differentiated homework from his teacher and I was pleasantly surprised. DW presented it as "complicated math" and he was very excited about it. This was in addition to his normal (easy to him) math sheet. When he found out that only one sheet was "complicated math" he was a little disappointed, but accepted it. We wouldn't have drawn any attention to it except for the fact that only he and one other student are getting these extra math sheets. They are relatively open ended so he can (and does) make them as complicated as he wants.
Edwin, we do similar things at home with respect to math at about second/third grade level. Biology--a recent interest of his--is very, very advanced. Even his pysch noted about how DS has some real vertical knowledge. Tonight I think I hit a home run when I used powers of twos (math) to show cell division (biology/reproduction).
One of the interesting things that we're noticing is that he loves writing stories. Help me if we have another writer in the family!
We're hoping things get better too. This time, though, I did get confirmation that the teacher talked with the math specialist (as she said she would) and we got more appropriate homework. I hope that's a sign that we're starting to get through.
JB
