Hi... I'm so grateful to find such a lovely place with such helpful and kind people! I've noticed how good you all seem to be at not ruffling feathers or making anyone feel bad, which seems unusual in online-land.
I don't really know what to say...but it seemed rude not to do an introduction. So...we're in CT. My son's in first grade, in a public school. As I was a public school kid in rural montana, and reasonably happy there, as they were flexible, I thought public school in a good district would be good enough. It doesn't seem to be. My son (I'll have to come up with some cool name for him!) has been soooo unhappy. And he was so EAGER to start school. And his self-selected work at home has really tanked...he hasn't recovered yet to the level of writing he was at before he started kindergarten, for example.
We spent all last year waiting, b/c the principal and teacher said improvement would come...it basically never did. They told us, wait til first grade, it's so much more academically rigorous parents dislike it, he'll be happy there. We were skeptical, but waited. He was crying by October, saying he couldn't handle it. And we kept waiting, telling him, it takes time for the teacher to get to know the kids and what they can do...oh, it's all so miserable. The teacher actually called us up to tell us that our son was not as smart as he thought he was, that lots of kids were smarter (possibly true but improbable), that he was just "acting smart to make other people feel inferior," (possible, but unlikely in a kid we see as empathetic and concerned with fairness) and she was upset that he was - gasp - reading after snack and once took a from-home math workbook out on the playground. So we've been going nuts this fall, trying to get him help. We're trying to find other ways our son can feel part of the community and engage with other kids, b/c the classroom sure isn't doing it.
We're in the midst of having him tested. We always worried that WE thought he was so smart, but we could be crazy, and what if there was some other reason he was SO miserable with school, but didn't want to test for $$ and labeling reasons. This is kind of a roller coaster of emotions...hope, when the tester says she has tons of experience getting accommodations, fear, when she says things like, he's going to need another school. We can't afford private, and I don't know of a school around here that even HAS a gifted program. He's come up with Davidson-minimum scores just this past week, so we scrambled to apply to that. I'm so grateful they exist...what absolutely wonderful people!! and I really really hope, please please please, that they'll accept our son and somehow have the social and academic solution, plus the ability to get the school to LIKE it and do it, that will make it all good enough. I guess I hope that the school's attitude of us being pushy annoying parents who don't know what they're talking about will change to helpfulness when they see that we do.
I'm not asking for perfect, truly I'm not. I'm wanting develops work ethic, is challenged in at least a few things, doesn't think he's the smartest person in the universe, has a couple good friends, and isn't treated hostilely by people around him.
It's so sad and frustrating...his teacher won't even let him be in the highest reading level - and it was his VCI that qualified him for the Davidson application! I try to think of this as giving him something to strive for...but the books in the highest level are books he's already read, for the most part, so I'm not sure that's going to fly.
Ok. that was more a vent than an intro. I'm sorry. We're...a family of five- ds6, ds3, and ds0. I just finished grad school this spring and now can proudly claim to be an unemployed historian. My dh is a scientist. My first son was absolutely high need, all the traits, soooo hard as a baby. He's stormy. My second son was like a high-need kid in the never sleeping department, and the determination, perfectionism, but unlike #1, would play with toys and could be put down or handed to another person from time to time. If my first son's negative emotion is despair, #2's is fury. It's much healthier, it seems. #3 seems to be coming slowly to an opinionated life, and can actually both nap AND sleep occasional 4-5 hour stretches, which is just beyond bliss.
I survived parenting these kids because a high-need child bulletin board let me know I wasn't insane and taught me better approaches to parenting them. I hope to find that here, and I hope to help other people out along the way, too. thank you all!
