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Your father's frustration with your homework may just mean that he is HG. My daughter and niece (both hg) would not make good instructors and get so frustrated. This is probably not much against you.

I do agree that he is giving a compliment that you work with your son. It probably is his way of being proud.

I deal with my husband's high functioning Asperger's and your father is not likely to even think too much about other people. That is no reflection on you - that is just the way it is.

I like the idea of leaving folks together to develop a relationship, and had to do this with DH and DS, DS and my parents,DS and my inlaws - but, if your dad really is that poor in social skill that your son is feeling basically the same way you have come to feel about interacting with your dad: that Dad isn't interested and somehow this is your own fault - then I'm not so enthusiastic about the idea.

I want to be really sure that we aren't asking our children to fix, on some level, problems that we have given up trying to fix.

Is you mom the kind of person who could help you think this through? If you printed out these posts and showed them to her, would she be offended or helpful? Does your dad have a best friend who he looks to for guidance in general?

A bit of a tangent
Good luck!
Grinity

My dad was the my kids are supposed to be smart kind of dad, and thankfully we were, if we had been arty or dreamy life would have been much tougher. So with DS5 both my parents were initially unimpressed. But the socially inept engineer turned grandpa adored DS in away didn't as a parent. Both parents felt we were doing what you were supposed to do, but then they also gave me textbooks to work on at home so might be a bit skewed LOL, whem I started to say no I think he was more than we were, they were resistant. But then grandma became the biggest supporter and this was the woman who was still bragging about my reading before 4, she made sure to tell me I wasn't reading anything like what DS was reading at the same age. But she says nothing to my brother because his kids same age are more regularly gifted.

But my dad who should be doing all sorts of fun science things, doesn't and is just jealous about the relationship DS has with grandma, it's like he can't even figured out what he could do to relate better yet he desperately wants to. On the one hand he accepts that DS is ahead but still treats him like he is 3. The one time they did snap circuits they had a great time. He brags about his abilities to others but subtly diminishes them in his presences which annoys DS.. I supposed I should be grateful it's not overt like it was with me.

Also, once I started trying to figure out DS it started me questioning them in terms of what they did with me. I still have not accepted it especially the effects on my psyche but I am a little more understanding that they did the best they could at the time.

And they desperately wanted to know DSs number but I asked the, point blank why do you want to know, and they had no good reason beyond wanting some outside recognition that i was either right or wrong. But if they were offended or annoyed they got over it. But I knew they should not have it specifically but I did tell them we were testing, but not DHs family. The are flipped put enough that he needs to be tested for K.

Wow, no idea I had so many thoughts on this!!

DeHe

My son has been reading for a long time, since he was around 2.5, so most everyone knew he was "ahead." Not because we bragged about him, just because he is one of those, "read everything I see out loud" kind of kid. My ILs had 4 gifted boys, I would say they are MG or HG, My DH is probably HG, so when it comes to my EG son, they thought for while that I worked with him, and that's why he seemed smarter than their kids. When we had him tested for early entrance to K, they thought we were being pushy, but once we found out his results, they started to get it a little bit. I'm sure they still think a lot of it is hot housing, but they won't say that out loud anymore. (I have 11 month old twins in addition to my 4 y/o, I barely have time to pee, let alone spend hours a day flash carding my kid to death!)

My parents had mostly ND kids, my brother and I are MG, so my DS seemed like a little rocket scientist to them. LOL.

With our family, they are of the "of course they are gifted"...<wink wink>

Flat stanley is a common elementary project. If you google it you will probally find something.

If Grandpa is not that social, some ice breakers with interests he can relate to may help. When your ready, maybe lego robotics, or programming. best of luck, I'm glad you are feeling encouraged.

My dad liked to play checkers with my kids when they were really little (before they were old enough for chess).

It's MISGUIDED Jealousy on the large part... consider that giftedness is somewhat genetic... means that your kids must have fairly smart parents (ie you) and since it is generally acclaimed that siblings are within 10 IQ points of each other - therefore your siblings should be fairly smart too and by extension their kids as well...

I say this for a good reason. My older brother has two gorgeous and IMO HG+ girls. But they both struggle through school - even though they both started a year early... the younger one (10) has a natural talent for drama, piano, violin, language... the older (11) is a natural sportswoman - the youngest ever South African to qualify for the water skiing world champs this year, and natural abilities for language etc etc. but no - they both hate school, are forced through homework and extra lessons to help with spelling and maths and and and. but since they struggle, they cannot be that clever apparently. And since Aiden is a kid who will sit and play chess with the 10 year old - he is just strange.

My experience tells me that it's misguided jealousy that stems from their own inability/interest/whatever to really see their kids and to understand that education does not have to be as horrible as they experienced it.

Until your father treats your son like something more than "just a baby" this behaviour will continue. Both my boys are more silly and babyish around my IL's - esp MIL, since it is what she expects from them - and it's what is conveyed to them by word and action. My MIL still wants to help DS4 go to the toilet to pee -offering to pull his pants down and up for him (he has had this down pat for the last 2 years). She calls him "my baby" and when he wants to show her anything she tells him not to worry you are too young to do that, go and play rather."

so around her he acts more silly. And when we are there with him and her, you can tell he is torn on how to act - and we have more bad behaviour than usual because of the mixed emotions. But as soon as I chat to him on the side about something he loves, he starts to stabilise again and be more himself - despite trying to hide it from them. (does this make sense?)

Ah, I didn't say it was all jealousy between the kids or of the kids There are some pretty big gaps in intelligence among the sibs in my family (children of my parents). And then throw spouses in the mix, who may or may not be gifted. So we do have a mixture at the parent level of gifted and not. Also... we sibs have one very bright parent and one just average... so the genes were not spread evenly, I suspect. We definitely don't fit the 10 point IQ point range theory for the sibs.

So some of the treatment of kids may not be about the kids at all in some families, but about things still playing out from the parents' generation. It is still misguided jealousy, but not always easy to solve.