Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Learning Environments How much input/control do your kids have?

I agree with aculady (also a homeschooler here)

2giftgirls, do you have the ability to homeschool your dd? It sounds as if she has completely lost her love of learning due to lack of challenge and a learning environment that does not suit her needs. I think learning in itself should be the reward not some artificial reward for doing "too easy, mind numbing" work.

My dd9 has a lot of input in what she learns and how we go about doing it. We homeschool and have from the start. Every year dd and I discuss what went well the year before and what she thinks she might like to learn about. There are certainly the non-negotiable subjects like math, reading, writing, etc...

History and science topics are generally chosen by me but when she is really interested in something we study it more in depth and if something doesn't captivate her, we simply do the minimum. She was already learning Spanish then asked to learn Gaelic (Irish music and culture is very big in her life right now) so now she is learning both languages. She asked to do more crafts and art so I include it more than we would if it weren't an interest and provide her with supplies to do it on her own time as well. She wanted to write her own "novel" so she has time to do that and when we edit together, she learns about grammar, spelling, punctuation, etc... With math, I had tried two different curricula with her and she preferred the online one so we went with that.

We work mostly as a team for her learning though I do reserve the right to have the final say.

donnapt-in the past, I would not have considered it. I have another DD4.5, who is a high energy, noisemaker. Even the homeschool environment might have been disruptive. However, I just put DD4.5 in a new private school, in a preK/K class and it's really stimulating to her, so...

I do work from home and we do have at least 2 "easy" homeschool options...we have a school for homeschooling (they have one classroom day a week, clubs, etc). We also have the option of an online homeschool that also has field trips, clubs, etc...The online one is part of our District as well, so it's free and with that one, she could work as fast as she wanted. They have gifted classes and even profile an 11 year old 8th grade student in the brochure.

Other options include trying our local school that does have gate classes and I am also looking at two charters, one of which is a museum school.

We do have lots of options if we leave this school, but we chose this school because I thought we would be able to have options, even if we had to ask for them, but it seems like not. I think the same small size we chose it for might mean that kids at the extreme ends of the learning spectrum are not well served and wind up leaving...we thought there would be more tolerance and flexibility in the smaller environment, but it's seeming more like the opposite, that because there's less kids, when one acts out of the norm, it's more obvious, so the teachers are even more pressured to squash that.

I just need to make sure before I go pulling the poor kid out of the main social environment she has, you know? We live in a condo and there's only one girl she sometimes plays with (that I don't think is a very good match for her, but...) so school is herr main place to be with other kids right now

oh, donna...something else you mentioned. When your DD is not captivated, you just do the minimum, but we are having the problem that often she is not doing the minimum (worksheets) in class. There's no guarantee whe will do it for me. I'm also concerned that because we've had so much trauma already when it comes to school, that she would start to associate that with me if I was the teacher as well...

We are still trying to sort out if it's gifted and bored or gifted and "something else"...and I'm still struggling with the idea that she migh be so bored that she cannot make herself pay attention...that she might need work 2 to 4 grade levels above what is being taught at school (we don't know that yet, just an example)..

Given her really terrible school experiences, if you were to go with the homeschooling option, I'd start with a "deschooling" period, and just visit the library, let her check out books at her level to read, go to museums, watch NOVA specials and travel programs...things that have "sneaky" educational content, but that don't seem coercive and that don't set up a power struggle. There are ways to work educational content including math, literature analysis, history, and science into just about any topic (ask me sometime about tabletop wargaming, lol...), so that your child is interested, engaged, and buying in to the process.

aculady-I'm secretly hoping the psych reccomends a grade skip so I have an excuse to not "school" her for a while and do like you are saying. I wouldn't say she seems depressed (maybe because she knows she will just sneak a book in class anyway, lol!) but she is SUCH a different kid in the summer *sigh*

2gift: Your posts make me feel so sad and bring back all the stress we went through last year with dd in kindergarten in a regional magnet. She began asking almost immediately for me to please find her a different school "I'll go to kindergarten anywhere else but Mommy, please, don't make me go back into that room." We tried working with the school and she just shut down. By the end of the year we had a clinically anxious 6 year old. How sad is that?

The school kept talking to me about her developing an ability to "self advocate" as she got older. I had to explain to them that she was already self advocating and THEY had to learn to listen to her. They weren't used to kindergarteners with such strong verbal skills so they just dismissed her. I had to focus very, very hard on listening to her words. It sounds like your dd may be doing some of this too - asking for changes, shutting down, etc. How can kids in this situation win when their self-advocating gets defined by the adults in charge as "manipulation"?

If your dd loves art then she needs to do art. Can you enroll her in some extracurricular art classes? If the school is recommending counseling maybe you can find an art therapist to work with her.

If your daughter is developing anxiety, depression or otherwise shutting down and losing her love of learning the situation will likely only get worse. "Next year" may indeed be better, or maybe not. Based on my dd's experience getting these kids out of these situations is the best thing to do if you have other options, as you indicate that you do.

With my dd it turned out that she had significant ld issues that no one at the school picked up on. Is it possible she is "refusing" to do worksheets, etc because of some ld being masked by the giftedness?

I know homeschoolers who do all the options you, aculady and Donna have described here. I also know people who "homeschool" in addition to regular school - they add every type of enrichment that can be to the child's week so they get the school experience and still explore their interests. Maybe something like that can work for you while you wait to see if next year will improve things.If you pull her out and go with the homeschool option I love aculady's idea about non-schooling for a while. Mine too was "SUCH a different kid in the summer" - we used that to her advantage and were able to get the anxiety under control through a detailed IEP at her new school.

Good luck and give your dd a hug from me. Please keep us posted.

I agree. A de-schooling period is a great idea.

You could also discuss with her what she would like to learn about. Does she have any interests? or subjects she enjoys? would she like to learn a foreign language?Maybe spend time at the library and let her pick out books she'd like the two of you to read together to figure out a good place to start if she doesn't have any ideas.

When you are homeschooling...it doesn't have to be "school-at-home." You can be more like a mentor to her, provide her with lots of options and good materials, sit with her to read together and learn side-by-side, make crafts, do projects and science experiments, visit historical places, etc... There are so many ways our kids can learn that don't require sitting and doing worksheets.

master-I guess I'm not sure that's what is best? I'm not, by nature, a person to second guess myself. I am satisfied with the way DD is in her home and most other environments and have had to remind myself many times that that is proof I'm a good mom...when all the problems are at school, that must mean school IS the problem, right? I just realized that even at last week's SST, I STILL feel like they are blaming me, trying to tell me to control her behavior. And they want to reinforce what the desire with rewards, instead of exploring more challenging work or some other school related change...the teacher also said DD refuses to do the challenging work she is sometimes presented, but maybe that is part of the problem too? Do they expect her to turn it on and off? Why isn't there ALWAYS more challenging work? They have harped on how they "can't" give her more challenging work until she does the basic, even though their own test score show she is capable of much more...but until we have some more indepth testing and assesment from the psych, I don't have much to take to the school to back me up. Honestly, I don't even know what kind of material I should be giving her...

The psych we will see specializes in gifted and 2e kids, and we briefly discussed schooling options...the "waiting" is the hardest part...I need the psych's report before I take drastic action...also, the school is a magnet, so I'm worried that just pulling her out will affect our ability to chose another in the future, like a black mark? If we go to the neighborhood school, they are on year round track (which is why I didn't want to go there in the first place), so I want her going in after a break...if I just stop bringing DD to school, they will send a truant officer to our house, I'm not kidding...

Depending on how much time we need to spend at the psych's, I am thinking of getting a contract. We have to formally tell our school that the kid will be out for more than a day or two and arrange to get their work for the week. I know about it because of the crap storm I got when I let DH take both girls to Vermont to visit him mom who had just been diagnosed with cancer. It was Feb and DD was in kindergarden! A contract might give me a chance to test homeschooling...

I work from home, so that makes homeschooling possible, but I'm not sure if I'm up to that challenge? I need to work as well...