Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Are you and your partner on the same page?

Coll - I had a giggle at your "insight" comment thanks for sharing - I will go hunting for Grinity's comment

Before our son was born, my husband and I had planned to send our child to public school while I continued to work full time, but our plans changed. Our son had colic for the first three months, would not sleep, was breastfed and refused to take a bottle when I went back to work half days and it looked like he was being left in a baby swing most of the time he was at the daycare. My sick leave and vacation leave was running out and I was going to have to go back to work full time so I quickly sold a rental property that I owned at a reduced price so we could pay off bills and I could afford to stay home. We thought it would just be for a year or two.

My son was born with low muscle tone after a difficult birth but it never affected his mouth muscles and he had no trouble communicating that he wanted to be picked up so that he could see things and learn. He would not have gotten enough individual attention in a daycare. He spoke earlier than my daughter, he had a larger vocabulary, and when he was tested at 12 months he was 50% ahead in receptive and expressive language skills. I thought it had something to do with his wanting to be read to so much and asking "is that" about everything new that he saw. He was 50% delayed in motor skills because of his weak muscles. His doctor would not recommend physical therapy so we had to do the best we could on our own. He walked at 18 months and started reading on his own a year later. We realized that he was going to continue needing more individual attention than the average kid so I continued to stay home and we learned to do without the new cars and expensive vacations. My husband was willing to do this and so was I. He was willing to pay for theatre classes and anything else I thought our son needed which meant that instead of retiring after becoming eligible to retire from his second job, he got another one and he says he will continue to work for the rest of his life if he needs to.

We thought we would be able to send our son to public school at age 5 and when we saw our department of education's written policy that "children should build on what they know" I naively thought we wouldn't have a problem even though my son was already reading at a 5th grade level and doing math. They only wanted him to color in the lines and only read books at kindergarten level. I had to get special permission for him to get books at his level.

My husband saw for himself that public school was not going to work for our son and he agreed with the first grade teacher, the teacher who tested him to see if he was academically ready to skip first grade, and the principal (a relative of mine) that we would need to homeschool so that our son would get an appropriate education. Since ours is a small town public school, we were convinced that no amount of advocating would help our son get what he needed, plus there was a bullying problem at this school. Kids who are physically weaker are not safe there. My son had a gifted friend who was beaten up by a bully on the school bus but not much was done about it because the bully was part of a family that was good in sports. That is just the way it is here.

My husband supports me in the decisions I make about homeschooling even though it is different from the way he would do things. He is a former army first sergeant and he sometimes slips back into that mode. I don't think he has the patience to homeschool so I get to do it. He does however ask my son questions to see how much he knows. He started reading classic books that he never read when he was in school and discussing them with our son. He also talks to him about the news and government and politics. In our meeting with our state representative this week, she said her family always talked about politics and government at the dinner table. My husband told her that it is usually our son who tells us about the latest things happening in the news, especially concerning politics. He is the one who wants to discuss or debate things at dinner and we are doing our best to keep up with him and we allow the use of the iPhone to check his facts. My husband and I do this now too.

I haven't had to deal with advocacy at school or anything like that. My wife and I recently compromised on a preschool. I think it's important that my daughter be able to learn at her own pace, which I think is considerably different from the pace most 3 year old children would learn at. My wife questions the importance of learning things covered in kindergarten before going to kindergarten. One of the things I've learned from this board is to take things one year at a time. I don't intend to hold her back so she enters kindergarten appropriately ignorant. I'm not sure she'll even go to kindergarten.

At any rate, I'm the one concerned with making accommodations for my daughter (my son too, if he proves to be exceptional). I'm the one reading books and articles available online. I'm the one posting on this forum. My wife is more hands off about the intellectual interests. She is more concerned with nutrition, exercise, clothing, clean rooms, etc.

She is definitely a reliable partner once a decision has been made though. She will get on the phone, schedule things, and deal with contracts.

As always, we complement each other amazingly well.

My wife and I are mostly in agreement, but she places more importance on grades than I do. Our eldest son is in 4th grade. She has told him that he should always do any extra credit work that the teacher makes available. I think that if the extra credit work won't teach him anything (for example an assignment to make a game to practice spelling words he already knows), he should not bother. I'd rather have him do an EPGY session or some other activity. My wife thinks it is important for him to always strive for an "A" now so that good study habits are established. I think that since grades matter little before 9th grade, he should give higher priority to non-school academic work than to optional school work. We both agree he should do assigned homework properly.

I am the one who does all the reading, homeschool planning, searching for opportunities, and driving kids to and fro. My husband does not always see the need for all things I do for the kids and will complain sometimes if things get too busy but he thinks I am doing a good job with them.

He does take on the homeschooling on the days I work. He does not have the patience to plan it or drive and wait for them though he will if we need to divide and conquer.