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I am so frusterated with my sons daycare. They are not supportive of my son being gifted. They do report cards, even though its daycare and doesn't really count, and give him good scores on all the things he is suppose to know by now. He is actually way past what is on their assessment. When it comes to how he socializes they put down that he needs to start interacting more with his peers there. All he wants to do is hang out with the adults.

They are not understanding about him being gifted and just tell me I should hold him back on learning and force him to do other things. All he wants to do all day is spell words, read books, practice sign language, and count. I try to get him to socialize too but he is not interested. I get the feeling that they want me to believe something is wrong with him. They seem very umcomfortable with how advance he is for a 2 1/2 year old.

I just want to cry. People have so much compassion for children who are on the slower side of learning, but for the accelerated, none at all. I am not saying they should feel sorry for him. I feel blessed that he is gifted, but they could be understanding about the fact that he has different needs.

Actually it seems more that jealousy or envy kick in and they are disgusted by even having to witness gifted abilities. What am I going to do? I looked so hard to find that daycare and thought it was a good match, and now it isn't. So the search begins again.

You might check and see if there is a Montessori school in your area. They often group larger age spans together. My son's preschool had 2-5 year olds together.

Isaiahsmom, if his academic interests are so intense that he can't actually participate in what other kids in daycare are doing, it can be a sign that there is a disability as well as a gift. My son with Asperger's was like that. I'd encourage you to take him for a neuropsychological evaluation to figure out what you are dealing with.

I sure wish I had known sooner.

DeeDee

Is he happy at this daycare? Does he come home happy? If he does, I would ignore the report cards and the complaints that he doesn't socialize with other kids and just let him have fun. The reason he doesn't make friends is because he doesn't have anything in common with the kids. When my dd was 3, she went to a preschool where almost half her class was still in diapers. None of them knew their letters or numbers and my dd could read by then. My dd asked my why she was in a class with babies! The school wouldn't let her move "up" because of some kind of state licensing issue. I'm still mad at myself that I didn't pull her out of that preschool, but the fact is, it didn't hurt her. She liked going in and playing with the toys and painting and playing on the playground. She didn't make any friends among the "babies," and even I could see why, but since the school was play based, she just went there to have a good time. And it was fine. My advice-- look for a different school, but don't freak out over this one if your son likes it. Ignore the report cards.

My DS was the exact same way at 2....some of my friends had me panicking that he was possibly autistic because of his obsession with learning and struggle to relate to same age peers. We put my DS in a 'normal' preschool at 3 to help him relate better to same age peers (but I get 2 half days is really different from every day). For us, DS5 has gotten better with adapting to his same age peers, sometimes to our dismay. Yesterday he was revelling in backseat potty jokes with his best friend - this after stealing away to consult the children's librarian for world geography books earlier in the day.

I hope you find a workable solution.

I think that a big part of it is that they have to put SOMETHING for you to work on on the report card. They also have to use the typically age appropriate criteria to grade him by.
My dd is in a gifted magnet school and they just tested her reading. They stopped for every child once they were 1 grade level ahead of their actual grade. It seems to me that this is just how "schools" work.
Take it with a grain of salt. If your little one is happy there and it is convenient for you as a family, keep using them. Our children aren't ever going to be the norm but if they are happy, and you are happy that they are content, it's working.

It's really tough to be able to help with advice from the small amount of info we're able to share through posting here, since we don't actually get to meet each other's children or experience the same school ourselves etc. I may be off in what I'm reading, but fwiw, here are my random thoughts -

The first thing I wonder is what are your observations about how he fits in? Not whether or not the other children are where he's at academically, but have you watched him at playtime, on the playground, etc when the kids are left to just play? Does he try to interact with the other kids? Or does he sit off on his own and never make any attempt to play with them? Is he hanging with the caregivers because they invite him to, or is he seeking them out even though they are trying to help move him into a play situation with the other children? Does he seem happy or not at ease when it's playtime?

Your ds is doing fine at home and he's clearly ahead in some developmental milestones, so you're experiencing him from the perspective of parenting a gifted child. He's in a preschool that gives reports based on age-typical developmental milestones and doesn't attempt to offer help with advancing kids academically beyond where there age is typically at. You're also getting feedback from the school that your child isn't fitting in socially with the other kids as kids his age typically do. That might be because he feels different due to intellectual mismatches, but it also might be because he's shy or uncomfortable in the specific preschool environment or because he has some type of challenge as DeeDee mentioned. Without knowing him and being there, none of us can really know what's up. Having parented three kids through early childhood, two of whom are 2e, and one of whom is just simply confusing (lol)... my experience was that as a parent, it's easy to brush aside what another person notes about your child if it doesn't fit the child you know and think "oh, that's because he's gifted and they don't get it" or "oh, that's because he's orange and they are into green" etc. Usually that's all that it is, and that's probably all it is in this situation too. OTOH, we've been in similar situations (but different issues) with two of our children - one our dd10 when she was in preschool and one our ds12 when he was in 2nd grade- situations where we were receiving input from their teacher/caregiver which didn't make sense to us so we interpreted it as the teacher/caregiver not understanding our child when in reality, the input was important input that we didn't see for ourselves at the time. With both of my kiddos, like DeeDee, I sure wish I had known earlier to trust that there was something going on and not just write off what the teacher/caregiver had to say.

Please know I'm not suggesting that there is anything going on with your ds other than his simply being gifted or possibly being in a daycare that's not a good fit for him or possibly simply because he's still very young. I think I'd personally consider looking for a different daycare, try a switch, see how he gets along in another situation with different caregivers. If he is still having a tough time fitting in socially then I'd look into it further.

Best wishes,

polarbear

How is he socially outside of daycare/classroom settings?

Thanks everyone for all of your replies. This forum is so GREAT!! I don't feel as alone now because I can see that members in here understand giftedness and are not like what I am use to dealing with.

My son is great socially at home. He carries on conversations with his father and myself. He uses many vocabulary words and it very outgoing and energetic. He is also very affectionate, makes eye contact and has a wonderful sense of humor.

I was worried about autism at first because he doesn't seem interested in interacting with his peers. He says he doesn't want to go see kids, and he wants to be with adults or big kids. When around adults or big kids, he is affectionate, laughs a lot, very talkative, and loves going over anything to do with numbers, letters, reading, spanish, or sign language.

His pediatrician said he has characteristics of a savant, but he does not think he is autistic because he is affectionate, very emotional, senstive to others feelings, and has such a developed sense of humor.

He said he appears to be highly gifted and has put in a referral for him to have a neuropsych evaluation done. When the results come back hopefully we know more about exactly what is going on with him.

I am going to shop around for another daycares because I feel that some of the teachers are actually jealous of my sons gifts. They are not happy about him not fitting in with how they have set things up. It has become very uncomfortable for me, and they agree he is gifted, but don't want to be bothered with making any changes to accomodate him. They are bothered by his obsessive focus on numbers and letters, or the fact that he doesnt want to engage too much in what they are doing at the center. It is very frusterating but I have to at least try and find a environment that might suit him better.

Have you considered a home daycare ? I'm biased - I run a family daycare - but there are usually children of all ages, and if there are older kids around, your son would probably do great with them. Also, there are usually less children, and the providers are very used to dealing with children of a wide range of abilities. Just a thought