Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion What would you do differently?

For myself as a child I would have chosen a different (more challenging) educational environment.

For my kids I would have advocated for the G part of the 2e more vigorously and earlier on, rather than waiting for the teachers to "figure it out" (which they're starting to).

my parents ... they were always busy, working to pay the bills ...so they pretty much did a great job staying out of my "life". But there are things that stand out in my mind ... like when they'd always praise my cousin (same age) for her beautiful handwriting (compared to my terrible cat scribble) ... growing up in Czechoslovakia we had to use cursive till middle school and even in middle school only cursive was allowed for any tests, essays and any written assignments. ... they STILL comment about my handwriting, btw! ... while other people comment about how legible it actually is! lol ... then, in 3rd grade I remember getting PAID for my first C! (till then I had straight As) ... while I was crying and completely miserable, they paid me praising me for being "normal". I was the center of my family's jokes about clumsiness ... when you hear nothing but how clumsy and bad you are in sports, not only does it make you feel even worse, but you never get to enjoy any of the sports and they become intolerable! It wasn't until high school when I realized I'm NOT THAT BAD at sports! When I can choose what sport to do (like soccer) I have fun and CAN DO IT! ... oh, the times when my parents and my sister would make jokes of me having all the lights on when I was home alone, or that I would have to hold onto the railing going up and down the stairs (still do! :)) ... or not being able to do even the simplest gymnastics and being scared of heights (it's really hard even now for me to stand up on a chair to reach something ... I need to hold on at least with one hand) ... and I could go on and on and on ... I don't blame my family ... I just wish someone would had told them what Sensory Processing Disorder was ... that I wasn't just making stuff up to get out of whatever they wanted me to do. I learned to cope with all these things myself.

I found ways to work around all my fears and anxieties, and I'm really glad I was able to do that because now I can use my experience to help my kids and understand them better. DS4 is so much like me, it's unbelievable! But on top of that, he has autistic traits as so his life is harder in many ways than mine was. There are times when I forget about what he's going through ... which is where the "what would you do differently" comes in place ... I need to listen to him more when he's trying to tell me things. I need to keep reminding myself more often that he really IS just like me and apparently people had patience with me so now I need to have patience with him . I UNDERSTAND him and need to use it to his advantage. I truly am his biggest advocate and need to remember it at all times!

another thing I need to do differently ... I need to stop expecting DS2.7 do things the same way DS4 did. They are VERY different! We haven't done any testing yet (no need for it, really) but my gut is telling me that my older one will be my science/math/tech geeky kinda child, always asking questions, always wanting to know everything while the younger one will be my genius in hiding and we'll need to keep doing the right things for him to want to show us what he's capable of. He's the child that unless fully challenged in the right ways, he will shut down and not come out of his shell again until we make it worth it!

I always write about my two young ones but I also have a stepson who's 19 and has lived with us since he was 12. He's where I have the biggest regrets . He might not be "gifted" but definitely is a very bright kid. My husband told me in preschool he was one of the sharpest kids, did great in 1st and 2nd grade (which is when I first met him) ... was an awesome speller, accelerated reader, used to be in pull outs in some of his classes. Then came behavior problems, not doing his homework, things got to a point where his mom asked him if he wanted to keep living with her and her new husband or if he wanted to move in with me and his dad. He chose us (11 years old back then). Moved in, started 6th grade and there, I had a child who couldn't do any homework by himself (I remember spending hours every day getting through everything with him), 6th grader who had trouble figuring out what 2 + 2 was! He could understand deeper mathematical concepts, yet couldn't do basic calculations. He was still a great speller but had huge problems putting together any sort of writing. I made sure he had all his homework, he'd lose it between the house and school (or have it in his backpack but just couldn't find it in there). I tried and tried and TRIED to get the teachers to keep me informed of anything he missed, they promised they would, kept their promises a week or two and we were back where we started. YET he was doing great on standardized testing! ... but why wasn't it a red flag for anyone at school that he'd score in the 90+% in all math but 30% in the basic math skills? How could he score in the 90+% in some parts of the language arts parts of the standardized tests while getting very low scores on writing and comprehension???

Fast forward to freshman year in high school ... after he almost failed math in 8th grade, he was placed in HONORS Algebra class because of his MAP test results! Nobody cared what he wanted or what was write for him, this is what their test results suggested. I seemed to had been the only one realizing something was wrong! I kept telling the adviser that he needs BASIC math reinforcement to move further! so after failing the first quarter in Honors Algebra, they moved him to regular Algebra (I was still mad because we requested pre-Algebra or Algebra 1A to help him get through it) ... and so he failed Algebra 1 in Freshman year anyways and had to do a repeat in Sophomore year (passed with a D!). He also failed English I because he wouldn't hand in written assignments. Also failed first semester of Global studies so basically started his Sophomore year in a Freshman status. (at that point I was already researching homeschooling in Illinois as I saw no light at the end of that public high school tunnel!)

You'd think the school would had learned from that 1st year ... but NO! Once again, scoring high on standardized tests landed him in Chemistry, Geometry, Physics on top of the Algebra, English 1 and Global studies he had to take again and then English 2. Same problems, failing grades, lack of concentration, not handing work in ... at the end of Sophomore year I finally stood my ground and had them change his Junior year schedule 3 times till I liked it ... he had some mandatory classes but then he had Business Math (while his adviser said this is a step back that is not challenging enough for him ... DSS19 said it was his BEST math class ever and that all kids should take that class!), he took Cooking and Electronics ... ACED all of those classes we handpicked for him. Not because they were easy (trust me, he can fail an easy class in no time) but because he was INTERESTED in them and they were NOT writing / concentration intensive!

In Freshman year I started asking about the possibility of him having ADD and some other LDs and not a single person would listen to me. All they could come up with is he's LAZY! I was desperate, I knew it wasn't laziness but I never found a way to get them to listen to me. I had no idea about how it works with private testing, no idea we could REQUEST the school to test him, all these are my big regrets ... looking back, we were basically fighting the exact OPPOSITE of what most parents here fight. The school automatically assumed that high scores mean "need challenge" instead of looking at his scores more in detail and realizing they meant "needs HELP!". So, now we have a 19 year old high school graduate (I'm so thankful he pulled through!!!), with a GPA of 2.7, no interest in life or anything around him (other than video games) and to clue what he wants to do with his life. He goes between two attitudes ... 1. you are all stupid and I'm the smartest person on Earth so leave me alone and 2. I can't do it anyways, so why would I even try??? And here we are, my husband and I wondering where did we go wrong? We tried so hard to help him, just not hard enough

sorry I made it into a novel ... but maybe reading this (about my stepson) will help some of you. If you see signs of a smart kid really slipping deeper and deeper, don't let anyone tell you the kid is just lazy ... don't let anyone blow you off with excuses. Go with your gut!

I would have moved D2 to a more rigorous high school as of ninth grade. She "outgrew" her small private. They have nutured her well in many ways, but academically she is not stretched as she should be.

What WOULD I have done with me? Not a clue, which is unfortunate because my older son is a lot like I was.

I was a smart kid who was very immature and cried at the drop of a hat, and was/is probably ADD-inattentive as well. In retrospect, it probably would have been best to hold me back a year and put me in the G/T program (husband went through it... it was pretty great and very responsive to student needs; they had teachers coming in from the junior high/high school for the kids who needed more challenge above and beyond what the rest of the kids needed). I was just emotionally younger than all my age peers, and would have floundered in the program "on grade level" because of my social/maturity issues.

But who thinks of doing that? Holding a kid back is not something that's done to someone who's doing fine academically, and I'm sure it would have caused its own boatload of issues. And it's not like I was putting off all kinds of academic high-flyer signals. I was an early and voracious reader, but performed at the "moderately above grade" level that put me solidly with the "high" reading group (college town, upper-middle-class neighborhood, etc). I struggled with math, though I'm not sure why as I've discovered in the years since that I actually kind of enjoy it.

So... what does one do with an under-performing, inattentive, immature, overly-sensitive kid? I can't be too grouchy at my parents because I myself can't come up with a solution that would have "fixed" me. Homeschooling, maybe, except my mom and I didn't get along so that would have been an unmitigated disaster.

My advice to my younger self would be the same as the advice I already was giving myself at the time, so I guess I'd do nothing different there. "Hang in there, it'll get better" was correct, as was, "Ignore the negative comments from your parents, and don't let them define you, because they don't know what they're doing."

My advise to myself as a parent would be, "I know you're tempted to deal with the school with the assumption that you all have the same goal, members of one team who simply see the situation from different lenses. You would be wrong. They have a variety of hidden agendas, and you only care about your kid. A more productive initial position would be that they have a legal responsibility to provide a minimum level of services, and your job is to hold them accountable for that. You're not a teammate, you're the referee."

To myself as child... figured out sometime in my thirties:
"You're holding your pencil wrong."
(special thanks to teachers who counted off on handwriting and never once noticed/mentioned my index finger tightly wrapped around the pencil)

Hmmm...my kids are young, so it's not quite clear how I've messed them up yet. I do see that I don't fret nearly as much with #2, even when dd2.5 eats dirt or bites her two front teeth clean through her bottom lip - well we fretted a little with that, but not nearly as much as one might think. I hope we are advocating appropriately for ds in school.

I wish I would've paid greater attention to history in the making (like the fall of the Berlin Wall).

To myself as a child - Ask my mom to homeschool me from 3rd to 8th grade, then put me in high school whenever I was ready. (I went to 7 schools from K-8th, often changing halfway through the year, so I think I would have fallen through the cracks even if my parents had been paying attention.) Tell my parents to also accelerate my older brother somehow but leave him in school. To my older self - pick a more challenging college, good grief.

I wonder/worry about what mistakes I'll make with my kids. I'm afraid that I'll lean towards certain decisions with them based on what I would have wanted as a child. Hopefully not, but I have promised myself that I'll pay close attention to their education, talk about things with them, and not assume that quiet = happy.

Smacca we are thinking very seriously of having our eldest do yr7 twice, as she changed schools, for exactly the reasons you outline. She's far from pg bu she absolutely doesn't need to repeat academically.

What would I have done to myself? I would have told myself it was alright to be left-handed, and be ambidextrous is not weird instead of switching to write on the right. I would have told myself I am not the most stupid person in the gifted school who got there by mistake, I would have noticed I am a good student but kept getting on the wrong side of school rules for reasons I don't understand.

I would have told myself the music teacher wasn't trying to earn more money by telling me I was gifted and wanted me as a private student, I would have worked hard instead to realize my potential instead. I would tell myself not to be cynical that my teacher did not teach me what my friends learn when I moved 5 grades a year. Instead of not believing myself, I should have believed I was at least average. I grew up thinking I was stupid but lucky until I was 33.

What would I have done for my kids? I would not be apologetic that he could do simultaneous equations at 6 while others couldn't add, so I tried to hide that fact. I would not have told people my kids are just average (just like my mom would tell every one I was) when they could skip a few grades and still do well, just so that the other party feels better that his kids are normal.

I would have taught my kids how to handle jealous sports peers who would swear vulgarities at my children when they lost, since my kids started sports late. I have learned sportsmanship sometimes does not exist when it means losing down to an amateur.

I would not have pushed my oldest so hard when he was found gifted in music so that the teacher can put him in concerts and competitions. Perhaps he would have loved his music more if he were allowed to play silly things and have a bit more fun than all the drills. I think he lost his talent along the way from over teaching.

I would spend less time coping with what the school wants: standard behavior, mundane repetitive homework done, and spend more time finding out what my kids want and achieve that together with them. I will spend less time finding out what the common milestones are for kids and gloat that my kids are coping well, but spend more time discovering what they can do and expand the realms of possibilities with them regardless of their age.

I shall not bother what is age appropriate education, but let my children learn whatever they want, whenever they want. I shall not bother to teach standard ways of solving problems, but allow my children to discover and uncover how they can approach problems their own ways.

Fortunately, I have another chance. My older 3 kids have gone to college and the two younger ones are my chance of redeeming myself.