Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Learning Environments crap--my 4yo just lost his marbles about school

The good news is that he was given an activity to do solo today and enjoyed it. I don't know exactly what it was, but he said it had "plusses and minuses on it." I'm very pleased that the school has been responsive to our requests. Sadly, it's the first time we've ever experienced this!

I wanted to point out that this is such a great attitude.

Is that K12 program something you could do in your home for fun?

I don't know--I think K12 is something you have to sign up for and officially "do," right?

He's liking the bit of extra work at school, but still complaining. Something else seems to be up with him as well, or maybe it's just this. He's been waking at night with fears, and is very emotional during the day about lots of little things. I can't figure it out. He's not normally like this. Meanwhile, it appears that his older sister has taught him to add double-digit numbers (don't ask me when). I wonder if she is putting ideas into his head?

I think I need to give him a bit of structured curriculum at home. I don't want to go too far with math, for fear of completely blowing through the entire K-2 curriculum. I'm thinking science, geography, logic, reading comp workbooks, but everything has to be low-writing and easy easy easy for me to set up. Maybe I need to start a new post...

Update: the school is really trying to help. They've gotten some more advanced puzzles and activities into the classrooms and allowed us to check out books from the library (school is K-8) so he can read books at his level. I am touched by their efforts. We afterschool every day with math pages, Sudoku, mazes, reading comp pages, etc.

He still doesn't want to go to school. I have to talk him down every morning. He is very specific as to why: "I like the playground and centers and my friends, but all the rest of the stuff is really boring and I don't learn anything."

I am freaking the eff out about kindergarten.

ultramarina- Glad to hear the school is making modifications for your ds. Sorry that it's not enough to make him want to go. How is he at school? Does he seem engaged when he's there? What does his teacher think?

Really all I have is empathy- no great suggestions. Keep us posted.

His teachers say he seems basically fine. Maybe a little withdrawn. His behavior is great. He is a really sweet kid and not likely to make any trouble even if suffering, which is sort of a double-edged sword here. The good thing is that he does not hide his light under a bushel--the teachers are very aware of his abilities and I have not gotten any denial whatsoever, which is frankly a very new experience for me.

Our year went the other way. Mine is happier to not learn anything in school. He's gotten in trouble a couple of times for cutting up with the other kids rather than paying attention. It does really starkly show that getting a good education in through school is going to be tricky. The teacher said my son is advanced, but that he is not bored by work below his level, which is very true. I'm right there with you being overly nervous about kindergarten.
I thought that by teaching handwriting and following instructions and reading directions I was taking away the hinderances to getting an appropriate good education. Now I have learned through trial and error that my child is super slow, too slow to keep up with the class doing kindergarten work at a school's pace. It's scaring me that "how can he get a good education now?" They used the word Piaget's and I'm thinking the asynchronisity is not as smooth and polished as it appears, as we've worked for. Really, nothing's wrong. But we're getting the nerves now who didn't get it at the beginning of the school year.

La Texican our DD is one that has to have a VERY bad fit before she's unhappy at school, and is quite happy to gently cruise through no challenge at all while looking perfectly average.... What's most scary to me is we would never have know about the IQ, the ADHD or the handwriting disability if not for chance, she would have just drifted along looking average or LD and with her odd quirks and issues being incorrectly associated with the wrong causes...