Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion dumbing himself down ... I hope it's temporary!

I'm getting worried! I know we sent DS4.5 to public special ed preschool to mainly work on his funky issues and to get help with social interaction he needed so much and I expected him not being challenged but I didn't expect him to actually REGRESS in what he knows and can do! 3 months ago he was doing addition and subtraction to 20 in his head in no time and now he says he doesn't know what 6 + 2 is without having to count it from 1??? When I tell him don't count it like that, just tell me what it equals to, I know you know it, he says "but my teacher says I have to start counting from one to see how much it is!". So I tell him, don't worry about counting, just tell me what 6 + 2 is and he says "but I don't know, I have to count it!" ... In the end I got the answer from him without counting fingers or anything else but I was mortified! He could easily do 6 + 2 when he turned 3!

I know he's not completely brained washed (yet) because he has a big interest in fractions at the moment but the fact that he's such a stickler to what the teacher says (I have to fight what the teacher says numerous times a day) gives me serious goosebumps! My husband still doesn't like the idea of me homeschooling the boys next year (K and preschool) but I don't see any other choice!

Any advice on how to avoid this? I am trying to not push his teacher much, she already has her hands full with kids with special needs and my son's allergies but I always thought that when she'd see what he knows, she'd challenge him more and not expect him to keep up (or more like keep DOWN) with the class! I did email her couple days ago that this is starting to worry me but she hasn't really responded to it. We'll have a parent conference in three weeks so I need to bring it up. But right now I just don't know what to do ... let it go and wait till it works itself out? Or not let him get away with it?

I wonder if prepping (explaining to him in clear terms that he's ahead of the class) would have helped. The same thing happened with my DD10 - she stopped reading when she started preschool and discovered she was the only one there who could. I wonder, now, if it was because she thought maybe she wasn't supposed to be able to? (As opposed to feeling self conscious about standing out). I don't know.

I wonder if I had told her ahead of time, "just so you know... this is what you'll notice, and it's ok that you're different..." etc etc. Or whatever.

MK13 have you talked to your son about it (specifically to tell him that it's ok if he can do math the other kids can't)? It's ok... it's normal for you... there's nothing wrong with you... etc.

I don't know. I wish I had the answer...

I tried but he's all about "my teacher says ..." these days . He has PDD and is a big stickler to the rules so once someone gives him rules to follow, he truly believes that's how it should be done. I am excited he finally learned to sit down for 10 minutes and listen to a story and follow basic directions ... but all these school rules seem to be doing more damage than good. It's killing his math, it's also killing what he's known in language arts ...he now says he doesn't know half the letters because he hasn't learned them at school yet ... though I try to catch him off guard and get what he knows out of him anyways, but I have to seriously trick him to step out of his "I don't know this yet" mode.

I don't think he's worried about standing out. It's not in his nature and probably never will be. He has always been a show off (in a good way). I think he really believes he doesn't know these things because the other kids don't know them and he has been told he will learn them at school.

I have at least upped his computer time so he can play more on Starfall and ABCmouse, so hopefully he'll start showing more of what he knows again soon. I have always seen his biggest potential through watching him play video games of all kinds because he lets his guard down while playing them. I just wish school wasn't killing his imagination and ability so soon!

It took me 3 months of running around to even get him accepted into the preschool and now I'm really starting to regret it. ... not socially, but academically it's been pretty much a disaster.

Mk, my take is that for long term success, he needs the social skills and classroom behaviors more than he needs advanced academics in preschool. Really. I think it's great that he gives a darn what the teacher says, and you can work on loosening up the rule-bound thinking over time. And it's fabulous that there has been so much progress on sitting and listening at circle time-- that will make his life much, much easier in school.

I think it's an unrealistic expectation that fractions or even addition would be taught in a preschool. It's just not going to happen, and honestly, kids this age need other things just as much. How are your DS's play skills? He may even need to be taught to use toys and engage with others, as that is really important throughout the early years. There is a ton of stuff to learn, non-academic and academic, but not all of it has to be learned at the same time. He is not falling behind, nor is he likely to; I'd seriously let this go for a while.

DeeDee

I don't really expect the teacher to teach him anything new, not to mention fractions or anything like that. But I did ask her from the start if she could just expect more from him because he knows a lot. I was hoping that if it was something he already knew, they'd just ask him for the answer, not expecting him to start all the way in the bottom again.

I am amazed how well he's doing! I would think maybe 70-80% of issues that led to the initial PDD-NOS diagnoses are now either gone or almost non-existent! His biggest issue at this point is emotional intensity, which may have nothing to do with PDD. He still has problems connecting with his peers but is no longer uncomfortable with larger groups of kids like he used to be. He still doesn't connect with them but it seems to be a matter of different interests ... in many cases the kids just don't understand what he's saying and how he wants to play ... like when he plays pirates with our friend's daughter talking about "chaps being offshore out on the high sea" ... she had no clue what he was saying (and I have no idea where he gets it! ... probably a mix of video games and Kindle books! lol) so I'm thinking about finding him some activity (at the library maybe), where he could be with kids a year or two older to see how he does with them?

The big advantage I saw in the public preschool when we got him in was school having policies in place to keep him safe given his allergies. But even that's now become a huge frustration because while there are policies in place, they aren't always followed ... such us the class being completely egg-free and nobody allowed to bring anything with eggs in yet on Valentine's day, he came home with a backpack full of candy and candybars where with 4 different things having clearly written eggs on them as allergens! And when I brought it up to his teacher, she didn't understand why I was upset because she checked "everything" to make sure there was nothing with eggs!

I guess I've sidetracked a bit with the allergies issue (and this was not the only allergy related issue we've had) but the fact is, the place that seemed to be the best and safest option for him no longer seems to be what we expected

People don't usually interpret egg free as being nothing containing eggs. My sons preschool is egg,nut and seed free and they don't ban baking. I don't know why now I think about it.

The counting on fingers thing seems to be standard. The are taught it when the start formal learning. My son took 6 months to get back to where he was before he started. I have read similar complaints in other forums (and this one I think).

here' it's a policy if the child has a severe allergy (like eggs in my son's case) nothing that enters the class can contain eggs. The kids can bring fruits or veggies and packaged snacks that are labeled and clearly contain no eggs and no home made or home baked snacks and food is allowed. There was an official letter that went out to the parents in class explaining the whole egg-free thing but my guess is some of the parents don't speak English too well and the teacher and her assistant are supposed to check everything. (not that hard with 10 kids and two adults in the class!) ... so basically my son had full access to snacks with eggs in his backpack the whole 20 or 30 minute bus ride home from school with no epi-pen on board of the bus. ... pretty serious oversight given all the promises about safety and how things like this can "never" happen that the school gave us back in the fall.

I don't think his teacher is taking all the allergy problems as seriously as she should. Couple weeks ago we found out he's also allergic to cold ... NOT good living in northern Illinois! He started breaking out in hives and getting all puffy right after Christmas and took us about 2 weeks figuring out what was going on (exposure to deep freeze getting on and off the bus, etc.) ... so I emailed the teacher explaining what's causing it and how to avoid it (and that we have to make sure he's not exposed to cold because his body is reacting to sudden changes of his body temperature) ... and the next thing I know, she's still letting him play for 20 minutes with a sensory table full of ICE!!! ... I asked in my email if they could get him on the bus first (it's just a small bus for these 10 kids and they load them up two kids at a time to buckle them in) so he would have minimum exposure to the cold air (at that point we were having -20F windchills) and that never happened either (so he'd get home once again breaking out in hives right away). So, my point is ... if this teacher (while being very nice and pleasant) can't keep up with something as basic as health and safety precautions, I don't think I can expect her to pick up on our son's abilities, not to mention offer any type of differentiation

This is just my two cents: I agree that he needs to work mostly on social skills and classroom skills at this point. I have a son in special ed preschool for intellectual disability and he has many kids like yours in the class. What I find is that the parents are hyper focused on how smart the child is and getting him to learn, yet are unaware of how poorly they actually interact with their environment. Many parents are not aware that their kids language and speech and inability to empathize are big concerns and need remediation and intervention early on. They seem to be too afraid that their kids will be labeled intellectually disabled like my son. It is a really big disservice to their kids. My experience is that these teachers are masters at helping kids on the spectrum, but parents often interfere too much and don't let them do the interventions needed focusing rather on academic stuff. I feel for the kids (and the parents too of course.)

I have no issues with the label at all. I'm the one who pushed for the evaluations and diagnosis in the first place because at that point it was the only way for us to get help. But the class is pretty much all kids with speech issues and some with some cognitive delays. So we can't blame him for not connecting with his peers when they have very little in common. It used to be partially due to his social awkwardness but we're not really seeing that anymore. Whenever we go somewhere, he tends to mingle in with the older kids rather than being with kids his age or younger. ... All this seems to be a pretty common theme on this board.

Don't take me wrong, I'm happy the school is working on his weaknesses ... but why can't they at the same time build on his strength? That's what I don't understand!

Mk13, it sounds like your ds has made good progress on social challenges at this preschool - I don't think I'd be quick to give up on it! JMO, but as the mom of 2e kids, I think that as tough as it may be to see that it's not all about encouraging strengths when our children are really young, you'll be so glad in a few years that you invested the time and effort on focusing on the challenges early on.

Re the allergies - my oldest dd (11 years old) has extreme food allergies. They are getting better now as she's getting older, but she has a history of anaphylactic allergies to a number of foods. Preschool and early elementary school were TOUGH TOUGH TOUGH re managing allergies, constantly advocating/educating, and encountering numerous caregivers/teachers/other parents who were clueless, didn't remember, didn't care, and sometimes, quite honestly simply didn'believe that our dd (and other kids at her schools) actually were allergic or could possibly die from exposure. I am not convinced that you'll get better protection/etc in one location vs another (public vs private school). While public schools come with IHPs and 504s etc, you are still dependent on school staff to buy into the need to follow the plans. Now that I've probably thoroughly discouraged you from stepping outside your house..... here's the good news - we got through it, we didn't *not* send our dd to any program due to her allergies. What we did: we continued to advocate, of course. But we also chose to make a rule that she only ate food we supplied for her. That rule served her very well in many respects - it lessened our worries over her eating something by mistake (because even the best intentioned caretaker might miss something one time), it meant she didn't miss out on participating in anything because she couldn't eat (because we always sent in similar type foods, treats for celebrations etc), and it meant that as she grew a little bit older she began to really own the responsibility for helping to keep herself safe. It also relieved some of the pressure off of her school staff which in turn (just my impression... I could be wrong!).. seemed to help them be more willing to work with me on things that we couldn't control but needed help with - being sure she was safe from crumbs from other children etc (she had a lot of contact allergies at that point in time too, as well as some airborne).

I have to admit though, having him ride on the school bus without an epipen would bother me a lot! Won't they allow him to have an epi on board? Is the bus driver trained to administer one? I am fairly certain that's a common issue on 504 and IHP plans in schools from what I've read online. We haven't dealt with it ever because my dd's never gone to a school that used a school bus.

And one last random thought on the math - I think you'll find that wishing teachers could challenge your child more in his area of strengths is something you'll run into as the mom of a 2e child (or any child for that matter... even with students who aren't gifted). Math is such an easy-to-quantify subject when you're looking at academics... it's easy to think that moving forward from simple addition on your fingers to multi-digit multiplication etc is the thing to do and the earlier a child masters it the better and if they aren't given opportunities for that math-fact-mastery type of work they are going to fall behind where they would have been - but I wouldn't sweat that type of math at a young age - at all. It's great when kids can compute early, but not having the opportunity to practice and advance at those skills isn't going to hold them back from accelerating in math later on. I suspect it's likely tough for the teachers in the preschool situation you're in to add in challenging work, and chances are you're not the only parent who's asked for it. If it doesn't happen right now and you're keen on keeping his math interest up, I'd give him math enrichment activities at home and not sweat what's happening at preschool re the math.

Best wishes,

polarbear