Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Disappointing p/t meeting- what to do if anything

I'm glad my ramblings could help - I wish I could spare every parent of a perfectionist the pain and anguish we went through while still at (pre)school.

I could recount endless stories of things like you mentioned to me where even in the conferences I would say "but he has been doing that since age 2" (or whatever) and I would just get that look.

It's only since pulling him out that I realised that it really doesn't matter what a school/family member/teacher/whoever sees - it only matters what HE sees or thinks about himself. And it sounds like your husband will need to realise that too - took me ages and I still sometimes struggle with this! even when they offered us a grade skip in an attempt to keep us in the school I was tempted to take it "to show them". DH pointed out to me that it was the wrong reason to accept and thats when we rather pulled him out

HUGS and best of luck!

Happy update. Dd was running late to school today so dh did not have time to talk to teacher. I picked her up and mentioned to the teacher that we have reviewed her report and wanted to share some stuff with her via email or in a meeting. She immediately asked me if I wanted to meet her now, in 10 minutes after the last student had been picked up. I wasn't prepared for this but happily obliged. I came right out and told her that we think dd is hiding her abilities at school. I gave her a brief overview of what dd is doing at home on her own. The teacher was surprised and she held my dd's hand and said I only know her for two months so I haven't had much time to know what she knows. Then she turned to my dd and said, you don't need to feel afraid to tell me what you know. That way I can give you more interesting work. You don't want to come to school and be bored, right. Then she went on to explain to me how she can differentiate for dd. I did tell her that since we haven't formally taught or tested dd, we don't know what gaps she may have. Teacher assured us that she would give dd some practice work to ensure the basics are well covered. Overall it was very positive friendly meeting. I am thinking of sending a follow up thank you note. Thanks again to everyone here for their wonderful support and advice.

YAY!

This is so true and it's something I need to repeat to myself time to time.

Lovemydd, it sounds like the second meeting went a lot better and the teacher handled the situation well. She wasn't defensive or skeptical and she didn't accuse you of hothousing. That is a lot more than I "expect" these days from preschool teachers.

It's odd that she was so off at first but if your DD is having a lot of fun playing with other kids, she and the teacher may not have had a lot of quality time together to build a relationship yet so hopefully, things would only get better from here.

So I asked dd my usual how was school today. Dd replies, well the teacher was nicer than usual. And instead of working on smaller numbers, I got to work with the teens." Lol

Lovemydd - that meeting sounds good. I hope that the teacher will stick to it. In my past experience the teachers would make promises and then the school would find out and make them retract the differentiation (yes this is a gifted school we are talking about) for various obscure reasons.

You will probably see the teacher raise the bar bit by bit and your dd will be expected to happily comply. What you could say in a few weeks if this is what's happening is something like "thank you for the alternatives you are offering, it is helping indeed. DD is excited to get to *insert maths problems of choice here* and we felt confident in assuring her that you will help her get to where she is capable of working."

Esp when you are getting the right responses you want to guide those to the best of your advantage.