Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Year in review (2013) / Plans for New Year (2014)

Spring of 2013 Ds in 4th grade had already maxed out the curriculum in 3rd for his elementary school. They promised to work with us but it never really happened. We found a GREAT high school Senior young man to tutor once a week as my son went through AoPS pre-algebra. It worked out perfectly.

Fast forward ds started 5th in a Private Gifted School in the Fall of 2013. The start was kind of bumpy. He just had to make some new friends—find his way. He is not the academic stand alone he was at the old school. He knows this is where he needs to be and all seems to be going great. He ran cross country and is now playing on the basketball team.

He has always been a voracious reader but kind of lost the love. He is back to his old self and is rifling through the books again.

Keeping fingers crossed in 2014

This thread is a great idea indigo.

2013 was a mixed bag for us. Things changed for the better when we pulled DS out of his PS that was a mismatch and put him into an academic oriented private school. But, we are still afterschooling to meet his need for acceleration.
We got 2 excellent mentors for DS for his extra curriculars - they have already helped us in several ways.
2013 also drove home the point to me that, as a parent, if I did not handle issues with DS's educational needs earlier on, those issues will come back to bite me multifold at a later date. As a parent, I have made some miscalculations regarding my child's educational needs and I reaped the consequences of those in many departments - from decline in behavior, lack of any motivation, personality changes, decline in work ethic, arrogance that everything was "too easy" etc in my child.

2014: we are testing for entry to yet another private school that claims to meet my child's acceleration needs.
We are going to add in more activities where my child can meet a more advanced peer group.
Focus more on second language acquisition.

SO nice to see our kiddos regain that spark, whether it is related to reading, general motivation or whatever part of themselves they may have lost for a time!

Activities to meet a more advanced peer group sound great! Chess is a favorite activity in many areas. What language is your child focusing on?

2013 was a crazy year for our family in terms of education.

We withdrew my then 16 year old son from the IB program at the only private high school in the area in January, and he enrolled at the community college in March. I felt like I was stepping off a cliff--I mean, how do we explain his weird progression through high school to four-year colleges? But I see now that the decision was the right one for him. He is now able to pursue his interests (STEM stuff) with others who have the same passions, and he even has time for a part time job as an assistant engineer. At the IB school, he was constantly being stuffed into a humanities box, and he was miserable.

We also decided to do a second skip for my 11 year old son. Socially, it's been ok but not great and academically it's still not enough. We're currently trying to decide whether to homeschool him for the next few years or try some sort of partial homeschooling thing.

What data do you have that it is still not enough? (struggling with this here in my sons situation).