Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion So aggravated...

Lol. Pretty short 10 year old I was thinking about the lying about age thing...but he's so...little. he's average or a maybe a little bit small for his age, and the difference between 4 and even 7 is just...seemingly enormous. though it would be really funny if I could just straight face it. "oh yes, he's 7. absolutely. can't you tell??" I wonder what they would say...?

Just wait, my shortie is 14 and is offended if he is offered a child haircut or if they don't say anything I have to because he would be horrified if we didn't pay the amount he was supposed to.

Marnie, I am excited to see what you come up with that will work for your child and for others in the same situation!

I had such a similar experience this week that I was also fuming! I hope it's okay to hi-jack your topic here...

Nathan (5) LOVES soccer. he is crazy about it. At the kiddies soccer franchise thing he and Dylan attend, he needs to move up to the senior class, but we have a scheduling conflict and they only offer the one class a week. He stayed in the "little" class for about 4 months but says he simply cannot anymore so we took him along to try out a full soccer club. Aiden decided last minute to try it too (he is not a soccer fan - too strop self-preservation instincts). So they put both boys in to the under 8 group for that session. It's a big group - about 40 kids so they split them and rotate them through the activities.

Nathan was a firecracker! (another dad's word not mine). He was so energetic and so good. I heard several comments about how he is "very small for 7" and "how impressively skilled he is for such a small kid". He was literally running rings around these older, bigger boys.

At the end of the practice session (a full hour), the coach asked the boys how they enjoyed it etc. Aiden said that he "needed time to assess his feelings of enjoyment before making a long-term commitment". Nathan was still bouncing up and down and asked when he could come again.

The coach then said that Nathan could join in the under 6 group (pee-wees) over on the other side for their practice next week. Nathan hid his disappointment so well (until we got home) and I was just furious. This man knew his age from the get go, so why get the child's hopes up?

The only reason I can fathom is that they want a "star" for the rising kids side coming up... But that also doesn't sit right with me - he loves working hard and I like that he is good but not the best kwim?

So yeah definitely a bit of social pressure being felt ITO age and responses from other parents more than anything else.

I wouldn't start lying-- the child may out himself sooner or later, and teaching him that lying is the way to get what you want isn't so great.

This business is hardest around sports, I think. Other activities seem a little more flexible (here). Also, if you run the team, you may be able to have more leeway...

Update: no go. (as I expected) The teacher said it was not only the material, but because there was going to be group work/interaction that she didn't think a 4 year old could keep up with. While I understand, I am also disappointed that he wasn't even given the opportunity to TRY. He is never given that chance, which is a shame. I would love to see if he actual COULD keep up, and be (for once) in a situation with intellectual peers. It really does make me sad that something that is generally pretty easy for other kids, like finding friends that are similar to you/have similiar interests, intellectual profiles, etc, is just so very difficult for DS (and I mean, he is super social and will play/interact with anyone...but on THEIR level. He'll TRY and get other kids to do the things he likes, but they usually can't, so he has to leave that stuff for me and DH, and his teachers at school, essentially.)

The teacher also that her 5 year old is also very advanced and she knows he would have trouble in this kind of social situation but maybe she would make a class for younger kids in the future. Which in itself is all good stuff, and would be really nice IF the material was actually challenging enough. Then again, if her 5 year old was actually quite advanced, wouldn't she would have understood better where I was coming from, and not been so closed-off to the idea?? (Is it also weird that, as soon as I heard advanced 5 year old, I thought, PLAY DATE?) ...even as annoyed as I am at the whole situation, because of the issues illustrated above, I would LOVE to find another mathy young kid for DS to play with. I don't know if I'm alone in this quandary, but it seems to me that a lot of parents of young gifties are always on the lookout for other gifties that would hopefully spark a genuine friendship with their DC, on THEIR level.)

Sigh. I wish it weren't so hard sometimes.

and I'll have to ask the library about forming my own group...

and Madoosa, I actually think the sports stuff will be easier than the cognitive, personally. People seem to accept natural athletic giftedness FAR more than intellectual. It's not even that weird to see parents "hot-housing" their little baseball star, making them practicing all the time, training even when they don't want to, etc...because they want to have them reach their 'full potential' or 'get a scholarship', when they are older. It all seems very competitive. So the age thing may not be an issue at all as your little ones grow up. It's actually kind of funny (sad) how that kind of behavior is acceptable in sports (and even music to an extent), but in academics, even when you DON'T push your kid, but they are naturally advanced, you get the hairy eyeball from parents, and comments about how you have to 'stop teaching them', because they won't 'fit in', etc. etc. Kind of a weird double standard, no?

Socially, though, at this age the older kids may well shut your child out on grounds of size/appearance/voice/apparent maturity, regardless of intellectual capabilities. You can't assume they'll be generous and inclusive, and that's also hard to force. We have had mixed experiences in this regard. The girls tend to baby-talk (our physically small) DS and he hates it. Intellect is simply not the whole story with activities like this.

We do choose multi-age camps and activities where DS is on the younger end of their allowable age range...

Oh Marnie - I am sorry for the negative feedback you got

The corollary is that you also can't assume the opposite without a trial.

Soapbox alert! (The remainder of this post is not directed at DeeDee...)

Tone at the top counts for a lot in group dynamics, particularly involving children. Exclusion and rejection need not be inevitable for young gifted children, the disabled, those belonging to minorities, etc if leaders of activities truly believe in, model, and enforce an attitude of equality among participants.

Frankly, I see our society paying these values of inclusion and tolerance lip service. When we don't like how someone fits in our group on the basis of a subset of arbitrary characteristics, like age, we create a separate group for them so they can be "separate but equal". But what message does that send to the child, and to the participants allowed in the group? It says that we don't need to yield to others. The ego is paramount. It says subtly that your value as a person is constrained by how others perceive and value you, because you are only desirable to the group if and only if your participation requires zero concessions (even financially costless social ones) on their part.

So, Marnie, I guess I join you with this gutteral "uuugh!" of exasperation!

I totally agree, aquinas. The more I think about it, the more frustrated I get. I genuinely wonder whether a free public library event can actually (legally?) forbid someone from joining...though at this point, pushing the issue would be nothing short of silly, as the teacher has clearly expressed the fact that she doesn't want DS there, and so I can only image how she would respond to him in the class. But if the situation were reversed, say with a child that had cognitive delays wanting to do a class that was content appropriate, yet 'too young' for him age-wise...would they really turn him away? I simply can't imagine they would. So how is this any different?

Honestly, I am nothing short of disenchanted with the library's response to the situation - regardless of whether or not it would have worked. It would have been so easy to leave, if it there were any issues. So what is the harm?? That's what I don't understand.

I think I am going to tell DS that the class was cancelled, since I don't want him to become troubled about the circumstances surrounding his not being allowed to go.