Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy DS MUST go on field trip

Somewhereonearth, as an aside, I think our husbands would get along. DH, a lawyer, goes from polite and terse to an ungodly firestorm of argument-decimating verbal ripostes in the blink of an eye. People think I'm the bad cop until they meet his game face. He leaves no survivors.

Are you still here?!

LOL, I thought the same thing!

I hate it when the principal doesn't take your word for it and tries to undermine you by going to the male figure in the family. Hello! Gotta tell you though - LOVED your DH's response.

nicoledad, thanks for your input in this discussion. We generally allow DS7 to make all decisions in our house. He rules the roost. We find that things work better that way.

Just kidding. We actually did the school-knows-best-so-do-what-they-say-and-effectively-sit-down-and-shut-up (for a couple of months). What we found was that the "professionals" actually didn't have a clue how to educate this child. This, in and of itself, would have been ok if they had just said, "we don't know what we're dealing with - let's figure out how to meet your son's needs." What ended up happening is that staff said all sorts of things, made a lot of promises - in writing - and then truly ignored all of the promises. They literally left my son sitting and waiting - for months - for accommodations that they had PROMISED him and me. When I did my investigation to try to figure out why my super duper social and relatively compliant son was refusing to go to school, I found that he was an anxious child at school who was being ignored. (And yes, I have had staff repeat to me, "your son needs to learn to not ask questions and to sit down and do what he's told." What he was doing before we began partial homeschooling, was filling out classroom worksheets with variations of "I don't know." The attitude was clearly out of a prior decade - maybe the 1950s. Yet the teachers were mostly born in the 1980s. I digress.)

When I brought in my son's IQ scores and report and illustrated that he was at least 4 SD out to the right of that bell curve, I got the shrug. I was assured that the Very Experienced Professionals would take of things. So, to say that I have a major trust problem with the staff of this school would be a huge understatement.

Not that I need to justify anything to anyone here, but I think it may be useful to those who post and read here. When my son declared that he didn't want to go on this trip, I was surprised. He typically likes a fun day with friends on the bus doing whatever they are doing. He appears to have outgrown that. We had a long discussion about his thoughts about the trip and what he thought would be a suitable replacement for that day. It all sounded good to me. In fact, I was quite proud of how he thought out activities for the day. He was not trying to evade something moderately unpleasant. He was simply thinking practically, actually.

As far as money, it's not an big issue. But the trip is to a place to which we are already members. The school doesn't allow a family to use their membership cards on field trips ("too confusing for the teachers"). But again - why should I waste my money (any amount of it) for something that doesn't appear to have much value for me or my child?

My child has plenty of growth and resilience opportunities as a result of being put in frustrating situations (has anyone read, The Blessing of a Skinned Knee?). An elementary school field trip to me is a bit like a friend's birthday party at that age. Go if you want to go, don't go if you don't want to go.

They're doing partial homeschooling (which I'm sure is a pretty rare opportunity). They get to pick and choose what they want from the school, so there're some advantages that make it worth putting up with some of the weirdness, I guess. OP can clarify.

Oh my gosh, I am dying laughing! The Jim jones Nature Center! (Loved HK's Kool Aid comment ealier too - laughed so much ) Where are the parents like you at my DS's school!?!

22B, yes you win a prize too! I was searching back in the posts because I didn't remember who had made your comment.

PM'd you!

I agree with the rare opportunity comment. I am certainly not up on any laws regarding partial homeschooling but couldn't that be taken away?