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I graduated from math and science High-school at 15, went to get BS and MS. My wife graduated GED and got BA in history. We have two DD 1st and 3rd grade both in the reach program(s).

On the daily bases for the last four years, after reading this forum, my wife telling DDs that "school is not teaching", their teachers are cr@p, even told them not to do the morning work they are required to complete. To the point where they repeating this lunacy.

In the school system after the fourth grade children are accelerated if they have meet certain NWEA score. So far DW attacked 8 teachers. She insists that teacher should teach 6th grade material for my 3rd grader to "succeed", because my daughter was helicopter taught spot subjects. DW claims that if they don't meet NWEA score at 3rd grade they she fail. Insists on withdrawing from school at the third grade, but that would cause her to not be able to participate in accelerated learning after the fourth grade in the middle school.

So instead of enjoying school my 3rd grader is tortured with 6th grade math to meet 230-240 band. - Ridiculous, not even sure is needed, completely pointless as DD still have a year of learning to reach this target.

This is all too familiar to me, my high school time was destroyed - because girls were afraid to be near 13 year old, I spent all time studying in my room. College was not initially much better because you are three years younger than classmates. In addition no one will hire 18 years old with BS degree. - What is the point?

WHY IS THAT OK TO DO THIS TO YOUR CHILD.

I am posting here because I want her to see. Thanks.

The point is that a child who is never asked to do anything even vaguely difficult will develop a self image and sense of self that says they do everything effortlessly. The first time they come up against something they can't do without thinking they collapse and refuse to even try. There is research to show this.

In life, it's effort and willingness to get up, dust yourself off and try again which helps you succeed. And I'm using succeed here to mean being a happy, contented, confident person. Those are not skills you just magically acquire, you have to learn them.

It sounds like your wife experienced this, as I and many others on here did. For me, it was at university where I finally encountered something difficult, so I shut down and walked away.

You experience tells you that college at fifteen is not great, so don't send your kids at fifteen. Send them to tend bar on the ski slopes in Canada for a year, get them to do some Coursera or edX courses while they perfect their golf swing. Whatever, but just because someone completes high school doesn't mean they need to go to college the next year. Hell, maybe your kids will stay in high school doing all the subjects until they're a more common college age.

Some things you might find informative to google are "zone of proximal development" and "the calculus trap". There's also an article in the NYT called something like "don't tell kids they're smart".

It sounds like you and your wife are not on the same page about this and need to really talk about it. I am definitely in favor of advocating for your child, but it does need to be done sensitively.

Additionally, I would suggest that you get objective data about your kids and their level of giftedness. What is their instructional level at school in math and reading? (If the school says they are above grade level, they often do not want to do more testing to find out how much above grade level, but it really helps guide education decisions to know.) Typically, differenciation can be done effectively in the classroom if it is within one grade level above that grade.

This.

This sounds like an issue between you and your wife-- I frankly understand both points if view. It sounds like your wife has some anxiety about your children's success and is perhaps identifying her own experiences too closely. I gather that you may have longed for a more normal teen experience without the constant pressure.

I've learned with any kid-- but especially magnified in gifted kids that intellectual readiness and developmental readiness can be out of synch.

My son goes to a private school where the teachers emphasize a high skill level over rapid acceleration. It works best for my DS because he receives very difficult work that stresses analysis and strong comprehension with *some* acceleration. My DS tends to be careless and occasionally try to do the minimum. He could be accelerated several years in math, but would not have the depth, nor learn about the hard work until he's in over his head. My point with this is to *know* your child and they are all different no matter their gifts.

You and your wife need to talk in a way that you can bond over your shared dissatisfaction of your earlier lives- perhaps with a therapist to facilitate a genuine exchange. I know you both long for your children to be content and no doubt there is middle ground. Good luck to you.

It sounds like there is a conflict regarding what/how to communicate with the children.

I don't think it's fair (to the child or the teacher) to tell a child they don't have to follow school rules, but still put them in that environment. Too much cognitive dissonance--and you can be sure the child will be confused and respond inappropriately (or, really, appropriately but not in a way that will help).

OTOH, I don't think it's fair not to communicate with the child at all.

Sounds to me like everyone needs to take a step back from their own perspectives and try to understand what will be most helpful to the child. It's really difficult when you feel you were actively damaged by your educational experience (each in your own way). It's often the case the best answer lies in the grey areas.

For instance, "I know it's difficult to see the importance of the morning work (validation), but when you are in school, there is value in learning to do things that are challenging for you." (In this sense the challenge is the self-discipline).

Hope that helps a little

- With regard to age and teen romance, it's important to note that the experience is quite different between boys and girls. Your acceleration, as a boy, made things difficult for you. Your daughters are unlikely to face the same problem. Girls typically want to date older boys (and gifted girls in particular, since an intellectual/emotional equal is likely to be older than they are), boys don't mind younger girls, and your DDs would be presented with a larger selection than most. They could still find themselves excluded due to other reasons, but their age should be no issue.

They could have other issues, because they're around older, and therefore more physically mature, boys, so they're more vulnerable than most. If they're running with a gifted cohort, those boys are often of advanced social/emotional maturity themselves, but you'd still want to pay close attention to who they're hanging out with.

- You have characterized your DW's math lessons as "spot helicoptering," and your DD's experience of it as "torture." If these characterizations are correct, then I agree, that's a bad thing. Good reasons for accelerating a student three years in math would be that the child is actively pushing for more, acting out in outrage over the school's curriculum because it's too easy/boring, and because children need something in their lives which is challenging so they learn how to overcome adversity, and build resilience... for most kids in school, math satisfies that.

So, how are those conditions met in your house? Is your DD pushing for it? Is your DD complaining about school, and math in particular? Is her boredom/frustration in school bleeding over into social/emotional problems? My own DD10 checked all three questions next to the box marked "yes" to these questions.

And finally, but most important... is there anything else she could be doing in which she learns to overcome challenges through persistence and practice, apart from math? Given the choice between alternative activities and math, would she choose math?

My DD has expressed interest all over the board, and has tried, at various times:

- Dance
- Gymnastics
- Soccer
- Guitar
- Drama
- Robotics
- Choir
- Flute

All of these are activities in which nobody is born ready to do, they all take time, patience, and repetition to hone, so they'll all do as substitutes for math in teaching practice, perseverance, and overcoming challenges. She likes them all to different degrees, but the one that absolutely captures her passion is gymnastics. The probability that she translates this passion into a college scholarship or a spot on the Olympic training team is very low, but since that's not why we're doing it, DW and I are pleased to help DD push herself just as far as she can.

So, our DD does have a one-year math acceleration, and she is complaining about it, but we're not pushing the school any harder, because, as you said, she's got plenty of time to learn it, and in the meantime, her needs are being met outside of math.

This isn't a gifted issue, it's a marital issue. Go get on the same page as your wife, get help communicating effectively (I don't know you, but posting to forums so your spouse will see it is not an effective method of communication). Your children will benefit from this more than anything else you two do.

Once you two are aligned, it will be much easier to determine what your children need and want and work together to advocate for the most appropriate education.

I'm going to jump from what Dude says above (insightful as always)-- and add--

even for girls, college at such a young age is no picnic. I don't know if it was different back in the day, as I was a bit older (2y) when I went-- but my DD15 has experienced negative stuff socially as a result of her age.

She can't go to a place that serves liquor at all because of her age-- and she's the only one. Her peers are mostly 20-23yo.

That age difference and the current sexual assault/consent climate surrounding colleges, + our state's age of consent being 18y, means that the only guys who WILL date her are the ones that are super immature/icky for some reason of their own, or those who are, um-- oblivious-- about the law and their own futures. Both things indicate not-great family backgrounds or values, I'd say. The intelligent and conscientious ones are thinking "jail bait-- BIG time."

Yes, there are those who want to save her for later, (like, when she's of age), but that tends to result in a dynamic which is patronizing and DD hates being the "kid sister" to anyone. I can't really blame her for that, given that she is in many ways MUCH older than her 18-19yo freshmen classmates in terms of her responsibility and decision-making. She counsels THEM-- and they listen, quite frankly, because she is perceptive and has great judgment.

Is it better than being with agemates? Well, yeah-- it is. It's just not awesome. It might be on a campus with a specialty in young matriculants. That isn't the case where she is attending Uni-- she is one of perhaps a dozen kids under 16, spread out over a campus of 30K students, and with no particular supports or mentoring for them.


I'll also say that you and your spouse sound much like a more extreme version of the same push-pull attitudes and experiences that my own spouse and I have over academics, push-parenting, opportunity, and what constitutes "too much" or "not enough" for our daughter.

Our situation is this:
our daughter was accelerated a lot (like you)-- but it still was nothing like enough academically-- she is NOW learning that learning is work. This is something that most children learn when they are under 10 years old, and she refused to learn it then, because teachers (and everyone but us) were too busy handing out gold stars and certificates and accolades to her just for showing up and breathing. Well-- or so it seemed to us (and her).

That went on and on-- all through high school, in fact, and resulted in a stellar resume in spite of her age, in fact, a #1 class rank, even. And now, she's in real trouble because she has NO idea how to study. She has no idea how to fight for understanding. She has no idea (not really) how to adequately budget time to get a lot done. She has never needed to do any of that.

So I say that to note that I completely understand where your spouse may be coming from.

Much depends on your children and their actual needs.

I hope that you don't take this the wrong way-- but--

it's not about you. It's not about your spouse, either. It's about your children and what they NEED. (Not what they want, but what "responsive and loving parenting" needs to be for them as individuals).

My DH and I didn't do so great at giving our DD what she needed-- and while we can make excuses about how we tried, I'm kicking myself now for not having tried a lot HARDER to get it to her, even though she would not have been happy about it at the time. We failed in part because like you-- we were too often NOT IN THE SAME MINDSET ABOUT THOSE GOALS. <-- please, please, please address that.

We did force her to stick with some things which were good for her-- but they were all extracurriculars, and frankly she was awfully talented at most of those things, too, so looking back, they still came far too easily to her.