Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy Advocating for an Anxious Child

We meet with our son's school tomorrow morning to discuss evaluation results. Since we pursued the evaluation on our own, I am not giving them a full report.

He did not do as well as anticipated on the WISC-V. GAI 120. His processing speed was lower than other areas, and he had some processing issues on another test he took.

When we discussed the results with the doctor, he stated external factors could have played a role in the results. For one, he has anxiety and scored himself pretty high on social anxiety issues. For two, there is some inattentiveness going on, but nothing diagnosis worthy. We need more information. Additionally, anxiety can present as distraction, inattentiveness, and uncontrollable behavior, so it's really hard to tell exactly what the underlying issue is.

We know he has some perfection issues....he stated he worries about not doing things right. He shuts down if he thinks he can't do something. Not an uncommon issue. We don't have a lot of testers around here with experience in testing gifted kids. They're experienced in testing LDs and ADD/ADHD type of stuff. In hindsight, I really should have found SOMEONE with more experience with gifted kids, but nothing I can do now.

Here's the thing. DS had an anxiety last week. The principal did not react in a positive way, threatening my child and stating his reaction was because he didn't get his way. It is obvious that she, along with some of the other professionals, does not understand how anxiety can present in children. He's very high energy and an extrovert. He does not shy away in a corner. He rather make people laugh....after all, then he's controlling it.

Does anyone have any suggestions on how I can better explain what is going on with this child and why he needs additional support and more challenges in the classroom? I'm hitting a wall and becoming very frustrated with what I feel a total disregard to listen. We have tried having his psychologist reach out. They refused to maintain contact with her. Thank you.

Yikes!! Your principal sounds horrible! I wish I had something to useful for you, except hugs. My DS has anxiety too, and it doesn't always look like people think it should look.

How old is your DS? Did he cooperate with the tester beyond the inattentiveness? If he was extremely anxious it could have resulted in him "blanking out" (that's how anxiety affects me).

I don't have any suggestions for how to deal with a horrible principal, unfortunately, especially when they won't even talk to the psychologist. How is your son's teacher this year?

Anyway, I hope you find some answers. This is a great place to find them

Hugs... I've been there. Had a principal once react very badly to one of DS's anxiety attacks myself. I'll get back a bit later today with suggestions I need a time to formulate my answer and I'm going out the door right now.

It does seem difficult to convince anyone that class-clown behavior can be an anxiety symptom, but yeah.

Is your DS' verbal ability a strength for him? For mine, high verbal ability + poor social insight = making jokes. I think it's his social currency, because he truly is very funny.

Does your DS struggle with social skills, along with social anxiety? It might be helpful to get some help in that area (with counseling, etc.) I'm not sure you'll ever convince the principal to see this for what it is--but it might help if DS felt more competent making social connections through some more positive behaviors.

I'm just starting this again for this year (my 8yo seems to have anxiety and outbursts--couldn't even make it through one week, so it's time to chat with her new teacher!). We're finally asking for an eval. So I've just been reading that you can get a 504 for that. Sounds like it might be worth it in your case so you can get some appropriate responses in place for when the anxiety causes a disruption. Just some beginning info, I'm sure there are lots who have really been through it who can speak with greater insight.

DS is six, almost seven. I'm not really sure how he did in testing. The doctor we met with was not the tester. And the tester was not the one to provide the results. All very odd to me. He basically answered our questions based solely on the results of the tests rather than any observations.

The principal is young and she's just starting her second year, so I'm sure she didn't MEAN to react the way she did, but doing so can have detrimental effects.

Yes, his verbal ability is a strength and he's very quick to point out errors in what others say (mostly me). He actually does quite well with peers; however, he will attach very tightly to one peer and one adult at the school. When he can't be near that child, it's a problem for him. He'll be "defiant" in trying to be close to the other child.

He's an extrovert and has no issues talking to kids. For a while, he really had a hard time getting to know kids because I think he came on too strong. Now he says, "Other kids think I'm weird, but that's okay because they think it's funny." I don't really know how to take that!

Bluemagic, I'll keep checking in.

(I did print off the DSM-V criteria for anxiety, panic attacks and ADHD. The principal is going to hate me).

Is this a SST (Student Study Team if your in a US public school) meeting or just a meeting with the principal? Don't be scared of a SST, it just means the meeting with have more than just the principal and is often the first step needing to get a 504.

You certainly should go to this meeting with the idea that the principal didn't mean to react the way she did. The key her to talk as if you are ALL ON THE SAME team. Keep your animosity towards how she behaved as a minor point/example as to how not to react. It's hard because so many people see this type of behavior as defiant when it really the child just becoming overwhelmed and it's hard to get them to see it that way.

The first thing to do is get everyone to agree on what the problem. Using my son's anxiety attacks in 6th grade as my example. What I agreed with my son's principal & teacher was it was "inappropriate for my son to be throwing fits in class". It's important that you acknowledge that there is a problem but try and reframe it so you talk specifically about behavior that is the problem and defer labeling until you can get everyone to agree to this step. If you can do this it should help facilitate your introducing why you believe the behavior is happening. DON'T SKIP THIS STEP.. if the principal tries to move on too fast keep trying to bring her back to this until you agree on the problem first. If you can't agree on the problem you won't be able to agree on a solution.

Only after agreeing about the problem should you move on to discuss why it's happening, the anxiety, and the potential solutions. Break the solutions down to three important steps. 1) How to lower his anxiety thus prevent attacks in the future. 2) How a teacher can recognize and defuse the situation when he gets anxious. 3) What to do if he overreacts again, and this is where you can bring up the principals inappropriate reaction.

Part one is going to be the most complex and you still may need to do more testing understand it all. You will probably not come up with a full solution tomorrow but you might find short term things to try for #2 & #3. The anxiety needs to be address for your son to be overall successful at school and might end up needing at 504 or IEP.

While at the meeting in order to look like I was working with them. I wrote down all their suggestions even if I thought they wouldn't work and said I'd look into them. I did things to show that I was activity working on the problem at home. In DS's case I explained that I was hiring out outside psychologist to work on his anxiety with him. I also agreed to have DS work with the school social worker, I thought it unlikely to help but my son said he did get some useful techniques from her.

My DS was in 6th grade and just turned 12 when we had the biggest problems. What we did that spring was 1) had him work with a private psychologist, talk about the fact that much of the stress was because of that particular class, school & teacher and he would be moving to junior high in the fall. Teacher modified the amount of work on some assignments. 2) He learned from both the school social worker & his psychologists how to recognize an attack was happening. He learned how to putting his head on his desk, closing his eyes and counting would calm him down. This was also a sign to the teacher who wouldn't make a big deal about his doing this. My son & the teacher worked out a code between them so he could alert my son he was starting to lose it. (It's not uncommon for those having anxiety attack to not know they are having them.) 3) If he went into full mode, he was to be allowed to go somewhere quiet to calm down. If that didn't work I would get called and take him home for the rest of the day.

I had the most problem with implementing #3. The principal thought my son should be able to talk about what triggered his attack immediately afterwards. I came to pick him up once to find the rest of class taking recess early and the principal & aid had him cornered in the classroom trying to get him to talk about what happened and then they expected that he would just open up when I arrived. While both the principal & the teacher were trying they still a long way to go to understanding anxiety. Usually after an attack my son couldn't even remember why it happened.

What I didn't do then but should have was have a full neuropyc workup. When I finally did we found out DS has low working memory and processing speed and this probably aggravates his stress level.

Thank you. This is all very useful information. He is seeing an outside psych FOR anxiety, and they are all well aware of that. He had a "wild animal" episode in the jump start K the summer before kindergarten started. We took steps to ensure this didn't happen again by introducing him to people and allowing him to explore before school started. It worked well. We had issues last year, don't get me wrong, but not like that. This year, they changed the entire after school program and he was not prepared. By about day 6, we had an episode.

We are meeting with the principal, counselor and teacher. We have met twice with a bigger group. Those three, two instructional coaches, and the director of curriculum and gifted services (although she has zero experience with gifted services. It's a small school district). I was pushing for IAS, but they wanted to wait until we received scores, which we paid for out of pocket. Unfortunately timing is everything, and we didn't get the report back until after first grade started. Compound that with DS's extreme hesitation to consider acceleration (anxiety), and we decided it might be better to work with his teacher.

She has said, "He wants to do the right thing." Last year, all we heard, other than he's smart, is he's overwhelming, he's manipulative, he's too much in the classroom, etc. It's so great to hear something different and for someone to actually see that he really does want to do the right thing. It's a point that came up on the Anxiety Index (MASC).

I'm going to try to find some common ground and get us all to agree. I'm also going to suggest some curriculum compacting. I THINK the teacher will be susceptible. I hope. If not, I may have to push for a 504. He already has one for Celiac...so why not one more?

Thank you so much for your advice. It's very helpful!

I'm glad I was helpful. I just remembered the name of a book I wanted to suggest if you haven't already seen it.

The Explosive Child by Ross W. Greene.

When dealing with advocating with the schools about my son (when he was young) whose anxiety came out sideways (looked like anger, or sometimes a bazillion questions, in the beginning stages until he was completely unglued), I was lucky (?) because I had specific things that caused anxiety attacks. Bathrooms (flushing), elevators, changes in routine without warning, etc.

So in our meeting we first tackled the very specific triggers and I shared what worked and what I specifically didn't want them to do. Like there is no elevator in the school but if for some reason they were on a field trip and there was an elevator...this is the protocol for handling it. (That never came up but in discussing it I could go over what anxiety looked like in him, what our psychologist's and family plan for handling it was). So then we moved over to bathroom which was going to occur at school. Signs, symptoms, plan of action. What not to do. Then we moved on to change of plans/schedule unexpected. By this time they were getting the picture of what it looked like in the beginning stages and where it could end up if not handled correctly.

That was the list of specific anxiety triggers. Then I explained to them that he also had just low level general anxiety going 24/7 and it didn't take much to push him over the edge. Really it was a bucket thing...he could look fine but that one drop added to his bucket could cause a flood. I really just asked that if I emailed and said we were going on hour 3 of anxiety attack/melt down and that I was calling an end to homework for that day...that they not penalize him academically for his disability and to give him time to regroup and try again and turn it in late. MOST of his attacks happened at home. That was one of the problems in that they didn't witness the worst of it. (but luckily his classmates didn't either so he was never stigmatized by his actions...sometimes he was grumpier than necessary in the first stages of his anxiety but kids could understand a random bad mood).

Anyway...I hope something in there helps.