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My DS7 got accepted into DYS this month. I am thinking of signing him up for this year's summit. While I was deciding whether to have my son tested, some DYS parents mentioned that one of reasons to join is to be able to attend the summit. What are your past experiences with the summit, especially for younger kids?

My DS9 is not DYS so he will not be able to attend. Do you have suggestions on how we should mention this to DS9, if we decide to attend (most likely just DS7 and me)? We don't want him to feel he's left out. However, I don't want to hold my DS7 back because of this...

TIA

I'm sending you a PM. :-)

I PMed you back. Thank you

We went there in 2014. It was a well planned event and a good experience for DS11. I enjoyed all the parent seminars and the best part is when other parents share similar issues and concerns and you feel belong.

We live in CA so it is not too far away for us. We decide to go again this year but have not decided to bring DS9, who is not DYS. He is only two points away though but we just don't want to get through another testing to try to make the cut. There was not much DS9 could do there, and they did not allow non DYS sibling inside for parent seminar, so my husband had to be with him when I was in parent seminars.

Thank you for sharing your experience. If we are going this year, it will probably just be DS7 and me. My DH will stay home with DS9. Whether we go or not this year, though, we will still have the concern of how to explain to DS9 when DS7 is going to certain events or doing certain activities but he's not eligible to go/do.

I have some ideas on how to do it but I would love to hear suggestions from parents who have to deal with similar situation.

We have the same issue, with DD12 a DYS and DSalmost8 not. The last couple of years, I have gone with her and left my husband home with my son for a "boy party" weekend. (I make lots of jokes about them practicing fart noises and eating hot dogs together.) He hasn't asked a lot of questions, really. They don't always go to the same events or camps or whatever, and it has rarely come up as an issue. I think it would be a much bigger deal if we brought him to Reno and he wasn't able to do workshops that DD was doing.

So my guess is that your best strategy is going to be to plan something fun for your DH and him to do while you are at the Summit, and focus his attention on that instead of on what his brother is doing.

Thank you ElizabethN.

Our boys are less than 2 years apart so they have been doing pretty much everything together. They have martial arts, piano, enrichment classes at the university and even summer camps together. I think DS9 will be OK staying home with DH if DS7 is going to the summit. You are right if he goes, it would be worse seeing his brother going to the workshops and he can't.

We have gone twice, but are taking a break this year. The first time, DD8 had not been tested, and felt really left out. I strongly suggest not bringing older non-DYS kids to Summit, unless one of the parents plans to do something completely different with them during the day. There are limited activities on campus (the game room is open to non-DYS, I believe, and there is a small playground). But DD was keenly aware that most of the kids were going off to interesting activities, and she was not.

The second time was much better, since both kids were DYS.

That's so nice that both your DCs are DYS. Mine will not. While DS7 is DYS, DS9 is close to MG. So going forward we will have challenges as DS7 maybe taking more advanced subjects in school than DS9.

Currently they are two grades apart. DS9 is taking challenged math so he's half grade accelerated. When I asked the school for individualized learning plan for DS7, they did mention that they could have put him to the same class that DS9 is taking but one of the reasons they did not is because DS9 is in that class (besides they want to make sure he doesn't have any gaps and gets familiar with the math vocabs before getting more accelerated). I agree with that decision. So DS7 will start the third grade challenge math in 2nd grade when DS9 will be in a different class and different campus.