That being said, misbehavior must be addressed; being gifted does not explain or justify poor social skills. Testing may help determine whether mismatched curriculum may be at the root of the misbehavior (for example, greater academic challenge keeps your child mentally occupied and behaving) or whether your child may also have a learning difference or learning disability (and may benefit from remediation and/or direct training in social skills). As many topics on the forum tend to repeat, there are old threads on these topics, which may be of interest.
Totally, absolutely agree with this. But the huge change in our life that I referred to re testing was this: the testing results made me understand that for my DS, typical discipline strategies were worse than useless. They are almost all based on the assumption that the child can, but just won't do X. Testing helped me understand that there are things that typical kids can do, that he can't (and vice versa).
So yes, he can read at 9th grade level in first grade. But he cannot YET sit "criss-cross applesauce" cheek by jowl with a bunch of loud (to him), smelly (to him), unpredictable (to him) aliens (to him). And no amount of sticker charts or behavior modification charts or threats or punishments will change that.
[this is only one example of DS's challenges. there were many, many in school rooted both in sensitivity and boredom. work in progress]
The imposition of all these misdirected strategies just made him feel like more and more of a failure. "Mom, I was just born to be bad and I'll always be bad" he said in tears one late night as he struggled to get to sleep.
What did help him start to change was an understanding - mostly by his dad and me and mostly by us finally taking his assessment results to heart - that he WAS trying and it really WAS harder for him, and he didn't just need to get with the program. He needed help dealing with his intense feelings.
We work hard on this every day. Honestly, DS learns next to nothing in school academically. But we believe that this challenge is just as important for him as multiplication is for his classmates. And he IS getting there. It's so funny - when I get a call from the school office saying DS had trouble today because he was talking without waiting for his turn, all I can think is "oh wow I will SO take this over the struggles from two years ago."
So anyway - assessment results and giftedness DO NOT excuse behavior. But they sure can help guide you to the right way to discipline - teach - your child better behavior.
Ooops - sort of a long rant there. Hope there is something useful buried in it!
Sue
