Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Twice Exceptional Kid flaming out. Anyone been through this?

Oh yes, YES. But let's face the real truth - that complex mind and intensity add up an exasperating, exhausting, gruelling, fascinating, intriguing, utterly extraordinary being, and even when you're tearing your hair out, it's impossible imagine living in this world without being able to see those astounding glimpses of what it looks like through his eyes.

<3 <3 <3 <3 <3

Important to remember!

Good luck making it through the rest of the year. Hugs.. Sounds like you are getting a lot of good advice. I've been there and I think you just have to take it one day at a time.

I know what you mean about doing badly in one class affecting the others. This happened to DS freshman year. He was really only having problems with 2 of his classes, but his anxiety & depression of the whole thing bled into the rest of his classes. And then lowered the grades in subjects he finds easy like math because he suddenly wasn't doing the homework for them either.

As to IF these grades affect college probably not. My DS's high school, junior high grades are not on the transcript even if they hare H.S. classes. (Only affects foreign language & math classes) I only know of one university that look at grades in any class taken before 9th grade, and they only look at H.S. math taken in 7th & 8th. (And it's self reported) And most of my state universities only look at grades 10th grade and older.

Do you know if that is a usual kind of policy, only looking at late high school grades?

The thing about DS' high school is that it's an IB school, and there are so many kids with near perfect GPAs that it would be very hard to be a top of the class student. I just can't make myself care about that right now!

I keep assuring him that he WILL go to college, that it's catastrophic thinking to believe he won't, reminding him that there are tons and tons of smart kids who wouldn't make it into his program in the first place and will go on to succeed.

He really did seem much better today. He's acting mad at me that I'm "making" him do this, but I think maybe he is a little relieved.

What grades colleges/universities look at really really varies as to the type of school. I can only write about what I know..

California public universities (both the Cal State & University system) only consider 10th grade grades and up for their GPA. (With one notable exception, and that's a school DS is interested in.) Although they do require proof that students have passed C or better a certain set of classes, some which are taken freshman year. For example freshman English, or Social Studies.

I do know that some other public universities do this as well but I can't tell you which ones. I don't even know if the out-of-state school DS is looking at cares about freshman grades and we forgot to ask when we were looking at these schools. Because this is standard for our state, a 10th-12th academic GPA it's built into our transcripts.

Private, small LA universities usually do look at all H.S. grades. But as they are often more holistic towards their grading they often will reward growth. Ie, will take into account students who struggle as freshman in H.S. but have a excellent GPA by junior year.

Edited to add: Googling it it looks like California State (and University) Schools make up the large number of schools that don't look at freshman grades. So while it's something commonly talked about in CA, it's not true through the rest of the county.

Since one of DS mega dramas is that he will NEVER get out of this "hellhole" (meaning the midwest) now that he already has a bad HS GPA--and he's always said he wants to head west--that's not bad news.

I think Stanford is probably not going to happen, though. :P

Eco you already lots of great suggestions from others, I will echo the need to scaffold and support him through all this at the moment. This is essential so he doesn't shut down completely, after that you can talk to him about ongoing strategies he can use in future to avoid so much work piling up.

He is only in junior high, so I think Stanford should still be a possibility for him :-)

Oddly Standford according to one source Stanford one of the few schools that doesn't require freshman grades. But it's probably true Standford's unlikely. Given how low Stanford's acceptance rate is these days.

I think any competitive school is unlikely, unless DS suddenly makes a few gigantic developmental leaps. He refuses to participate in any club, extracurricular, or sport and I don't have the energy to force the issue. Between his organizational problems and my own...I can't make the EFfort.<--!

(I think there's a chance he might be more risk-taking if he weren't so exhausted from school in the first place.)

I probably should take all of this college prep stuff more seriously, but I just can't get excited about it. Watching my DD11 who is completely involved in all aspects of school, signs herself up (ugh!) for every possible competition and activity

(I actually tried to REFUSE to allow her to do the spelling bee--but we ended up compromising with "I'm not helping you study" (mom of the year again)),

I've come away with a strong hunch that there's not a lot to be gained by trying to force DS to be anyone but himself. This stuff seems to be so related to temperament.

That went a little OT, huh?

Try to embrace the truth that he wouldn't be happy at any school that wanted him to be someone other than himself. He will find his tribe eventually.