Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy Early College Entrance - radically early

So if I'm understanding this correctly, academically, he could easily be placed wholly into the 9th grade at this point, with English skills beyond that, but his self-management and executive function skills are not quite there, and there are additional e's that interfere with written production.

I've mentioned before that my parents had a radical acceleration policy of placing their children into academics that were about 1-1.5 years -below- actual instructional level, so that there would be cognitive energy left for meeting executive function demands. (With resulting placements ranging up to 8 years accelerated.) Some offered accelerations were refused, either by my parents, or by their child. Others were clearly necessary, both at the time, and in retrospect.

It seems to me that you do have two questions: radical academic acceleration, and helping his current behavioral presentation to become less of an obstacle to his whole person development.

With respect to the second of these, you may have seen Ross Greene's work referenced previously. I highly recommend obtaining and reading a copy of "The Explosive Child" (https://www.amazon.com/Explosive-Child-Understanding-Frustrated-Chronically/dp/0062270451), and checking out the free materials on his website: www.livesinthebalance.org

regarding Collaborative and Proactive Solutions (aka, Collaborative Problem-Solving).

Oh wow! Lives in the Balance is new to me! This looks very hopeful! I started using Love and Logic about 2 months ago. Huge conflict for 3 - 4 weeks, then peaceful for 4 weeks until his therapist assigned a writing homework. From what I've skimmed from the website Ross Greene's work will help in situations where he's struggling and not trying to manipulate. After L&L, this was more of a meltdown. different, less tantrum-y, less controlling. But my L&L skills have no effect. Which does point to a lagging skill, and writing is the highest challenge to his EF so where he feels the lag most. I skimmed their lagging skills worksheet - I can check off most of them.

Thank you for sharing this resource with me!!!

Also thank you for sharing your family's experience with placing kids below their academic level to ease cognitive load for EF. This sounds very appropriate! This model helps me clarify so much about schooling options for next year. How to reduce overall academic demand from his best-case scenario so that he can develop EF skills *and* progress academically.

Thank you, you have no idea how much help you've been! ❤️

Update for thread followers!

My son was formally accelerated to 7th grade in his virtual school. I attended community college classes and he went with me to campus an did his online school. He made friends on campus ❤ but didn't do very well staying on task. I requested a 30 day extended absense for ADHD medication adjustments. We found a medication that worked much better. I pulled him out of virtual school near the end of the semester because I was not happy that he was not getting any electives. The school requires good grades in core classes before allowing students to take electives.

Homeschooling is surprisingly awesome! He's doing one subject at a time, which avoids most his ADHD difficulties. He finished up middle school science and now in all high school level. He's taking piano lessons at the community college this spring and I plan to enroll him for a music appreciation or music history class this fall. For now, he is binge-watching Great Courses. ❤ and his piano teacher is teaching him music theory in preparation for AP Music Theory ❤

Good to hear you and your son have found an educational setting that works for you!

Updates in case this saga helps anyone.

Virtual school was a flop. Piano lessons were a fail. Tried another piano instructor (a university professor) - also a fail.

I sent him to public school the following school year. 5th grade by age, he enrolled into 5th grade and was skipped into 6th grade with subject acceleration and a project-base G/T class. He did exceptionally poorly, on academic probation and lost a subject acceleration due to classroom behavior.

Then homeschool last year. He failed homeschool classes. Like, I had no idea that was possible. So, homeschool again this year, registered him for 6th grade again (effectively now held back a year) and he's going through the same textbooks and lesson plan again. Guess what.... straight F's again.

He is in therapy. We've been promoting growth mindset and CBT at home for 2 years now. Inattentiveness has been ruled out for cause of his behavior. His previous response to ADHD medication turned out to be placebo effect. He has had thorough medical workups - nothing medically going on that can explain his behavior.

If there are any other parents of kids who are floundering and failing behaviorally and emotionally despite parents' best efforts to guide them, please reach out and message me.

Re: radically early college entrance, I am waiting on maturity, study skills, and enough grit to manage a college class. Been waiting 3 years since he was academically ready for college classes. IDK.

So sorry to hear that you and he have been in such pain for these past few years. My heart goes out to you.

If you were to find a solid block of uninterrupted relaxed, quiet, low-pressure time, like during a long walk or over a snack at a favorite restaurant, and say, "help me understand what's going on with schooling--I'm just going to listen, and maybe ask the occasional question so I understand better," what do you think he would say?

I remember that you've reported that he has slow processing speed, and can struggle to organize his thoughts when expressing language on paper. It may be that he needs much more time to formulate his thoughts; the more challenging and complex the thoughts and feelings are, the more time he will need to pull them together in his mind, and communicate them. Good to hear he is in therapy. Does he have a good connection with his therapist?

And I would agree with Portia that an online college class might be a productive experiment. (FWIW, there are members of my FOO who were academically ready for college at the age he was when you started this thread, but didn't actually enter until early teens, precisely because of asynchronies in EF and social-emotional maturity.)

You may also wish to consider that the instructional level he has been receiving for the past couple of years is simultaneously well below his ZPD, and appropriate to his executive functions--while the intent may have been to allow him to fill in his weaknesses, he may be responding most strongly to the lack of challenge, which is impairing his ability to access his skills in his areas of weakness (e.g., emotional/behavioral self-regulation, and EF/organizational skills). Like many here, there is this ongoing conundrum: how to prioritize his mixture of strengths and weaknesses at any given moment.

Did you deschool before homeschooling? And did you homeschool or do a public school at home system?

Did you deschool before homeschooling? And did you homeschool or do a public school at home system?

Hi sanne,

You've received great replies above.
I have no insight or advice to offer for getting to the heart of his behavior issues.

For him to keep moving forward with his education, might he take to some form of self-directed unschooling? There are lots of resources to be found by following links in the thread on the "Self-Taught" movie. Although I wrote that thread/post, it was actually puffin asking about deschooling that made me wonder whether unschooling might be a good fit for your son.

Sending hugs.