Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy My dilemma that dragged me out of hiding!

Thanks for all the encouraging posts and sorry I haven't replied sooner - I have been distracted with health issues with my younger son. My DH and I have the meeting on Thursday and I think that we are going to ask about the acceleration. Differentiation hasn't worked for us so far, so unless something changes it is not keeping DS challenged. From what we have been told he is advanced across all subjects so maybe acceleration will be the easier option. From a social point of view, DS6 doesn't have any close friends his age and although he gets on with the other children and is very kind to them etc he doesn't seem to have much in common with them and tends to find playtimes quite stressful. He has always preferred adult company, although him and DS4 play beautifully together all the time. I am hoping that maybe we can trial acceleration and see how that works out.

Thanks everyone for all the support, there is no-one DH and I can talk to about all this and I need to get myself prepared for Thursday's meeting.

XX

Hi everyone. We had our meeting yesterday and it went well (I think). As usual I sat trembling the whole way through (I always do this in meetings about DS6!), but fortunately the presence of DH managed to stop me chattering away aimlessly

The Head is going to meet with all of DS6's teachers and get back to us next week with their proposed solution. DH and I tried not to rule anything out, we would still be happy for him to stay in his yeargroup and have differentiation, but I don't think that this has worked to date.

I think that the school are unlikely to accelerate him more than one grade - personally I am not sure if there is any point doing this because of all the upheaval and I don't think that the work will be sufficiently challenging - they will still have to differentiate and then we are back to square one!

On the bright side the Head is very kind and supportive and understanding of our situation so we can't ask for more than that. We just want DS6 to be happy. Hopefully next week we will have a solution!

XX

I'm glad that the head at least seems supportive. Hopefully you will like one of the proposed solutions next week. Please keep us posted.

Sounds like they're listening, at least, which is good. Do keep us posted ...

On the accelerating more than one year, I think usually accelerations are done one year at a time anyway? Someone *please* correct me if I'm wrong, but getting them to agree to one acceleration seems like a huge step toward getting them to realize his unusual needs. Good luck!

I think most of the posts sum up my view. Differentiation is best. Accelerate them and they just figure all that work out too and are still waiting. But the problem is - as is posted - differentiation gets mostly face talk. It ends up being a work sheet or writing another page. It doesn't end up in all cases as truly challenging, exciting work. While acceleration isn't perfect either - at least it isn't a constant battle that I've found with the differentiation claim.

We skipped k. And decided against professional advice not to skip 2nd. Now I'm not sure we made the right choice. There is no perfect here. I've been off the board much of this year tryig to hide in the sand and wish "it" all away. They don't complain much so it was easy. But we are wasting their little minds and rotting their souls (can you tell I'm in a funk) and worst yet - to me - they are not headed to learning ANY kind of work ethic. Some day they'll want something - it will be hard - and they won't know how to meet a challenge. Where is the cholocate? I wish the new president had HG/PG kids in public school so we'd have turned a new page on this... UGGGGGG! Is anyone out there just feeling tired of this not being a simple, check the box and move on?

Actually, I don't think differentiation is best as a policy. It's the only form of adjustment for GT kids that can actually result in a GT kid being effectively HELD BACK: if the child has a teacher who is great at differentiation one year and one who does no differentiation at all the next year, it's just like being held back--possibly more than one grade, even!

Honestly, I can't think of a much worse situation for an HG+ child than to be held back and have to repeat material after being allowed to jump ahead.

I would always prefer anything that is codified and given the official seal of approval of the bureaucracy; those adaptations are much harder for anyone in the school to undo.

That's not to say that differentiation doesn't help a kid, and done well, it can absolutely be a lifesaver. But it would NOT be the policy I'd be asking to get implemented. I think it's a pretty high risk option that relies much too heavily on the support of individual teachers, with no real bureaucratic force behind it to see to it that it happens daily and it works and it keeps on working for that particular child through all of the years of school.

Just my $.02...

For most school districts who cannot group the GT kids in one class together with a motivated teacher and proper curriculum, acceleration is going to be the best compromise.

There are really two groups to work with here - your child AND the school, both of which may be averse at first.

Not much in life is cut and dried and with a bureaucracy and people averse to change and risk, the best approach is to rock soup your way into the final configuration. Use this as a principle to get there.

Ask for pull outs to 2+ grades for reading or math or science then keep adding pullouts until your child is there and there are no issues means one day after Christmas break, they just go to grade 2+.

Everything in life is negotiable. Everything. Unless someone is mentally unstable, you should be able to rationally discuss things with them by agreeing on general principles then working within that framework.

To be honest I am finding the whole thing rather overwhelming and I am even finding myself starting to feel annoyed with poor DS6! I know it is not his fault but why does this all have to be so hard. I am very nervous if they accelerate him as (a) I think that he will be just as bored if it is only by one year (b) He is a sensitive boy and doesn't take well to change.

But, I am also nervous if they decide not to as he is already starting to hate Maths (he doesn't want to be doing addition, he wants fractions, decimals etc). He is also doing spellings etc. which are way too easy and obviously the differentiation to date hasn't worked. If he does come across something challenging he has an absolute panic, my biggest fear for him is that if he isn't used to working through a challenging problem he will struggle later in life when presented with one. He is also so different when he is happy with his work at school, so much happier and peaceful - it has an impact on our whole family.

Thank you so much for all your thoughts everyone, it is great to have people to talk to.

XX

The issues can happen sooner than you think. DS8 is on 2digit-x2digit multiplication. He can do it conceptually just fine but is now on the standard algorithm. Well, it was spread over 2 lessons. The first lesson we did the 2nd week of December. then there was a long Christmas break and we're just now getting back to it. I just went to the 2nd lesson but quickly realized DS needed to back up so we did. So then we did the 2nd lesson again. DS got very frustrated with it. He told me "This is hard. I'm so used to always knowing everything." This has really shaken him to his core ... so much so that he doesn't want to do math at all. Now he is by no stretch of the imagination a mathy kid (well, compared to this board - compared to ND peers, he is a mathy kid) but his happiness always revolves around how he feels about math which is one of the reasons he absolutely hated school. He's HS'd now. He is also in the winter doldrums which doesn't help at all. We'll do some fun math logic puzzles, algebra stuff which he enjoys to restore his faith in himself. I told him this is his learning opportunity to learn to stick with it when it gets hard. Granted, he's upset b/c I've had to explain this TWICE. We did 3-4 math lessons/day (we use Rightstart) since August trying to catch up to where he was and he was really enjoying math at that pace. I think we've been stuck in multiplication too long and it's time to move on. He loves fractions so that will perk him up. Also, b/c math is his strong area, we were doing it at night when he's less fresh etc so I'll be moving math back to the AM.

My point is this: not being challenged can have repercussions long before Middle school or highschool depending on the kid's personality.

Oh and another thing....missing windows....over a year ago, DS had figured out the multiplication algorithm on his own. I didn't follow up with it as we were having issues in school w/ him being advanced already ..... I never would have foreseen him having an issue w/ it later. I often think that the brain is ready to learn certain things and if they get their own their own, we need to help get them the rest of the way....strike while the fire is hot.

I agree, Dazey.