Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy Am I too focused on 'gifted'?

acs:

I apologize for putting things in a way that you see as an attack on your choices. I hope you know me well enough to know that was NEVER my intention.

I respect you deeply. I respect your choices. I respect that we are all different. I certainly don't think you abuse your child and NEVER intended to imply that!

OTOH, I do think extended periods of boredom were the equivalent of abuse for my child, and I do not think that he is alone. I will qualify what I said for clarity and accuracy, but I do stand by it. It is my take on my experience. It is valid.

You think I get carried away; I think too many people think boredom is no big deal.

I do apologize if I said anything that hurt you in any way though. You know that I am your biggest fan! And I have a deep and abiding belief that you know your child best. I would never dream of second-guessing your choices. Never!

BTW, I also didn't mean that 15 minutes is some magic threshold. I don't want that to become a strawman here in the discussion. I have no idea for any given kid how much is too much. It varies, of course, depending on the child and all sort of other factors.

I just wanted to make that very clear.

Thanks, Kriston

My worry isn't about me, now with a happy 13 year old--I don't second guess myself much about our schooling choices anymore. But if I had read what you had written way back when DS was 5, knowing that avoiding boredom and repitition in public school is impossible, I could have really panicked and might have even pulled him out of what has turned out to be a great school situation for him. I know that there are a lot of new folks and folks with younger kids on the board and I want them to have both sides. I know you want that too. I think your clarified response sets a nice tone! Thanks again.

I'm not sure that boredom itself is the problem. I let my kids be "bored" at home but they are free to amuse themselves when they choose to. I think the problem is how some teachers handle downtime for kids who are ahead. Are these students allowed to choose an interesting/new and/or constructive activity or are they required to do more busywork?

I didn't intend to extrapolate to anyone's situation ... I mentioned that you have to determine what exactly the kids means by *bored* b/c it can mean very different things and that their are different levels of boredom some of which are not OK. I just wanted to share what happened to my son completely acknowledging that he is a very weird kid and not even HG. I wished someone had told me the damaging effects of *boredom.* And those comments weren't from the school but other parents and several were parents of GT kids. While acknowledging my son is odd, I doubt he's alone so I wanted to share our story as a "watch out for this," b/c no one ever spoke to me about love of learning, mental stamina being affected by under-nourishment.

Honestly, if we are all being honest with ourselves we can all be guilty of the same thing. Usually when we are talking about personal issues that we feel strongly about:


I think what we can all learn from this as frequent posters is that what may be a good course of action for one child is not necessarily appropriate for another child for many different reasons.

And I think anyone here searching for their *way* in terms of educational planning is aware that we are a diverse group of people with different experiences and different success story.

I would hazard a guess that most adults searching for info here can take what's relevant to them and also *take* what's not KWIM?

I've come a LONG, LONG way in the search for what is right for my children over the last year or so. I've benefitted at least as much or more from stories that I read and say: "That's just not my child, my family.

So to anyone reading my posts in the past or the future: If you read anything I post that sounds like horse puckey, please feel free to laugh! In fact, go ahead and say: "That silly Neato doesn't know what she's talking about". But, please, please, don't ever say that I'm potentially harming someone because I've had a different experience with my child and I'm caring enough to share it. None of us here are experts reigning down on the newbies....."You are a bad parent if you do not do as I do......."

We all know this, right? ((big sigh))

Katylynn's Mom: It sounds like you're doing everything just right for your DD!!!! I held my son back in things he was asking for b/c I didn't want him to be bored in K. He was bored anyway. I have tried to go more laterally and do more nature studies, chemistry and physics...but even this will catch up to us eventually. When they have that thirst to learn, it's hard to hold them back.

I think those of us who have been around for a while and know each other understand what you are saying and know that we are mosly all talking about our own kid and not trying to overgeneralize. But people who just stop in and read a thread or two may not appreciate the long term relationships and easy chatter of us regulars.

So I just think that, with the newbies and the brief visitors in mind, it would be nice if we could all remember to use a liberal dosage of "for me" "for my child" "in our experience" and "this probaby won't apply to everyone" etc. We all can get carried away on topics we care about but if you look at the number of hits each of these threads gets, I think it good to remind ourselves that what we are writing is being read far and wide, not just by our friends. Just a reality check....

Agreed. I wasn't suggesting any solution.

I said: So I'll end this long diatribe w/ as parents we have to decipher what "boring" means. For my son boring is for things that are both too easy and too hard or simply disinteresting. We're working on expanding his vocabulary so he can describe his feelings better.

And this: What Kriston and I mentioned is not a casual state of boredom.

You wrote: What's the worst that can happen if a kid is bored for a while? I don't see that leading to catastrophic consequences or permanent damage.

This is what I heard from everyone. Well, after 3 years it did prove catastrophic for my son. I was simply telling his story w/out any intent to suggest what you or anyone else should do for their child outside of determining exactly what the child means by *bored.*


that's what I get for my long winded post! Can I have a do over and delete the entire post?

dottie wrote:


Interesting! I felt that by saying my son was bored, that others felt uneasy/threatened b/c if my son was bored, then it meant their kid wasn't as smart (didn't know he was gifted back then) since their kid wasn't bored. AGain boils down to personality that I spoke of BUT also very, different schools! Or even very different teachers within the same school! Or even very different schools in the same district. The other K-2 school in our district will subject accelerate and send a kid to a higher grade but our school will not do it. The Principal's philosophy was "we don't challenge our kids." Yep, she said that. She also said, "We don't do science b/c we have too many holidays to celebrate and our school is too large." the other K-2 school in our district does more science. So schools can vary greatly even w/in the same district!

And I know of schools were my son would totally be challenged in the regular classroom. Those are dynamic, exciting schools where love of learning is important! I would never presume to tell anyone their child couldn't make it in a public school! I can't believe people were saying that to you!