Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Learning Environments Meeting needs vs. fitting world around them

I've been reading (loads) and came across something in Sylvia Rimms book that has me confused. She suggested to a parent that had a child that was acting out in class probably due to being underchallenged that you 1)make it clear their is no excuse for bad behavior 2)may need to learn that the world doesn't revolve around him 3)a little boredom is simply part of life. Then she suggested going to see a psychologist to see what the child's needs really were. Not the way I'm handling our situation which is similar to this. My ds is acheiving well but sullen because he wants more. The teacher feels if he doesn't want to be here he doesn't have to be. My question is, if I take him out of school to homeschool him , does he benefit in college and work where he has to adjust to the rest of the world. Do kids adjust with maturity?

My attitude is that there is a difference between serving a child's needs and catering to a child's every whim.

For example, if my kids get hungry, they act out. Do I withhold food from them to teach them to behave? No! Of course not! The acting out is a symptom of the fact that their needs aren't being met. The need for learning is a need for a GT kid just as surely as the need for food is, and it is possible to disapprove of the negative behavior while still making changes to meet those needs.

I am a firm believer that boredom is part of life--at HOME. It is not my job (or anyone else's) to entertain my child. They can use their imaginations and entertain themselves! That is a good use of boredom in a useful setting: where kids have the power to be inventive and the tools to fix their own problem.

But school is supposed to be about learning. If a child is not learning, then why have him/her there? Their options to "entertain" themselves in school are limited. Some kids daydream or doodle, but that doesn't work for everyone. And it's often kids' efforts to entertain themselves that ARE the bad behavior. (Some teachers won't even let kids read while class is going on!) I think it's not fair to a child to enforce boredom when the child is in a situation that doesn't allow him/her to fix the problem.

I think regular, ongoing boredom in school often teaches kids bad habits. If we want kids who know how to learn, we have to give them chances to do so.

I'm not saying that every second of every school day has to be challenging, and there are many types of learning that a kid can be doing in school. But if a fair bit of the school day is boredom for a child, it seems only right to me that something be changed to better suit the child's needs. There are many changes that can be made. Homeschooling is just one option.

To answer your last question, homeschoolers usually do very well with "the rest of the world." As long as *your* attitude is not that your child is the center of the universe, your child won't feel that way. It is possible to encourage independent work from a homeschooler while mom does something else. I'd call it necessary, even!

I very much agree about the catering to a child's every whim. When my spouse and I discuss homeschooling it certainly involves that all information has to be covered without regard to whether it is liked or not. It also involves how to keep our lives in balance while this happens. My DD is ND and there is the occasional remark of 'boring'. I expect that and it is a part of school. DS is more insistant with mood changes etc. I think I was put off by Rimm's recommended response to the child and thought I had missed something in regards to responding to needs. I didn't get the sense that child was going to be very heard with that response. In regards to homeschooling, I hadn't considered what long term looks like for homeschoolers and thought I would ask. I'm glad to know that it works for so many!

I have an ongoing conversation with Wolf (5.4) about school work. He wants fewer worksheet pages, so after break we're dropping the spelling worksheet (not his words list though!). Bonus is that I had been planning on that anyway! We added Logic because we aren't accelerating math any more (already doing 2nd) and added root words because Phonics (3rd) is still pretty basic for him.

The other day I asked Wolf if he knew why he was in Independent Study in first grade and not in a regular Kindergarten classroom. He replied that he did not. I asked him if he wanted to know and he said yes.

I explained that if he was in a classroom with children his age he would be learning the alphabet, how to count to twenty, how to sound out and read basic words like cat, and that he wouldn't be learning Spanish or Logic or root words. I told he we had put a lot of thought into which option to choose and had decided that putting him in an environment where he could work at his level and be challenged would be the best idea. I asked him if he would rather be in a regular classroom and his response was, "NO! It would be way too boring."

He does all of the worksheets that he knows how to do on his own without any help. I only help on ones that need explaining or have a lot of writing (we do dictation for pages that require a lot of writing).

I think the younger a child is, the less they should have to put up with in terms of fitting in and boredom. Early elementary really should be engaging and fun for the vast majority of kids. I think the lessons as Sylvia Rimm presents them are important lessons to be learned over a period of years. So that by the time reaches jr. high to high school age, they have the ability to have some patience with regards to boredom. I think this really varies by child too. Some kids are totally fine coasting through the elementary years and don't lose anything. Some kids can't tolerate it.

I definitely don't homeschool my kids like they're the center of the world. My 3rd grade age son does probably 80%+ of his HS work self initiated these days, so in a lot of ways I think he's learned more independence than he might have in a typical school environment. Some things are negotiable - science projects for instance. Some things are not. We do math, reading, writing, grammar every day we are doing what we call "core" work. This fall that was 4 days a week when we attending our HS co-op.

Anyway, I know some HS kids that are moving on extremely well adjusted and prepared for the rigors of college.

I completely agree, kimck. Excellent points. (As usual!)

I approach homeschooling from the perspective that it's his education, and he is responsible for what he learns. If he's bored with something we're doing, then it's up to him to a) suggest ways to change the assignment that would still serve the purpose of the assignment so that he's more engaged, b) suggest some other topic entirely, or c) suck it up and get through it. Ultimately, though, I feel that having some requirements (which I often attribute to the state so as to make them completely non-negotiable) but allowing some measure of flexibility IF he proposes an acceptable substitute works for us.

As always, YMMV...

Love Kriston Point Below..

But school is supposed to be about learning. If a child is not learning, then why have him/her there?


That is what is so hard to get across! We were told "that's life" by DS6 last teacher when we told her the same thing DS is not sitting because he is bored. That was her response "that's life" In other words "too bad he's bored, that's life" .
Needless to say we pulled him out of that school fast!
We had to skip him to 2nd. That was the only way to get harder work. And believe me it ain't hard but it is better than 1+1.

I agree 100% with your post, Kriston: you summed up my thoughts before I knew I had them :-)

I think you are misreading Rimm's suggestion.

For Rimm the key thing is that the child IS ACTING OUT. Your child is not ACTING OUT. Being sullen hardly qualifies as acting out.

Let's look at the odds. Out of all the kids in the U.S. who are 'underchallenged' (probably 20 to 30% of each classroom) how many have as severe a need as kids in the top half a percent? It becomes like comparing apples to oranges. So Rimm's advice is good for the vast majority of kids WHO ARE ACTING OUT. Not the majority of kids 'here' in this part of cyberspace.

So yes, for kids in the top 30% of the classroom, who ARE ACTING OUT, a very good first step is to go to a psychologist to see what the child's needs really are. My guess is that one way or another, you have done this step, and the advice in the above paragraph doesn't apply to you on 2 counts, yes?

As I see it, in this world of mind-blowing electronic stimulation, there probably are a good many kids who do need to learn to have some more inner strength when facing time spent on the 'easy side' of their readiness level. That is a totally separate issue from kids who are in such a poor fit classroom that the work is no where near their readiness level. Apples and Oranges.

Love and More Love,
Grinity

Thank you Grinity. The information from Dr. Rimm's book was from a gifted student book and I wasn't considering that it may have been aimed at a lower LOG or that 'sullen' wasn't acting out. DS teacher feels that 'behavioral probation' may be indicated because it's interfering with classroom atmosphere, thus I assumed it was acting out. You're right it's not. We have an evaluation to rule out any 2E issues and get an education recommendation in 10 days, but I don't know if this sweet kid is going to make it that long.