Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Age or Ability Specific Forums Elementary School Flip Flopping (revised!!!)

Hi

I've decided to completely rewrite this post! I find that when I write in the middle of the night it just doesn't make sense, sorry to those who took the time to read the original...

Essentially, I have some questions because I tend to flip flop on my impressions of DD7. Things get really murky with her perfectionism and our homeschooling dynamic. I'm hoping that those with more knowledge/experience can shed some light. My first question is, does giftedness 'level off'? In other words, once a child finds a level of appropriate challenge do things slow down a bit? My second question is have you ever overestimated or under underestimated your child's ability? This is where my flip flopping comes into play. My DD really likes things to be super easy and is very resistant to challenging herself. I generally believe that she is capable of more demanding work, but because she gets so upset if she makes ANY mistakes, she prefers to work on things that she doesn't need to put much thought into. I don't push her because it always ends in disaster and so she just 'coasts' along. And then comes my flop... maybe this work is challenging enough and I am overestimating her abilities... and then back to the flip... my gut reaction is that she is capable of more. So, my next question is, do I trust my mommy instinct? DD has not been assessed and so I don't have any numbers. I would love to hear your thoughts on this all.

Annaliisa

And... sorry that this is posted in under 'elementary', I should been in another section. I wasn't able to change it.

Children go through periodic phases of 'great leaps/steady and impressive improvement/improvement at rates which would be considered normal in a group of agemates but feel glacial to us.
This happens to all of us all the time. The advantage of homeschooling is that there is no awkward social component ((grin)) But even that is ok....

This is exactly classic 'perfectionism' that is caused by long periods of working below the challenge level. How long did you dd have to be in a poor fit environment? Was the poor fit at home, or during her school history?
There will be emotional outbursts - it's normal. Work on having some routines down to deal with 'stress overloads.' If you plan and practice, it won't be so bad. For example, I lived in an apartment where we'll lose electricity about once a week. Once I organized the flashlights and put fresh batteries in them, losing electricity wasn't so bad.

You can also work on DD growing her inner strength to deal with strong emotions. Meditation, Praising micro-victories, Planning micro-challenges all help.

I think your mommy instincts are enough, but I also think that having the support of a wise and useful tester is a nice luxury to have.

Afterall - you are saving the family the cost of private school tuition, so don't you deserve a little 'continuing education?'

The other thing that a really good assessment will show is if there are any hidden 2E issues that might be causing your daughter to 'go protective' in order to 'cover up' a real issue.

Since testing usually has a waiting list, you might want to make a reservation, and devote yourself to journaling what you see during the school day and make your decision when the test date draws nearer.

Perhaps a more concrete way to get some useful data is to forget IQ (who cares, really?) and get a MAP test which shows you - exactly - where she is in various school achievements. Perhaps it's more important to figure out where she truly is - right now - than to have info about 'her potential.'

Love and More love,
Grinity

(hint for future posts)
Be Generous with the carriage return. Create space in your posts by putting paragraph formatting between thoughts, and before and after questions. Lots of folks don't read in a straight line, but let their eye sweep over the post to get an overview first. Good Luck!


And... sorry that this is posted in under 'elementary', I should been in another section. I wasn't able to change it. [/quote]

I could have totally written this post. I am homeschooling a 4th grader and a 1st grader. My kids are super laid back. They get excited about their own passions, but don't devour college level textbooks. Unless perhaps it's about the obsession du jour.

One thing that has helped with denial on my oldest is having achievement testing done twice. He's also taken the SCAT. His scores have been very high. He's also doing algebra as a 4th grader, despite me kind of dragging my heels. I was dragging my heels because I really felt his patience, interest, and writing skills weren't ready for real, rigorous algebra even though conceptually he had been there for a while.

I try to balance with my kids. My 1st grader is challenged very little academically at the moment - I'm trying to compact some things for her so she can be more challenged by fall perhaps. But she's a young first grade and she is being challenged daily by extracurricular things like violin lessons. My 4th grader does 30-45 minutes a day of math and if that means it takes a week to get through a section in his Algebra curriculum, so be it. My kids do get frustrated very easily. But they also are so happy with themselves when they figure out something new. I think overcoming that perfectionism/laziness is a marathon not a sprint, and I've seen quite a bit of progress with my 4th grader in this area now that we're into our 3rd year of homeschooling. You can start with challenging her academically just a few minutes at a time and go from there. I wouldn't panic - 7 is still very young! And if you can afford some open ended achievement testing that can be very helpful as a baseline. We had the Peabody K-12 oral achievement done in our house for $55.

Thanks for your feedback. As always, it has been so helpful...

Grinity, it does feel 'glacial' that is a great way of putting it. I am accustomed to huge leaps and so it is harder to see the slow but steady progress.

As for the bad educational fit, it was at school (preschool and K)and at home. The school part was way too easy and I think this contributed to the perfectionism, too much praise, zero challenge, etc. The home part is more complicated. DD perceives any kind of instruction as criticism. I also routinely misinterpret DDs emotional response to life, especially HS.

I think that we clash because I love a challenge and absolutely loath doing 'easy' things. It's actually a problem TBH. As soon as I figure something out I lose all interest. I sometimes wonder if HS was smooth and easy if it would push me over the edge DD appears to be opposite at this point. She loves 'easy' and runs crying and screaming from a challenge. The screaming part is hard...

As for the assessment I really think that we need to do it all. I don't want to miss anything. I also flip back and forth on the possibility of 2E. I keep putting it off because of the cost.


You are absolutely right. I don't think that I've ever heard someone describe the perfectionism/laziness combo. I see this with DD everyday. I think that my understanding of perfectionism is very superficial, even though I struggle with perfectionism. I feel like I'm peeling an onion for the most part.

I'm also starting to understand how low my DDs self esteem really is. She generally responds to frustration with anger. For YEARS I've interpreted this as being strong willed, but it's not. My poor little onion. She is only 7, as you said.

A.

Great notice A that 'strong willed' isn't deep enough. Good luck with the Marathon.

Wow, that's my dd10 to a "T." She is so hard for me to teach anything b/c she gets so angry and defensive and constantly interrupts me. It is a real test of my patience! I am still working on letting her talk and explain what she's doing even if it makes no sense to me. I'm also still working on getting her to be polite and give me a minute to explain another way. It is an ongoing challenge, though.

If you are going to invest the $, just make sure that you test with someone with a lot of experience with 2e not just disabilities. We tested twice -- once with a psych grad student who was monitored by the head of the psych dept (he watched the testing and oversaw the scoring). Dd came out EG/PG (99.9) on the WISC that time, but they didn't see any indication of 2e even with her school achievement being below ability. At the time, she was on an upswing achievement wise so we figured it was underachievement and went with that. The professor had some experience with gifted, but I don't know about 2e.

We then re-tested a year later with a psych who had experience with LD but not so much so with giftedness. On the same IQ test, she was now MG. Again, the psych told us no LD and the earlier scores were likely wrong. Even with very high highs (99.9) and much lower lows pulling the total # down, we were told there was no problem and that she didn't recommend putting dd into GT programming b/c she didn't need it.

Two years down the road as things continued not to improve, we had her see a psych with no further testing who dx her with ADD and an anxiety disorder. This one is more familiar with 2e and gifted. She suggests that we retest dd yet again b/c she thinks that she might be PG and qualify for something like DYS. We're not sure that dd is that high and aren't retesting at this point, but maybe someday. We'll see.

If she has very high highs (99.9 percentile), you might try going ahead and submitting to DYS with the scores you already have.

Just a thought, I tend to sense that many sensitive and perfectionist children (mine included) can barely tolerate their own parents instructions or correction. They really take it to heart as if their very self-being was under attack.

Sometimes they take it just a bit better when a teacher or another adult makes the criticism/correction. So I often am the facilitator and child does his/her own learning, whenever possible.

Your posts sound like my child.

We plan for child to make mistakes. I suggest that this work is really way too hard but we're going to practice guessing. (I pretend to guess wrong and pretend to resist answering the question, I then verbally aloud encourage myself that it will be ok if I get it wrong, then I go ahead and get it wrong, then I show that I want to know what the right answer is, etc etc)

Then I ask child what guess they'd like to make etc, let's hold our hands together and see if we'll get it right. Oh look, we got it right!

This was a few years back now that we did that. Child is better now with it. There are still moments though.

We try to reduce those moments so that child can feel like they have more control and not feel less control over their emotions. When there are less of such situations, it won't seem so overwhelming for the child. Yes, I think we coddled. But our purpose was so that it was more manageable and teach child to learn to manage their own expectations.

Fear and the feeling of being unable to control's one's feelings or not understanding why one's self is like that makes a child have great difficultly moving into teenage years.

We spend a great deal of time talking about situations, what it may feel like, what it felt like during/after, etc. We help child with the words to explain the feelings. This way the child knows that we understand and accept those feelings as normal for our family, it is ok to feel it, and what we can do about it.

Gosh, I hope my rambling is a bit helpful.
Best wishes,

Wow, Jesse. I wish you had been my mom...

Thanks intparent I think back to when I was a kid and what I wished someone had taught me.

Back to the OP, I think I've underestimated my kid. Only now at age 7 have I really started to provide what I thought was more difficult material. Some material appears that I've gone crazy and have given too much. Some where I think is too much is something kid loves and isn't at all too much.

The minute you think you've got a handle on it -- the kid is "here" -- and then it all changes. And it does seem to vary approx. every 3 months.

Sorry, not very helpful here.
Best wishes,