 | Hey soldiermom,
Unbelievable your son is mine...When I saw your post, I said to myself, I must join this board just to speak to you.
First of all, be thankful your son has been able to follow the rules of conduct up until this point. I didn't know My son (now, 11 years old) was Gifted/LD/ADHD until Second grade. It was only in Second grade that we realized he was having great difficulties in sequential reasoning, de-coding (reading), simple multistep math problems, writing and processing speed. Yet he was gifted in verbal comprehension, vocabulary, science, humanities, broad knowlege and moral reasoning...my son couldn't understand why he couldn't do MUNDANE tasks and yet yearned for higher level cognitive thinking opportunities (schools don't offer much of that to 7 year olds). He actually felt insulted by what he was being asked to do in school from the age of 5!! Two years of frustration caused maladaptive, avoidance & anti-social behaviors, poor attitude and lack of respect towards authority figures due to mismatch of education...they sent him to "bad boy" school (Behavior Mod programs to "fix him".) WRONG,WRONG,WRONG. These kinds of kids end up distrusting the system and harbor deep resentment for lack of "meaningful-to-them" work to do! These kids REQUIRE higher cognitive tasks TO FUNCTION! Educators don't "get it" unless they have experience with the gifted or gifted/LD population and WILL try to convince you that your child needs to conform in order to DESERVE a well matched education. These kids need meaningful work FIRST!!! Deliver to them the opportunities they require, and they buy in!!!! Our system is punitive when it comes to these bright individuals. Soldiermom, do an internet search for: "Gifted Children with learning disabilites" by Linda Silverman, Phd. and also do a search for a wonderful metaphoric paper called "Is it a Cheetah" by Stephanie Tolan and see if this profile doesn't fit your son. Quickly pass it on to your school's Psychologist. He/she may help you advocate if they're warm-blooded. As of today in most parts of the country, there are no mandates for gifted education. Meaning, schools don't HAVE to modify curriculum for its gifted kids. Look at EDlaws in your state to know for sure. But, if you're willing to become the proverbial "squeaky wheel", you might be able to use your school's mission statement (all schools have them) to get administrators to make some small modifications such as broadening the breadth and depth of current curriculum for your son within the subjects he excels. Funny, often kids have to present as maladjusted or as having some "emotional disturbance" or "oppositional behavior" in order to have a small shot at getting what he may need through a well worded IEP(after 2 years we finally have one, but have yet to really see educators FOLLOW the recommendations). Most gifted kids can be patient and polite and wait for learning opportunities BUT some ARE NOT & CAN NOT! Right now, I am doing my best to enlighten my son's public school to consider the POSSIBILITY that he is of a tiny population known as GIFTED/LD (perhaps represented by only .2% of the population). The information & research is so new (~8 years)that educators have not seen this conundrum (especially older more traditional Teachers). My son has been described as "spoiled", "lazy", "crazy", "oppositional" and "stupid" (with an IQ of 158 in Science and 149 in Verbal, stupid is hardly the way I would describe him. Do NOT let those Educators dismiss his need for stimulating challenging work simply because he is frustrated & obstinant. If you can afford to have him tested (~$450+ in most parts of the country, DO IT and quickly). It will provide you personal insight into your son and perhaps you can learn how to advocate for him (short of just pulling him out and admitting him into a private school which has a gifted population ~35k a year)...to be continued |
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