Too Smart for Kindergarten?

This is cute #3. She started Kindergarten this year. While I knew she was a pretty bright kid, I'm not so sure she was gifted like that of my 1st two boys. It had been a rough road trying to figure out schooling with #1 and #2, and I just wanted to be done with it.

"Just let my child be normal." I would say to myself, and to teachers as well. I just wanted to have a "normal" child that could go to school like normal and be fine and dandy and not need any special instruction.

Well, I did not get my wish.

3 weeks into school I got a phone call from her teacher while shopping. Her teacher says to me, "I feel like I am wasting her time. She already knows everything I'm going to teach this year. I'm wanting to know if you want her tested for 1st grade."

Oh my. #3. Really we had decided ahead of time that we weren't even going to bother doing anything special as far as school placement with #3. Not that she didn't deserve the best schooling, but we just wanted our kids to be that "normal" that I guess they weren't. And it was weird this time. This was the 1st time that we had a teacher coming to us first to ask us if we wanted to do something because they are the ones to notice first.

Hmmm......what to do?

Our #1 was always so smart. Sooo very smart. It still baffles me to this day how smart he is. But he always showed it from like 18 months old. His has been the roughest road. Bored in Kindergarten, then transferred to a full time split grade gifted program, then back to regular school, then bored again, put into some classes in the grade above his, then finally skipped into the 6th grade. What a mess!

Our #2 was a little different. While he didn't show giftedness at an early age, he almost just woke up overnight one day knowing how to read and everything. It was very different, but also surprising. He had an incredible musical natural talent, but he was also smart enough that he just skipped Kindergarten and started in the split 1st/2nd grade full time gifted program. Now he is back to regular school, but still ahead a grade, although I've never thought it too dramatic because he has an early October birthday.

But here we are with #3. Again, she didn't show giftedness right off, although she sure was a talker! From a young age she sure was always very articulate. We figured it didn't matter how smart she was, because she could talk very well. But then, again, an overnight thing almost. It was like one week she was scribbling and barely knew her ABC's, and then the next week she was coloring perfectly within the lines and had taught herself to read. And the week later she was reading chapter books! How did that happen?

So, anyway, I didn't know what to say to her teacher. Did we want her tested? She may have been smart, but she was also so young! Her birthday was in May, and so she wasn't one of these kids about to turn 6. She was a young Kindergartner.

Well, I told the teacher to go ahead and she could test our #3 now. Of course this didn't mean we were making any decisions, but just maybe we could see how she tested and then think about it.
So, for the next few weeks they tested her, while we contemplated what decision we could make.

The Decision to Skip 5th Grade

Yep, our oldest was just not fitting in.

I laugh at this cute picture. (Really he does not carry a fanny pack and wear an army hat everyday....this was just from a vacation where we were going to be walking a lot and couldn't use a backpack.)

But anyway, he was not fitting into this whole educational plan. It was the end of 4th grade now and we didn't feel as if things were working out. Yes, the school had been wonderful to try new things and give him opportunities that I'm sure they had never allowed others before. He was able to take subjects in higher grades and work more on his own with research projects, but it was still not smooth sailing. It was awkward going from grade to grade and he was still bored with the 4th grade subjects most of the time, and we already discussed how we didn't feel comfortable with the idea of him having to walk to the junior high school and back when he reached 6th grade, so what should we do?

Back when he was in Kindergarten and bored we thought about skipping him to first, but we never acted on it. Instead he tested into the separate school gifted program which he started in 1st grade. And while it was somewhat academically challenging, he was still advanced and suffering socially. What to do?

Moving him back to the regular school did not solve this problem. While he had friends at first, again he ended up bored and alone at the end of the year. There was no match for this poor kid. The split grade thing was OK, but it was just hard to transition back and forth all the time.

So,
we decided to again ask the school about having him skip a grade.

Last year they had decided against it because of social reasons mostly, but by the year's end, it went to show that it didn't really matter. While before he was happy academically but not socially at the gifted school, here he was happy socially but not academically, but now once again he was miserable both academically and socially. There was no winning. We knew we couldn't control his happiness social wise. He was a different kid, and maybe he just wasn't going to fit in no matter what. But, we could help with the academic happiness. Why not skip a grade?

OK, now this is a big issue, and yes, a lot of people tend to freak out.

What about sports? What about maturity level? What about when they get older in high school?

Well, our oldest hates all sports and does not have any desire to try out for any sports teams, so no worries there. I don't suppose he is immature, but I don't think he is fitting in socially where he is anyway. It has been a long 5 years with still little friends if any. And, high school? Hmmm.....I don't know. All I do know is that our son was super smart, and the only time I could kind of see him happy was when he was being challenged and really learning at school.

He was plenty smart enough. Remember the school had tested him last year and basically told me he was smart enough for college classes or what not, but now when we approached the school again they were leaning against it. It raised too many "red flags" they said. It wouldn't be a good idea. But what would? Let him be challenged and let him be happy at least somewhat without all the trauma of having to change classes and split between grades to miss this or that. We just wanted him to be in a stable classroom where he could take all his subjects and not have to travel to another school in 6th grade.

So, we met with the Principal and the psychologist and discussed our proposition. They were hesitant, and the school psychologist told us she didn't think it would do what we thought it would do for my son. I'm not sure what she thought we were thinking, but it just seemed to make sense to us.

And no, maybe it wouldn't solve his boredom problem, and sure, it probably wouldn't help with things socially, but then what else would? We had tried so many things, different schools, different gifted programs, split grades, extra type work options, etc....but things were still not great. Why not at least help him to feel stable in a single classroom? He deserved it. He already had passed 5th grade math and knew most of the other subjects. Why have him repeat it?

So we waited anxiously over the last few days of school to see what the Principal would decide. I don't know what we worried about more---his decision being no or his decision being yes. Either way, it was going to be hard to take in.

The second to last day of school the Principal emailed my husband and told him they had agreed to the grade promotion. My little 10 year old would now be a 6th grader the following year!

Now came the stress and worry and wondering if we made the right decision. It seems like it would have been so much easier if they had just skipped him back in Kindergarten. This was all turning into a mess. Now it seemed so dramatic to go from 9-10 year old classmates to 11-12. We didn't want him to miss anything, so we looked up 5th grade curriculum and had him study all of 5th grade science and history over the summer just so we could know he had experienced it before going onto 6th.

Summer was long, but not long enough. 6th grade was coming, and we worried still if this was going to be good or bad. This hadn't been our decision. Our oldest had expressed his desire to be in one set class and he wanted to be more challenged. It was a joint decision, but I think he was a little nervous as well.

A Gifted Child in a Regular School--Making it Work?

Can it work? We had sacrificed higher academics for hopes of a better social life for our oldest, but was it worth it?

Yes, for once our child was happy and had friends, but now we were back to the happy socially, but bored academically. Could we never have the best of both worlds?

We were in a regular elementary school with no gifted program to speak of. Because of budget cuts, the pull out gifted program that was once there had been all discontinued. Unless in the magnet program at another school (which we had just given up), there was nothing out there for gifted students.

Or was there?

After the school psychologist completed all these tests and had basically told us he was far above his peers, they had proposed a plan to challenge him more. It all sounded good, but was it really going to happen? They said they would allow him to go into the next grade math, and as far as the other subjects, he would have extra activities, research projects, and his own computer to use. So, did this happen, and what did he think of it?

For a while it may have been working. He was loving math where he would go to a 5th grade class and do math there. That was his favorite part of the day because he was actually learning something new.

The other parts of the day he would finish his reading or work before the others and so he would just start creating power point presentations going more in detail on whatever subject his 4th grade class was learning. This was OK for a while, but often he would mess up on the saving in the computer part and all his work would be lost, or his teacher would forget to remind him things, or he would just plain forget he could do that and so usually it was still boredom.

Soon he began coming home in tears because schedules were not matching up. 4th grade was doing one thing, but he needed to be in 5th grade when they did math, but sometimes they changed things around, and then he'd miss something and it would cause major drama.

The school's plans were to continue placing him in one grade but having him do math in a higher grade, so eventually they would have him walk to the junior high school when he enters 6th grade to take 7th grade math. That seemed a little complicated. How was that going to work out schedule wise? And was that safe?

Letting him use his own little laptop seemed great and nice and all, but was he really being challenged, or was he just being given busy work or fillers so he would have something else to do besides read when he finished ahead of the others? He was still telling me that he already knew the stuff they were teaching most of the time.

It was great that this school was actually making an effort and trying to make things work for a gifted child, but I don't know if this was the answer just yet. We waited and observed, but things weren't looking good. By the end of the school year he had no friendships to speak of, and again he was bored academically. Once again we began looking for other options.

"He's Smarter than I am"

We met with the principal to discuss our concerns about our oldest's boredom in school. We told him the teachers were probably doing just fine, but the curriculum was below everything that he had already done in the old school. I know, I know, the other school was a full time gifted program, and we had chosen to bring him over to the regular school for a chance to have a social life, but really, it was way behind what he was doing.

It's nobody's fault. I didn't want to go in their blaming anyone for his boredom or anything. I did feel extremely guilty and kept complimenting the principal on the school and the teachers. The principal was nice and set up another meeting for us to meet with him and the school psychologist to discuss possible excellerated learning options or even possible grade "promotion" as they call it.

When we met with them I wasn't sure what I should be saying. How did I know if our son was really that smart, and how did I know where he should be in school? We had tried so many different things and he still wasn't fitting in right. He was either going to be completely bored with friends, or challenged but no friends. Which should come first? Social or academic? I felt like we have been on a teeter totter for the last 4 years. There is no real balance.

The school psychologist began looking at some of these old test scores from 1st grade and his performance results from last years state testing. Yes, he had scored in the top 10 percent of the nation in every single subject except for language, but was it really that great? This psychologist looks at us and starts saying well, if we skip him to the next grade, what's to say we won't need to skip him again 3 months from now, and then again, and again. I am looking at her in shock. What did she mean? Why and how could she be saying this when all she was looking at were a couple of testing results?

And then my husband looks at me and says, "He's a smart kid. He's smarter than I am."

What? "What!?" I ask him. What is that supposed to mean? How can our 9 year old son be smarter than a 33 year old computer programmer. I'm pretty sure my husband is pretty intelligent.

But he says to me, "He doesn't know as much as I do, but he is smarter than me."

What? How can this be, and how can he know this, and how can this principal and school psychologist think any of this by looking at a few papers? Can I not interpret these papers the same way they can?

They asked us to sign some papers to have him go through some testing and then they would get back to us within the next 2 weeks. We signed and so now we wait.

Of course I am worried.

What if they do all these tests and the results are that he's really not that smart and we're just a bunch of stupid ego boasting parents?

Or, what if he is somewhat smart and they want to skip him to 5th grade, but then he gets there and he fails?

Oh, why does this seem all so weird? I guess we will wait and see. Our son just keeps saying how he thinks he would have so much more fun in 5th grade where he could be learning new things everyday. I laugh and think, gee, why not just take the easy road? I'd be thinking, "Woohoo! This is going to be a piece of cake! I can just do whatever in class!" (OK, so I guess I was the slacker student.) But, no, our son insists on having new material everyday. Good kid. I just wonder what will come of this and worry for what we may do if it doesn't work either. We have tried so many things. What will happen next?

Troubles Arise in 4th Grade - School is Too Easy

We had felt good about our decision to take both our boys out of the full time gifted program and back into their neighborhood school. Our younger boy had already skipped a grade anyway. I'm sure he would be fine. Our older boy had such few friends, if any, and we really wanted a larger social circle for him. He was really smart, but so what if you're the smart kid in class. It might be kind of nice. So we thought.

School started things seemed really great. For the first time, our oldest son was coming home and talking of friends and interactions with them at school. He had friends! 2 or 3 friends! He was socializing with others! Now this was a great thing, especially considering his Asperger's, and the other kids didn't seem to think anything different. He finally belonged!

Our second son was loving school. They had already asked him to play the piano twice during lunch time for all the kids and teachers there. He was loving that attention and loved that he got to play outside with such a large group of kids as opposed to the small 22 kid group that he played with at the gifted school.

So we were happy. This could work out! But then we started noticing the homework that was coming home, and we began getting comments from our oldest.

Our oldest, a 4th grader had already done most of 4th grade math last year in the gifted program, and we figured it would be easy this year, but we were surprised by what we saw. He was bringing home assignments in basic basic addition and subtraction and when comparing it to his 2nd grade brother's homework, his brother's homework was actually harder!

Maybe it was just a review, I thought. But when he brought home a test on Chapter 2 Math and the questions were 4-0=? and 9+3=? and measure this picture with the already drawn ruler, I was shocked. This couldn't be 4th grade math, could it? Our oldest had done this work in 1st grade.

Now I want to state right out that his teacher has seemed great and she is probably a completely fine decent teacher, but the curriculum just didn't seem right. I began questioning other moms and even looking into what the kids in 5th grade were doing, and it seemed all mismatched.

I emailed the teacher and asked her about the curriculum. She agreed it seemed easy, but she said that was what they had as 4th grade math. She said she would bump it up a little to make it harder, but really, how much more can you bump up 4-0=? It would have to be bumped up a lot!

It was super easy, but what had me worried more was the fact that our oldest was coming to us and asking why it was so easy. He was telling us that he didn't understand why it was so simple and asking us why it wasn't harder. He said he thought he should be doing harder stuff.

So, what to do? It's not just the math, but the spelling words are all very basic, and grammar he's already done. He says he is pretty bored and wishes he could learn something new.

It is frustrating trying to figure out what to do. We tried regular school first. It didn't work. We went to the gifted full time program at another school. It was alright, but just so small socially, and not as conveniently located, and sometimes seemed like a little too much busy work and homework when it wasn't needed. He excelled there academically, but socially he was losing. So back we go to the regular school where he is excelling socially but losing with boredom academically. Where can we go now? We decided to set up a meeting with the principal to see what our options could be.

The Big Decision

If you read the last post, then you see we have been having some mixed feelings about the full time gifted program that we put our kids into. Why can't schools have the resources for kids that are a little more advanced? It's not like they don't have the material. There are grades 1-6 in an elementary school, and so why can't a more advanced kid just do the material from that of an older grade?

I recently read an article weighing out the pros and cons of skipping grades. A couple of comments raised my attention. Someone asked why we have grades at all? Why do we have to trap students into grade levels by age or by birthday? Why can't we just group students in levels based on abilities? This would work especially for those that may be gifted in one subject, but struggling in another.

It makes perfect sense to me, but why don't we do that? You are never going to have a class of all 6 year olds who have the same abilities and knowledge. I know they passed this whole "No Child Left Behind Act" several years ago aimed at helping kids that were falling behind in the classroom, but it seems as if no one has ever figured out how to help kids that are ahead.

Sure, they have these gifted programs, but in our case there is one full time program that is at a school not close by and that does not offer bus transportation. So if you're going to go then you must figure out the driving.

Budget cuts forced all if any in school gifted pull out programs in our district to be ended and discontinued. That is sad isn't it? It's sad that there are hardly any music or art programs continuing in public schools today. It's interesting that in other countries, many schools focus highly in the arts.

So where does that leave us?

Well, after all our struggling over the past years with trying to figure out what is best, we made the decision to pull both our kids out of the full time gifted program at an away school and put them back into regular old public school in our neighborhood.

With this comes many feelings of guilt and worry. Is this the right thing? Did we mess things up? I don't think there will ever be a right place for our kids while they are young as far as schooling. I want them to be emotionally and socially happy as well as academically challenged enough to keep them happy, but these seem impossible to go together.

Before we were more concerned on the academics and letting our kids live up to all they can do and learn. Let them learn at their pace and not have to wait and be bored. But all the things it entails with driving to another school, not having friends, not knowing anyone, and then tons of homework just doesn't seem worth it to me.

Plus, why can't our kids just be kids? They will have a time for intense study, for intense stress and worry. Why give that to a 2nd and 4th grader?

Now our kids are in regular classes probably doing math they completed a year ago or maybe doing a lot easier things, but what can we do? We're not going to skip our 6 year old any more grades. We want him to be a kid! I suppose we could skip our 9 almost 10 year old a grade, but we don't have plans of that unless we are approached, and then we can make the decision.

So here we are on a different road. It will be interesting to see what happens. Our 2 boys started school this past Monday, and so far I am waiting to hear.

Stuck. Was This Really What it was Cracked up to Be?

Stuck. That's what we are. Stuck.

We started this whole full time gifted program for our oldest because he was so bored and miserable at school. He was far advanced than his peers and we knew he needed more to what he was doing in his school at the time.

We had our cute little 5 year old skip Kindergarten, throwing him right into this 1st/2nd grade gifted program also because he was at a level higher than his brother was at the same age.

We thought it would be good. Older brother seemed to love it the first 2 years. The teacher was great and she really let the kids learn things more in depth if they were interested.

Then 3rd grade happened and the teacher was different. It was more book reports, busy work, and tons and tons of homework. It seemed like she just wanted to see how fast the students could get everything done in a workbook. Our oldest came home everyday from school just hating school again and anything that went with it. His love for learning was gone. He was just so concerned with having to get everything done as fast as possible and there wasn't much time to go more in depth in things like in the previous years.

Now, I'm not there in the classroom, and I don't know exactly what goes on, but this is just from what my kids tell me. His teacher is a good teacher, her approach is just different. He will have the same teacher next year.

Now, younger brother does love it, and he had a great time his first year. I'm sure he'll have a great time this next year, but what happens after that?

Another issue we are facing is that in this program they are with the same group of kids for 6 years. The kids all test into this program and pretty much stay give or take a few drop out or a few test in at later grades. This can be a good, yet bad thing at the same time.

It's good that all the kids will know one another, but what about meeting new people? And what if they never quite find their niche in this group of peers? What if they don't really fit in or make any close friends? By the end of 2nd grade, if they haven't found a friend, then there isn't much chance of all the little friend groups opening up to include someone new.

We have found this with our oldest. Now, yes, he has Asperger's, and so social things come a little more difficult to him, but he still wants and needs to have friends. He is a good kid and he can have friends, but he has not found a very good friend circle in this program. He has maybe 3 people who he considers friends in the grade above him, but then the next year they move on to another class and a younger group comes in below him which he has no friends. He doesn't seem to have any friends in his grade level. So he is stuck the 2nd year of each teacher's class to being depressed and lonely.

Younger brother doesn't seem to have a solid friendship group yet, but I don't think he really cares or knows yet. He's loving school, but what if he doesn't find his place later?

And what happens when younger brother gets into 3rd grade into super busywork class and starts to hate school like older brother? Is it worth it?

So, what do we do?

I know older brother would be bored in a regular classroom, but he wouldn't be having the life sucked out of him, and in another school he would have the opportunity to meet new and different kids being that you don't always have the same teacher and sometimes they split classes for subjects. He already goes to church with some kids that go to the regular school. He would know some kids.

Younger brother I'm sure would do fine wherever. We already skipped him Kindergarten. I'm sure he would be fine and not be bored, but he seems happy at his brother's school right now and with his teacher.

And, what to do when sisters start school? At this point we have decided to start sister at the regular school when she is 5. I suppose if she shows some sort of super giftedness in that year that we might choose other options, but right now it seems easiest.

I think, what if we just got our 2 boys out of the gifted program at the other school after this next year and then all 3 of our school aged kids could go to the same school? Wouldn't that be easiest? And maybe the oldest would be bored, but I'd rather he be bored than learning to hate school and being depressed. Most things he learns from reading or watching science/math shows at home anyway.

But, here we are. Stuck. We've asked our boys repeatedly if they'd like to go to the regular school, and they tell us no. I think it is a more fear of change. And I suppose after this next year our oldest will have a new teacher for 5th and 6th grade, and maybe she'll have a more fitting teaching way for the way he learns. Maybe. Maybe not. I know I don't want younger brother's spirit to be crushed when he gets into 3rd grade.

Here's a picture of all our cute kids:

They look so happy, so full of potential. We want to do what is best for them to have a good experience academic and socially. The problem is figuring out what works best. We're learning that often having a gifted child doesn't pan out socially. What use is being smart if you don't have friends, or like learning, or feel accepted?

I guess we will start into this new school year and see what comes. I know we will be making some big decisions as the the next school year comes to an end, if not sooner.