How to Ground a Gifted Child

Ok, so I'm not actually looking to ground the kids, but I thought I'd just share something funny about the kids. Yes, they get in trouble for fighting and normal stuff, but one of the biggest problems we have is when they won't listen or go to bed not because they want to watch tv or play video games, but because they want to practice the piano, or read!

I have a specially hard time trying to make my kids go to bed when they are begging me to just let them practice a few more piano songs, or if they are wanting to read read read. It's like gee....why not let them stay up all night and better themselves---but I have to remember to be good and steadfast in getting them to listen even when it seems like these things are so good.

They get to bed and yet I'll still find them awake reading or one of them trying to play more piano songs in the dark. It is just so funny. It's not just bedtime, but I often need them to help out with cleaning or dinner, and they are too busy reading, or my 2nd son is so into playing the piano, that they won't obey.

What am I going to say to them? "Hey--if you don't listen I'm going to ground you from reading!" Or, "I'm going to take away the piano!" It's like I don't want to ban them from doing such awesome things, but it's funny--I'm not grounding them from the tv, or taking away their toys or video games---it's books and piano!

Such funny kids! I love how passionate they are with their music or their reading and researching. It is just so inspiring to me, and I guess I'll just have to continue being guilty of letting them get away with reading, studying, or practicing the piano a little too much.

Parent Teacher Conferences

Parent/Teacher Conferences were this week, and we have been waiting anxiously for them to see how in the world our kids have been doing. For our oldest, we were hoping to not see low grades, and for our 1st grader, we were hoping to see he is actually making it going from preschool to 1st/2nd grade.

We first met with our 3rd grader and were so surprised to see that his grades have NOT taken a terrible toll. The teacher who before had marked so many points off for him not showing all his work, or for not "labeling" his answers (i.e: word problems he got all correct, but he did not write the answer as 18 "students", or 5 "ducks"--he just wrote 18 and 5) I guess had decided to regrade the papers and allow the non-perfection. I'm not sure, but she said something about how she changed a lot of the class grades.

Oh, and as far as the timed math tests, she postponed the whole class to give them another month to pass off because no one was getting them done!

So, all this stress and worry for nothing! Well, yes, he still needs to work very hard and try to get these things done, but I guess he doesn't have to be perfect. She did say that he was the fastest reader in class at 199 words per minute. Yeah, he always surprised me as the super reader. She says he's on a 7th grade reading level. Good job for #1!

Then, off to #2's conference. This is the one we were worried about. How had this big experiment of skipping Kindergarten and going into 1st/2nd grade worked out?

We were happy to see that he had 100% scores on every single test/paper/project everything except for one 90 something %. Basically his report card was just about perfect! She said she had placed him in 2nd grade math, and he was at a 3rd grade reading level, and he was scoring most of his spelling/language arts and other stuff in the 3rd grade level.

It was OK! Our little preschooler to 1st grader has succeeded. A little part of me inside shouted "Ha! Take that all you that doubted him and thought this was a terrible idea!"

I did ask specifically about his development emotionally and socially being in the classroom with kids up to 2 years older than him, and she said he was doing fine. She said particularly all the girls loved him, 1st and 2nd graders and that they all hung around him. Hey, he can be a cute ladies man! She said he was really really quiet and hardly spoke up in class, but part of his personality is that timidness, and he hasn't done a lot of things to know what's to happen since he missed Kindergarten, but it's OK. He will be OK. This was a successful "experiment" as the district coordinators called it. It's interesting too, because the teacher advised against us skipping him, yet we did, and he's doing alright.

Incredibly Smart, but Sloppy and Slow

We are having a tough time right now with our oldest. He is so so smart. We know he has such this massive amount of knowledge and ability, yet everything comes out so jumbled and messy. Yes, as before we suppose a lot of it has to do with his Asperger's that he is so unorganized, and his handwriting is so incredibly sloppy, but these little things are starting to take effect in school and with what grades he's getting.

Yes, it's important to be neat and all that, but right now it seems as if he's getting so much more sloppy with his handwriting and everything. I know his teacher counts a lot toward neatness and organization if he remembers things or whatever, and it's started to count against him.

Another thing is a big part of school this year is that things are timed. It's like you can be smart but you must also be fast. (Maybe that's why his handwriting is becoming so much more sloppy because he's being rushed.) In math it is mandatory that they must pass off these minute and 30 second timed math problem sheets. I know it is important to get to know your multiplication tables down pat, but must you insist that they pass them off in a timed test and if not then fail? OK, so I don't know how much they are going to take off points wise, but it seems like this is a big part.

It's not just this, but a lot of things are all about time, and with our oldest who has Asperger's, his connection from brain to mouth or brain to hand is not as fast as the other kids and so he is lagging behind a lot.

Oh, and one more thing--you must show ALL your work for math problems, even if you do them in your head--if you get the right answer but didn't mark a little 1 next to the tens when working out your problem, then you will get points marked off.

This is incredibly frustrating to us to see such a smart kid go down hill in school because of these little nit-picky things. Yes, I agree it is important to get kids in the habit of doing all these things a little more quickly or to show your work if you're not understanding it, or to see later where you made a mistake, but he's not making mistakes, he's just getting docked points for things the teacher wants.

My husband and I feel very frustrated and saddened at times to see such a smart kid still not be able to show his full potential, and then on top of it, it's like he's being graded not for what he knows, but how he produces it.

When he was being diagnosed with this type of high functioning autism they were telling us how stunned they were that his intelligence and academic abilities were scoring so far off the charts that they couldn't even justify telling us how they compared to others. They mapped his IQ as "in the genius range". I promise I'm not bragging. This is what they said and what we have on paper as record from countless doctors and tests. But yet here we are with our #1 being so smart, and yet as we've said before---he'll never be able to show it.

I suppose that's how the world works though. You must be fast, you must do it "this way" or "that way", and this is the way to be successful in life. Is the world going to wait for a genius who might take an extra minute to answer a question or write a report?

My husband continues to ask for other options in schooling for our kids. He says they are just going to hate school and it's not going to be enough for them. It's not challenging enough he says, but just picky and busy with projects but not really new things to learn. I continue to wait it out. I hope things will be different once the kids enter junior high and can choose a little more what classes they will take. Husband says they won't last that long. Only time will tell.

Weird Interests of Weird Kids

Well, our first grader finally turned 6 years old, and we celebrated his birthday. Of course, it wasn't sports equipment, toys, or games that he really wanted. No......he was dying for an atlas, piano music, and science books.

There is some sort of obsession that he has with maps. I don't know what it is really. He will take the phone books with us whenever we go out and will just study the maps as I drive.

He spends hours at a time just going over maps and atlases. And then he's analyzing the phone book maps telling me that this phone book messed up because it's labeled Interstate 15 as Interstate 89 and that's wrong, and I'm thinking this boy doesn't drive, and I don't go around talking about street names or what freeway I'm driving on, so how does he even know these things?

I suppose along with his "I want to be a piano player when I grow up", that maybe he'll do something with Geography or some sort of map thing as a career.