The Piano

Yes, about 6 months ago my oldest was taking piano lessons, and not caring too much about it, but my younger son was intensely watching. One day he came up to me and said he wanted to play too. I didn't think it was worth it to try to find a piano teacher for a 4 year old, so I just got out a beginner book and showed him how to play middle C, D, and E on the right hand. Little did I know he would become so obsessed with it and passionate about the piano that in a couple months he would have read through the piano books himself, teaching himself how to play and how to read music. This is what he is playing right now:

And this is only the first 2 pages of the song. Maybe I am just totally lousy, but I can't even figure out the notes on half of this song to play. There are like 2 sharps playing on both hands at one time and it's too hard for me. (Of course I only took piano lessons for 2 1/2 years a long time ago.)


This is what he does though. I just go on the internet to see if I can print off any free sheet music, and then he plays it. He wanted to play "The Entertainer", so I printed that one off and he is doing that one.


It blows my mind how he can read the music and all the notes. It's almost like it's another language he has learned. I don't even know if he knows all the names of notes, but he knows exactly where to move and put his hands.


The question is--do I find him a piano teacher? I looked into it for a while and it was so expensive! First off, most all piano teachers wouldn't even begin to accept a 5 year old as a student, and second, if they did, they wanted over $20 for a half hour. That's $40 an hour!! That's crazy!! One gal wanted $300 for 3 months and that was for 3 lessons, one group lesson a month. I can't afford that!


So, for now, I just get whatever songs he wants, and assign him to play them during the week. I don't know if there is much else I can do. I can't even play the songs for him or teach him much. All I can do is tap a rhythm if he seems to be playing off. I love to watch him play though. His little hands still can't reach most of the chords, so he has to improvise in what he plays.

Recommended by the Pediatrician!

Well, today we received a call from our Pediatrician. A year ago we took our second son in for his well child checkup and the doctor was first to observe how smart he was. He told us then that we should go directly to our Principal and ask what can we do for this child? So, it all started by recommendation of our doctor, and now after all this testing and discussing, I left a message with him, and today he called me back.

I told him how everyone was so worried about him socially and emotionally and what would happen down the road......and he said really there is only a 6 weeks difference! There is always the youngest in the class and the oldest in the class. And there will be kids a month older than Caleb in his grade. That is NOT that big of a deal!

He has personal experience with his own son whose birthday also falls in October who they skipped Kindergarten. He is now a junior in highschool. I asked about dating, and drivers education. (By skipping him now, that will make him 16 as a senior turning 17 in October.) He said his son hasn't had any problems, he still took drivers ed with some of the younger kids in his own class, and he got his drivers license on his birthday.

He asked about specific social and developmental abilities. He said our son will be FINE! I really value our Pediatrician. He is very wise and an excellent doctor. Whenever we go to ANY specialist or other doctors, they all say they know him and half the time he is who trained them to do their job! Anyone looking for a good Pediatrician? Dr. David Hurley in Murray, Utah.

Great Quotes across the Internet

While trying to figure out what to do with our second son (to skip Kindergarten or not), I spent a lot of time searching the internet for the experiences of others. While a lot were pretty negative toward skipping, I found one quote that seemed to make a lot of sense for the other way:

One parent said,

" I think that's a mistake." (to just leave the child in Kindergarten when they're advanced) They may fly through kindergarten but could have problems later on. When I was researching this for our son I learned that kids who start late when they were ready to start on time can end up having a really hard time in middle school and highschool. If elementary school is easy for them (because they're intellectually ahead of the other kids in their classes) they don't learn good work and study habits. They're able to just coast along and get great grades. Then they hit middle school and the work is hard (for everyone) and because they haven't ever had to really work at school they can have real problems adjusting."

So, what do you think about that? It makes a whole lot of sense to me! If we don't have to try hard in school, if everything always comes easy, then how are we going to learn later to work hard? It could mess up your whole life. You could become a loafer, a lazy, expect everything to come easy to you type of person.

The Beginning

HOW THIS BLOG GOT STARTED

Starting with our first child, I wouldn't say he was smart starting off, but when your Kindergartener is already reading chapter books, adding and subtracting double digit numbers, and configuring the earth's atmosphere and explaining scientific things to YOU, you realize something just might be different!



Then along comes child number 2. By now you have been around long enough to realize yeah, your first child was a lot more advanced than the other kids his age, but number 2 isn't going to be the same way. He doesn't seem to be picking up on much, until one day, out of the blue you are driving home from somewhere, and he is reading every single street sign and he's only 3. And then you teach him how to play middle c, d, and e on the piano, and the next month he is already in book level 3 teaching himself.

And then you start to think--gee, what happened here? How'd they get so smart? I didn't do anything!

And then you realize, what are you going to do now? How are you going to handle these kids who are so much more advanced than their peers?

So, after years of trying to figure out what is right and what is wrong, and dealing with teachers, doctors, principals, and the opinions of some friends and family, we decided to start sharing our story, what's worked, what hasn't, and all the fears and frustrations, as well as joy that has come with it.


Where are we Now?

So, our oldest is 8 years old right now. He is finishing up 2nd grade in a full time magnet program for the gifted. Next year he will continue on into a split 3rd and 4th grade classroom. He has done well in the program, although the first year he had struggles with his motor skills catching up with his thinking skills. His problem was yeah, he might have been super smart, but he couldn't talk or write well or fast enough to get all his ideas out. But was this a reason to remove him from the program, or not let him move forward academically? No, but it was a struggle to get him to work equally with the other kids. We had great teachers and doctors that have helped us the last year. (His Asperger's has a bit to do with his struggles, but it was great how we could allow him to finally be producing better verbally and physically all that is in his head.)Our 5 year old just shocked me over the last year and a half. Like I said again, we didn't see number 2 doing anything toward letters, numbers, or learning that raised any flags of super smartness, until just like overnight he was BAM! Super amazing genius boy! Well, now he's different than #1. #1 is so so smart in facts and science and knowing, memorizing everything, but #2 just popped in all of sudden reading, writing, and then playing the piano that shocked us the most. He missed the Kindergarten deadline by a month so had to be in preschool again this year, but I couldn't see putting him in Kindergarten next year when he's reading Magic TreeHouse books, writing his own mini stories, telling time, adding, subtracting, and doing work out of his brother's 2nd grade comprehension workbook.I figured there was nothing much to do, but decided maybe we could test him "just to see" if he really was that smart that we needed to do anything. We tested him as if he were in Kindergarten to see if he could get into the advanced 1st/2nd grade gifted program his older brother is in, and we were shocked to see he placed 3rd out of all the kids a year older than him! And these are kids trying to get into the program that have already been in Kindergarten.

So, here we are again, but this time it is a bigger struggle--the teachers, principals, and district coordinator are VERY concerned about skipping a child as far as emotionally and maturity wise. Are we bad parents if we do this? If he is like the 3rd smartest in the school district out of kids a year older than he, than why not let him go to school and actually learn stuff NEW, not be forced into Kindergarten and be bored? We don't feel like we're pushing him. All he has talked about for the last year is how excited he is about going to his older brother's school and learning all the cool stuff, not just learning the ABC's and colors like in Preschool.

They say you can have problems with motor skills. What if he can't handle all the writing? Well, #2 is already writing better than #1. #1 struggled a bit, but is super great now, and if number #2 is writing as well as 2nd grader #1, then I don't worry much.

What about the age? He's so young? What about being smaller? What about making friends? What about this and that? All the questions are rolled over and over, but in the end, it's not the school, or the year of school, or the kids ages that are going to make a child who he or she is. It's the child is going to become who THEY are. They'll still make the friends who relate to THEM no matter how old or big or small. I don't think that's going to change a kid.

So, anyway, I feel like we are BAD parents, but we gave the go ahead. You go #2! I know you can do it and you'll love all the academics! You get so excited by all of it!