Parenting advice needed

Marjorie Suddard wrote: He's a very good student until bored? It's quite possible that he belongs in Gifted. Contrary to a lot of parents' assumptions, in educational terms "Gifted" does not just mean that your kid is smart. These students also require an entirely different approach or they can become bored, frustrated, and very hard to handle.

Agreed - there are a lot of children who can get bored if they get the material the first time around, and have to do a bunch of drills intended for students who aren't able to get it the first time.

But "He says he knows it's wrong but his head tells him to misbehave" sounds like it might be the sort of issue to talk to a specialist about.

Sounds like me as a kid! I remember going through my school records a few years ago - it was.... Enlightening.

Apparently I would get bored and crawl around on all fours and bark like a dog. I was REALLY bored.

We never did anything about it. I ended up being a straight C student in things I didn't like because I could ace the tests but never did the homework, and got A's in things that interested me or were more difficult.

That trend continued until my sophomore year of college and things finally got difficult enough that I turned into a 3.6 GPA student while competing in a varsity (DIII) sport and had a fist full of extra curricular activity plus 2 part time jobs.

he's bored or he's hungry. you said he's 6 and this is his first year of school. does that mean first grade or kindergarten? big difference. and if he was at home with adult(s) while he wasn't in school, he probably learned a ton so is now the alfred einstein of his class.

He is in kindergarten.

Depends where you live.

Agreed. I thought public school in Florida sucked...until I moved to Georgia. It is berkeleying abysmal here.

I will agree to a point that it depends on where you live. at the end of the day, though, educators are still required to 'qualify students to pass' a federal test, not teach material. those 4 words are verbatim on some federal documents my MIL brought home, and she only substitute teaches...

BTOP-it seems the concensus is pretty much the same, your kids smarter than everyone in his class, including, quite possibly, his teacher.

-J0N

Marjorie Suddard wrote: He's a very good student until bored? It's quite possible that he belongs in Gifted. Contrary to a lot of parents' assumptions, in educational terms "Gifted" does not just mean that your kid is smart. These students also require an entirely different approach or they can become bored, frustrated, and very hard to handle. Truly gifted children are more likely to have social and emotional problems that can affect their behavior, too. As the mother of two grads of the Gifted program in our county, I was often amused at the parents who had their kids' IQs repeatedly tested until they qualified for the program, thinking it was the ultimate educational gold star. In truth, Gifted requires an alternate Educational Plan like any other Special Needs child because they HAVE special needs. It's early, but talk with your son's teacher about the possibility. Margie

Agreed, have him tested. Here in Ohio, it's called an Individual Educational Plan, same basic thing. Meet with an Intervention Specialist, and get everything documented to cover all involved.

My Wife teaches the 4th grade 'Gifted' class in her building (29 kids this year). Everything from Ivy League destined brown nosers to one very violent desk-throwing 'runner'.

Be persistent.

bgkast wrote: They have to teach to the lowest common denominator.

Minor clarification: we teach to what we perceive as the speed of comprehension of the majority of the class. If you taught to the lowest, everyone else would be bored stiff.

If you teach to the top, everyone else would be lost. The top students can figure it out without the teacher, anyway.

[Disclaimer: I've never taught elementary or middle school.]

I'm sorry, I haven't had time to read the whole thread, so I apologize if I'm repeating stuff.

What you described is almost exactly the same my youngest son. He's also 6, and is in 1st grade. He never had any issues when he was younger, or had any therapy. He's a very intense kid...very competitive, everything has to be just right. Gets very upset if he doesn't understand something or it doesn't go his way. He had a lot of problems at school initially with his behavior. Very similar to what you described, including full blown meltdowns. For him, it wasn't boredom, but frustration. He'd get upset if he didn't understand what they were working on or made a small mistake. From there, he would just ramp up. Funny thing is the kids is showing to be scary smart. But that's part of the problem. He expects perfection, expects to win, expects to have it his way, expects to be right. Hell, last night I had to send him to his room because he was getting very mad that he was losing a game of checkers to his twin sister.

Best advice I can offer is find what the trigger is for your son. There's something that's setting him off. From there, you and your wife have to decide how you want to handle it. Some people say "remove the trigger". My wife and I don't feel that way. For my son, we can't remove all his triggers and even if we could, we'd rather teach him how to deal with them. So we've worked a lot with him on understanding it's OK to make a mistake or be frustrated...but what's important is how he handles that frustration. We've made sure he understands that his behavior is unacceptable and won't be tolerated. We encourage him to think "Is it such a big deal? Is it worth all the trouble it'll cause me to have a fit?" So far, so good. He's doing much better with his behavior. Still gets frustrated...refer to my checkers example earlier...but is learning how to deal with it. In the past, he would have had a meltdown. But last night, he went to his room and came down 5 minutes later and calmly said "Can I play?" and was fine from there. He'll always be uber competitive and a perfectionist, but he's learning how to cope.

jmthunderbirdturbo wrote: good luck, and ill be the first to say skip the therapist. hes just another goverment regulated quack who will say what you want to hear and likely pump your kid full of drugs... -J0N

THIS. Do NOT fall into that trap, do NOT let anyone cram the kid full of chemicals. That is NO WAY TO GROW UP.

Let's face it, there are times when pills are necessary but those are EXTREMELY rare. Thanks to Big Pharma, people think it's exactly the other way around.

I speak from experience; my ex wanted to put my kid on various things to 'regulate her moods' and I had to put my foot down. My kid now copes with life on her own with no chemical crutch and I think she'll be a better adult for it.

Curmudgeon wrote: do NOT let anyone cram the kid full of chemicals. That is NO WAY TO GROW UP. Let's face it, there are times when pills are necessary but those are EXTREMELY rare. Thanks to Big Pharma, people think it's exactly the other way around.

+1000

If I have any say in it he will never take those kind of meds. However, if they can give us some insight into why this happens maybe we can develop a plan on how to remedy it.

Thank you all for your input.

In reply to nicksta43:

I'm just going to throw my $.02 in here.

Your son sounds very much like my best friends son. He was diagnosed with Aspergers, which can be confused with ADD and ADHD. It wasn't anything to worry about, but he did have to end up in Gifted classes like Margie spoke about. Maybe it's worth looking into if you already haven't.

Good luck, I hope you find the answer.

Just a thought: How is his vision? Poor vision + less interest - not following - boredom - problems.

His vision is fine. Wife spoke to a someone on the phone for an hour and a half today. I think we're going to go ahead and have him evaluated. The way she explained it to me is that after the evaluations they will explain the findings to us. And give us a report that we would then turn into the school so that if he does need something extra from them, it should get the ball rolling on their end.

From the phone conversation they are thinking he needs to be in a gifted class.

ass burgers...

I think Marjorie has a good point. My oldest daughter had attention problems in school, disruptive and talked a lot. Got lucky that a teacher recognized that most of her school work was done before she would get bored and disruptive and had her tested for gifted in 3rd grade. In the gifted program she settled down and did well. Till she got to college and found out she actually had to study and found out boys don't like smart girls. Another story.

wlkelley3 wrote: I think Marjorie has a good point. My oldest daughter had attention problems in school, disruptive and talked a lot. Got lucky that a teacher recognized that most of her school work was done before she would get bored and disruptive and had her tested for gifted in 3rd grade. In the gifted program she settled down and did well. Till she got to college and found out she actually had to study and found out boys don't like smart girls. Another story.

"Actually had to study"... Yeah, I had that issue as well.

mtn wrote: "Actually had to study"... Yeah, I had that issue as well.

Hah. In high school, it was a point of honor for me to figure out what the h*ll we'd been learning in physics while taking the actual test. Fortunately, I was just barely self-aware enough to realize that wasn't going to cut it at college. Two of my 3 suitemates had perfect math SATs, the third just missed.

""

Klayfish wrote: What you described is almost exactly the same my youngest son. He's also 6, and is in 1st grade. He never had any issues when he was younger, or had any therapy. He's a very intense kid...very competitive, everything has to be just right. Gets very upset if he doesn't understand something or it doesn't go his way. He had a lot of problems at school initially with his behavior.

My 4.5yo daughter is like that but getting better. So many things come so easily to her that when faced with something requiring effort, she can melt down. It can be something completely stupid like a frisbee.

She goes to an awesome pre-school program at the local high school "taught" by students. She would cry whenever they would have a new song to sing. Turned out she was afraid she wouldn't know it and didn't want to mess up. Similar theme in her little soccer class. She was great at the drills but would get upset when they turned competitive because she didn't want to lose (which she never really did).

I will say she's getting much, much better about it. Playing board/card games that go very quickly so she can lose, then win, seemed to help. Or maybe it's just a natural function of getting older and I'm having no affect at all. Still, she doesn't cry at school now and she understands that the kid who's a full head taller than her is always going to be faster on the field.

It's a fine line I think. In general, I like that she's so competitive. I don't want to be so successful at teaching her it's OK to fail that I wake up one day to a 30yo unemployed hipster in my basement. :)

wlkelley3 wrote: I think Marjorie has a good point. My oldest daughter had attention problems in school, disruptive and talked a lot. Got lucky that a teacher recognized that most of her school work was done before she would get bored and disruptive and had her tested for gifted in 3rd grade. In the gifted program she settled down and did well. Till she got to college and found out she actually had to study and found out boys don't like smart girls. Another story.

What?

I have at least 3 different attractive, smart girls to thank for some of my grades.

mtn wrote:

wlkelley3 wrote: I think Marjorie has a good point. My oldest daughter had attention problems in school, disruptive and talked a lot. Got lucky that a teacher recognized that most of her school work was done before she would get bored and disruptive and had her tested for gifted in 3rd grade. In the gifted program she settled down and did well. Till she got to college and found out she actually had to study and found out boys don't like smart girls. Another story.

"Actually had to study"... Yeah, I had that issue as well.

Yup, same here. First year of college kicked my ass but HARD as I got adjusted to not being able to just have all the work done and understand everything before the class itself was finished and actually having to study. Should have taken more to heart what one of the profs pointed out- most of us there were in the top 10% of our High Schools, but there at the University half of us would be below the average because EVERYONE was stupidly smart. And some had come from much harder programs or had to work harder in general and had better studying skills...

Ashyukun wrote: And some had come from much harder programs or had to work harder in general and had better studying skills...

The worst were the people who were smarter than me AND worked harder. Oh how I hated them. :)

The two I looked up at random both got PhDs. One co-founded a semi-conductor research company. The other took a break from CTO duties at a large corp to be a Deputy Undersecretary. Gawd I suck!