I feel like crap - not horrible but just stuffy and congested and cranky. I'm PMS-y and this head cold sucks the life out of me. I don't have time to be stuffy - I need every drop of brain power to deal with work and, apparently, with my 3rd grader's homework tonight. Let me just say - when you give 8 year olds 25 of the most commonly misspelled words, and said 8 year old mother looks at them, isn't sure how to spell 2, and recognizes that the she saw the vast majority of the rest misspelled in work emails just today - that's some damn hard homework. The saving grace - they let the kids use dictionaries.
But while I'm on the subject of school and homework....
I love my kid. He's smart in a quirky and weird and very verbal way. People are (not bragging here) often telling me how smart he is in totally unsolicited ways. We've known he was different, "gifted', since he was 2. So we've been cautious with his school - he doesn't do boredom well, handles transitions even more poorly. He needs to be stimulated and challenged.
His teacher last year was great - gave him extra work, pushed him hard especially with reading (where he is stars and away light years beyond his peers), and kept him interested. She recognized his abilities.
This year he's in a different school. His teacher is nice and tries hard - she's also very traditional. She's good about setting boundaries with him and she's fine with academics - but just fine. I don't think she sees or understands kids who learn differently. He's doing great - all As and A+s so far - but I think she's losing him.
I've just started making this observation in the last few weeks. At our conference with her last week, she mentioned he's been sucking his finger (which he does when bored, among other things). I've noticed his in class papers are still good but he has weird lapses - he'll skip 1 section of the paper entirely, or miss 1 specific direction. Everything on the paper will be right except that. He also admitted to me tonight that he doesn't pay attention. He says he doesn't mean to not focus, but the stuff the class is doing isn't holding his interest. I am NOT ok with this and I told him so. One of his distractions is "Calvin and Hobbes" - he found one of our books and he fell in love. I flat out told him tonight that if he has another lapse, "Calvin and Hobbes" will temporarily become a weekend-only treasure.
Given all this, plus our meeting on Friday, I'm frustrated. You see, the child ACED and I mean ACED 2/3 of his CogAts. His 3rd section he was far above average, but not far "enough" for them to consider him gifted. "But of course, we don't have a gifted program here. We do have students that score higher than Giani - so they are categorized as gifted. He just barely missed the cut. However, because we don't have a gifted program, he would still likely be in the top level classes."
This frustrates me. I mean, a label is a label. I know my kid and I know he's amazingly talented. His scores on those 2 sections of that test (top 1-3%) tell you that. And the 3rd section. Well, the 3rd section was math. Guess what. He does math ONLY in his head. I had no idea until I watched him take practice CMTs. His average math score doing stuff in his head? 80%. His average math score doing the same tests but jotting down the 5, 6, 7 number sums? 100%.
Damn kid.
He said to me tongiht "Mom, I'm not used to having to try. This is new for me. I can do math in my head." I told him that, yes, he could - but he could do it written down better.
I worry. I worry about ADHD with him. He is HYPER focused with things that interest him. He just did a report for school on Amelia Earhart (on which he got an A instead of an A+ why? Not due to lack of research but because he wasn't 100% believeable 'acting' as her. WTF? How is that even the point???). He was ravenous. He read the assigned book. Then he Google'd her. Then he found an article in "Nat Geo" (National Geographic - NOT kids) about her. He went in to that presentatin knowing more about that woman than most people. He loved it.
But give him some homework and he'll spend 6 minutes on it, half-assing it, writing it sloppily, and making me insane.
So after MUCH MUCH debate, Hubby and I will be getting him in to see a child psych. It's probably already been too long. His time with his social worker at school is helping, but it's shared time and it's not directed at understanding how he learns and how we can help him. Plus, frankly, I find it abject bullshit that he's being considered "not gifted" by his school district based on 1 standardized test. Argh.
We'll see. At the end of the day, I am not so delusional as to think he's a genius. He's not. But he's a bright kid who thinks and learns very differently. I want to do right by him - I want to make it easier for him to learn, to get him with teachers that challenge him. And I want him to learn that the mundane to him is still necessary and that it doesn't have to be a necessary "evil".
We went through his homework tonight and I made a huge effort to be calm and make it interesting and fun. He loved using the giant dictionary, so maybe that's a step in the right direction.
Ok, my Puffs Plus are calling. Damn cold.
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