[vaw]

We are having another frustrating year (although not as bad as last year) and I don't know what the cause is.

As much as he loves to learn at home, school isn't so great. Currently he just isn't completing work - last year was more not listening to the teachers lectures.

How do you know its because they are bored with what the teacher is teaching, vs ADD, attention issue, vs lack of drive to complete work?

How do you address it with the child and the school?

 

[earthmama369]

I don't have any advice because mine are still little (and homeschooled), but anecdotally...dh and I are both gifted. I did well in school, except for math and science. I fell into that "girls don't do well in hard sciences" myth HARD. It's crap. But I wanted to fit in somehow. I certainly didn't fit in anywhere else. DH had a harder time in school. Hmm. Well, that's not exactly accurate. He didn't get the grades I did, because he didn't choose to care that much about fitting into the system. He did what he wanted and found ways to work the system to his advantage.

Even at that, I often didn't do homework because it was flippin' boring and I did a lot of papers and reports at the absolute last minute. If they'd been more challenging or interesting, I would have focused more, but the school didn't offer that on a daily basis. We had pull-out activities for gifted students, but we still had to do the slog, and I didn't do the slog very well. There was no reason to, aside from (early on) making a teacher angry or disappointed and (later) a fear of not getting into college.

Loving to learn at home but not loving school would make me suspect boredom more than something like ADD -- that would be present in every aspect of life, not just school.

I'm honestly not sure how I would address that. I don't think I could come up with a convincing reason for a child to get interested in things that don't interest him. I'd probably work on the school offering different options rather than trying to fit a star-shaped child into a round hole.

 

[AllisonR]

How common is it for gifted kids to not do well in school?

Well, school is the main reason I am in the gifted forum, and my kids are not even in school yet! But I don't want them to have the same awful experiences I had, so come here to read tips, suggestions, support... from other people whose DCs are in school now. Additionally, I am not raising my children in my home country, so I don't know the ropes, if you kwim.

 

[OTMomma]

All kinds of children can struggle with school, there are tons of kids who are round pegs trying to fit in those square holes.

In general- ADD would be present all the time- like a pp said- it would be an issue at home and other settings, so I would doubt that is the problem. The teacher not teaching in a style that suits your child's learning style is a potential issue, but there is no great way to address that.

I think most children will complete their assignements if they are getting a sense of achievement and are learning from them, if they are interested and engaged- I don't believe in the myth of lazy children who lack drive, just in bad assignments.

If it were me, I would discuss with your ds what he feels the problems are and see if he has suggestions for solutions.

 

[mama2mygirl]

I think kids who are in the "normal" gifted range tend to do well. And the higher to profoundly kids often don't do well in school. At least this is what I was told by the woman who tested my dd last year.

 

[alegna]

IME- very common.

-Angela

 

[dillonandmarasmom]

Speaking as a former teacher to a class of 100% GATE students, it is very, very common. Even in a class that is supposedly raising the bar to the GATE students' levels.

I always had at least 1 student whom I knew was very, very bright, yet would refuse to complete assignments and just sputter the year away no matter how many interventions we attempted.

I was GATE and did the exact same thing. Didn't put in the effort, didn't care, didn't want to care. In my case, my sister (older by 4 years) was laos gifted nad I was always being called "Shelley" (my sis) by her former teachers. I couldn't wait to get out of her shadow...and I succeede sometime mid-junior high.

 

[ChristaN]

My younger dd, who is EG, is not gifted at all in her school's opinion (she doesn't qualify for a label or programming) b/c she isn't a high performer in school. She is a "good" student in that she gets what amounts to As and Bs in her classes, but she's not performing anywhere near her potential and doesn't seem to be interested in doing anything to rectify that situation.

Like pps have mentioned, there seems to be a combination of being compared to her older sister, who is a stellar student, boredom, and other factors coming into play. We, too, have wondered about twice exceptionality, although haven't ided anything yet. I don't know how common it is, but anecdotally I've certainly seen it happen. I've also seen a lot of bright but not gifted kids who are ided as gifted due to high achievement. What I'm trying to get at is that I don't think that the high achievers are all doing well due to giftedness or that all of the gifted kids are in those advanced groups. I believe that the advanced groups/classes are nearly as heterogeneous in terms of innate ability as are the standard classes.

 

[carmel23]

Quote:

Originally Posted by vaw We are having another frustrating year (although not as bad as last year) and I don't know what the cause is. As much as he loves to learn at home, school isn't so great. Currently he just isn't completing work - last year was more not listening to the teachers lectures. How do you know its because they are bored with what the teacher is teaching, vs ADD, attention issue, vs lack of drive to complete work? How do you address it with the child and the school?

How old is your child?

Do you think that a gifted child in a boring environment that doesn't address their educational needs might lead them to have attention issues (like if there isn't anything worth paying attention to?) and create a lack of drive, since there is never really anything to strive for... and if the work is well below their means, almost insulting to complete? Like if you took a third grader and put them in kindergarten, how would that go?

I think they're all tied together, and that a gifted child in a bad school environment can lead to all sorts of things that aren't necessarily good things to learn... especially if school has been bad for awhile (over six months, year after year?)...

 

[joensally]

From what I've read, it's not uncommon.

DD's last report card was straight As

. We've never seen that before, in fact I often see an "average" grade against a skill I know she excels at. Maybe she's finally learned that report cards don't reflect what you know, but rather what you show. Or it was a fluke, given how much work I found jammed in the back of her desk

.

 

[MichaelsSahm]

Its very common for gifted children not to do well in school.
My husband tested gifted when he was our DS's age (who also tested gifted) and he wasn't challanged in school at all. His school didn't have any programs, or people caring enough to keep him content in school.
Thankfully our DS has a teacher who is raising a gifted child herself, and knows exactly what to do with our DS! We got lucky. We also do stuff at home ofcourse!
I would talk to the teacher, maybe they aren't being patient enough. Alot of teachers don't know what to do with a gifted child!

 

[no5no5]

DH was both gifted & dyslexic & ADD, and he did so poorly in school that was in remedial education with the kids with mental retardation.

Of course, they didn't know he was dyslexic, but he HAD tested into the gifted program, despite his dyslexia & ADD & poor test-taking skills.

:

I, on the other hand, did very well in early grades and then got so frustrated that I almost ended up flunking out of high school.

I think it is absolutely normal for any kid to do badly if he or she is not getting what he or she needs out of school.