Gifted kids struggle with school, and so do their parents

Check out this video before reading this post, please.
http://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/family-life/camera-shows-dad-wailing-with-joy-at-sons-math-grade.html

If you read the text along with it, you'll see that the boy taping it was failing math a year ago, and has just passed it . . . forever.  He seems ecstatic, probably to be done with math, but also to tell his dad.

He looks to be an age where stereotypically, kids are supposed to flee from their parents, and boys are supposed to be macho.  Yet, he has an exuberant smile, sets up a camera, and basks in the emotional response of his father.  He enthusiastically returns the hugs (did he initiate the one when his dad first starts crying?) and allows his head to be kissed.  Judging by his expression ending the video, I'm guessing he intends to revel in his father's joy over and over again.

I watched it twice.  I'm still teared up.  I might have to watch it a third time right now to answer my own question.  As I watch, I experience it differently from the boy.

As a parent, I see palpable relief and pride in the father's reaction.  He goes from excitement, to release of tension, to pride and love for his son . . . and on to a more subdued recapitulation of the whole experience.  It is over.  All of the hard work is done.  It paid off.  All of the worry about the emotions and journey of his child is over, at least for this particular subject.  Isn't that parenting? "You're set for life," he tells his son.

In a matter of months, I lost count of how many people told us that educating our daughter must be easy.  The assumption was that being gifted is as simple as being smart.  Along with that go the assumptions that the gifted are quick to learn, quick to read, early in everything they do and high achievers.  Let me attest to the fact that gifted children are just as complicated as the rest of the population.  They fail things.  They struggle.  They have to work hard.  All of the difficult things that can happen to other children, can happen to gifted kids.  If you don't believe me, do an online search for nobel prize winners that struggled in school.

Our personal experience has been a mix of easy and hard, just like the rest of the population.  It took me only a few weeks to give up trying to explain this to people.  Instead, I got flabbergasted expressions when I simply answered a straightforward and straight-faced, "No, it's not."  With people I trust, and in the privacy of solitude, I would rage at the ridiculousness of anyone having the impertinence to not only assume, but state boldly, "that must be easy."  I've gained a small degree of calm on this topic over the years, and now believe that these people must see the world as black and white.  While I sometimes think "ignorance is bliss" with wistfulness, I would not give up the gorgeous color and texture of our complex world for that delusion of simplicity.  If that means I'm guilty of snobbery, calling people ignorant, so be it.  They certainly are ignorant of our situation.  I think it as likely that I'm guilty of bitterness and the anger that can come with that.

I have seen my daughter get as excited as the boy in that link.  She has done so many amazing things in her few years.  However, the things that really get her excited like that are not often the ones that have a lot of pomp and circumstance.  The biggest joy that our family experiences is in moments like those in that video.  They are the moments where we have accomplished something hard-won.  The tears of relief and joy my husband and I cry with our daughter are reminiscent of the tears we secretly cried during the struggle and hard work, except that those tears were hidden from her most of the time.

I want to make sure you catch this.  The boy got a C.

He and his father set a reasonable goal, made it, and both guys were emotional about that.  How many parents would get mad about the fail?  How many kids and parents would say, "Do the best you can," or "Aim for a B," or any number of other things that might be less . . . .  what word to use?  I think I like leaving it at less.  This dad said "If you can get a C, you can do anything."  That's a cool dad.  He inspires me to be a better parent.  That man is inspiring so many people with his loving reaction to a C, gone viral via his son's recording.

Growing up, I was very much an overachiever.  However, I cannot ever remember my parents getting that excited.  It wasn't that they didn't care, but they would never have reacted like the father in the video.  I'm not sure if I could throw off my reserve enough to be that cool, either.  However, my husband is, and I am learning.

It reminds me of another article that I read recently about the importance and power of saying, "I love to watch you _____."  Those are powerful words, and I'm intentionally including them in my parenting.  Maybe it's a homeschooling by-product, but teaching and correcting come all too easily.  Instead, I'm intentionally saying, "I love to see you having fun."  Taking the performance out of it clears the path for happiness and simply enjoying the experience.

My daughter is teaching me enthusiasm and encouragement, as well.  She gets more excited for me than I do for myself, and that is a beautiful thing.  It's also a parallel.  I sometimes think my reaction to her getting past a hurtle is bigger than hers, at least inside.  We are teaching each other.

I hope that we will continue to share the richness of life as this father and son appear to.  And yes, we celebrate C's.  She is no more or less gifted because of a label in the form of a grade.  Besdies, my high grades did little for me over the long run.  They are not currency for happiness, and they were not required for the goals that make me happy.  If you need grades and degrees to achieve your goals, and those goals make you happy, work for those grades!  In my case, they were like a cheap pastic trophy - you know the kind, where the screw won't even get tight enough to keep the metallic-painted person facing forward.  That kind of award makes us try and remember why we wanted it so badly, and it demotivates as opposed to motivates our future endeavors.

I won't say that I wish struggles on you.  However, you will and do have them.  So, I will hope that your experiences following the struggles are as wonderful and rich as those in this video.  There is a chorus that just jumped into my head, recorded by Warren Barfield.  "Love is not a fight, but it's something worth fighting for."  May your enjoyment be amplified by the effort it took to achieve it.

Calvin & Hobbes defines gifted kids?

I love this.  So true.

http://www.byrdseed.com/calvin/

Define Homeschooler

I ran across this on facebook and had to share it.  I hear so many people react with strong impressions about what homeschooling is.  This was fun.

http://www.quickstarthomeschool.com/2013/10/misconceptions-about-homeschoolers-are-we-really-who-you-think-we-are/

free massage leads to the gifted community

I recently attended a fundraiser crafting day.  If you have not attended one, they are fabulous!  You are not a crafter, you say?  Go anyway!  I have a friend who attended a weekend crafting retreat with us and does not craft.  It was a success for her.   She relaxed, got away, and chatted with friends.  If you are a crafter, it's a great way to get some uninterrupted time, with space to spread out in many cases, and a much smaller likelihood that children will demand your attention and interrupt the process every five minutes.  I digress.

At the most recent event, I spent several hours enjoying the food that came with my ridiculously low all-day fee, and did not begin any "work" until after lunchtime.  Between lunch and crafting, I was ushered back to a room for a free mini massage.  In this case, a local chiropractic group was supporting the charitable group by offering these free of charg, a mini consultation for a small fee, and whatever next step you wanted to take.  Everyone wins.

I happen to have a chiropractor, so I was not interested in that.  However, I am not one to turn down having my shoulders rubbed!  A few women I regularly attend these things with were there, but not in the massage room.  As usual, within a few questions, I was led into that water where I wonder how much to reveal about our alternative educational situation.

Maybe I was just relaxed because I was in a massage chair, but I decided to say a little.  I keep hearing how unusual our situation is, but am having increasing trouble believing that.  This was another of those situations.  A professional in the same office has a son who is twice exceptional, I was told.  They were waiting until the school would do giftedness assessment, etc.  If you're in the gifted circles for very long, you hear the same general story over and over.    This was in a part of town where there is very little support evident.  We live in a pretty large area, but pockets of it offer far more support for families like ours.  So, I asked if the mother was finding resources and help.  "No," was the immediate and simple response.

Obviously, the woman was having a very difficult time.  Remember, this was her colleague I was talking to.  I offered a few groups to look into and get more information.  I was given a longer mini massage while we talked about our experience with M, and I was requested to leave my contact info and any additional information I would be willing to share.  I covered the back of 2 letter-sized sheets.  I'm sure you're surprised if this isn't your first time visiting this blog ;)

It got even better.  Another crafter I had not met previously asked me what I was up to, and I reluctantly told her a little.  She was sympathetic and supportive immediately!  I get so prepared for the less helpful responses, that this was a very pleasant surprise.  When I finally returned to the tables, my friend asked if I got lost, so I told her what had happened in a brief statement.  She was enthusiastic about what a great thing it was that we had connected in that way.  What a wonderful relief to be myself outside the sphere of our uniqueness and received such support and encouragement!

Quite a while ago, my husband and I were going through some difficult things unrelated to this blog's subject, in general.  We felt all alone.  We were afraid to share what we were going through, even with good friends.  We were paranoid about how others might interpret what we said.

When we dared to speak, we learned that we were far from alone, and that others had remained silent for the same reasons.  We found healing, support, and deeper relationships very quickly by opening up.  At that point, we decided that people around us would not go through the same things believing themselves to be alone.  That has become a major theme in my life - almost a mission.  It takes courage to be different.  Ironically, only in being bold do you learn how many people share the things that make you feel isolated.  This effectively negates the boldness originally needed.  I'm going to need to think about that more.

I want every child and every family to find educational and social solutions that work for them.  That is my genuine desire.  I care very little if they are the same answers that we have found.  Well . . .  for those who I really like, I want you to make the same decisions as us so we get to see more of you, but those are reserved for the situations that make me feel like a little kid in a variety of ways.  Seriously, though, I want people to find their path.  I encourage you to take risks, small at first, and feel emboldened with every connection you find through that courage.  Then, you end up becoming the person who others feel blessed to have benefited from your boldness.  The process will continue, just like paying it forward.

Embrace your differences!  I am so glad we do not live in a world of paper doll garland people.  Did you ever cut those?  Every one of them is alike; you cut them from folded paper which makes them identical.  They are as bland as restroom sign profiles of men and women . . . even more bland - the bathroom sign people have branched out, for which I am grateful.

Think about your favorite people.  Are they just like you?  Mine are not.  Do they have important, deep, or exciting things in common with you?  Mine do.  If they were just like you in every way, would they be exciting?  My answer would have to be no.  When your parents said, "I hope you have kids just like you," was it to wish you peace and joy in that moment?  The things that drive me crazy in my daughter are often the things we have in common.  The things that excite me about her are the things that are different.  With this in mind, why are we so quick to try and be just like everyone else in the paper doll chain?

Wishing you a fabulous Fall week ahead, filled with comforting seasonal smells, tastes and sights.  Even the changing of seasons is something msot of us desire.  There's that theme again . . .  different is good.

What the ______? Light therapy and reading, oh my!

I mentioned vision therapy in my post about giftedness being bad for your health.  Light therapy has been a part of that experience for us.  Overall, vision therapy has been wonderful, fast, effective, and a great blessing.  This post, however . . .  will take some explaining.

Worksheets were never a problem.  Well, not in terms of having enough of them to keep M busy.  Not since preschool when they were just for fun.  She chose sticker books that made me feel like a lunatic even mentioning multiplication to my daughter because she would rather do a math homeschooling book than coloring.  For us, they were her version of coloring books, even though I tried not to let too many people see what my small child was doing too closely.  We still were convinced that she was just like every other child out there, with the exception of loving math.  We were still putting most of our thought into which schools we might consider for her.  The days of loving math are past, as are most of our hopes of using schools before college, as well as the days of us being blissfully ignorant.  Or, at least, comfortably ignorant.

She still gets excited about worksheets.  However, the consistent pattern is that she starts it excitedly, usually after asking if she can "start yet" several times.  After beginning, they are inevitably less fun than she expects and she lapses into resigned execution of the homeschool assignments.

Reading material presents a significant challenge for us.  So many people we encounter have children who read very early, but that was never us.  In fact, a mother in our girl scout troop had me traumatized that my mother had not started me reading before Kindergarten.  My mother had been a teacher, which made the offense more severe in her eyes.  I went home wounded that day and asked my mother if I was behind because I didn't know how to read.  My mother calmly told me that she knew I would have no trouble reading, and said that she hadn't taught me because I hadn't shown interest.  She asked me if I wanted to learn, and I admit to her that I didn't.  I went on to become an avid reader and do quite well in school.  My mother was certainly right about that.

Reading progressed the same way in our parenting.  We put on Leap Frog DVDs (as opposed to my childhood Sesame Street time) and got learning toys and games, along with purely entertaining toys and games that imparted some level of education.  However, we never talked about, worried about, or even put much thought into reading.  At a Kindergarten conference, her teacher told us it was time to get her some level readers.  

My superior intelligence was evident in my response.  "Oh, OK.  What are level readers?"  The teacher kindly & patiently explained, showing me examples, and recommending Barnes & Noble.  I nodded and went to Half Price Books the next day for a good long perusal of the kids section, ending in the clearance rack.  I purchased the levels her teacher had recommended and a few more.  I figured that planning ahead and shopping the clearnace section would be good for our budget.  I also picked up a Spongebob Chapter book for my friend's son, who hated reading at the time.

That night, after I brought M home from school, she asked what I had, so I showed her.  She was convinced that she did not know how to read, and was resistant to the pile, even though several of them were obviously about things that interested her.  I asked her to grab a board book - any board book, and joined her for some reading time on her bed.  She repeated that she couldn't read.  I told her to read only what she recognized, like the sight words from school, and told her I would read the rest of them for her.  She needed me to read exactly one word.  Then, she got excited and grabbed another board book, which she did not need any help with.  

Suddenly, the level readers were a hit!  I was feeling like a good mom and continued sorting and doing my thing while she read the Level 1 pile.  Then, I got wary as she came back to get the level 2 readers. Was she actually reading them?  Did she understand?  Was she just looking at the pictures?  I asked her some questions when she brought the finished pile of Level 2 readers back to me.  I had not yet moved.  She had read them.  She had understood them.  I now understood something, too.  I was in trouble.

She went through every book that first night.  In fact, she came back looking for more and only saw the Spongebob chapter book.  She asked who that was for and I told her.  She shyly outed asking why she couldn't read it.  "Of course you could, honey, but it's harder than the other ones I bought because he's older than you are.  It's harder than the ones your teacher recommended, and I think it might frustrate you.  It would probably take a long time."  She stood there silently in response.  I handed her the book, and she completed that one, as well.

OK, Spongebob Squarepants is not Shakespeare, I realize.  However, we had started the day hearing that she couldn't read, and ended it with her reading a chapter book.  Even though Spongebob Squarepants was the subject, I knew I was in trouble.  I went to a different Half Price Books the next day, again getting a variety of levels.  

Within a week, M told me her teacher had noticed her improvement and was going to have her do a test the next day to see if she could join a different reading group - it was named after a color, maybe purple.  M was excited about it, and I had not mentioned a thing to the teacher, so I was impressed that she had noticed so quickly.  M passed her test and was accepted into the other group.  I knew she had improved and figured it was a more advanced group, but never intended to ask.  I was just glad my girl was enjoying reading.

The staff knew me a bit.  We were out of district, so I drove every day both ways.  I also volunteered because my work schedule often left me available during the school day.  The next week, the teacher commented on her reading.  I told her how excited M had been about the purple reading group and thanked her for making M so happy.  The teacher told me she had moved her right into the top group because she had improved so quickly; that had meant some catch-up work in a book they had been reading, but she had taken on the challenge and done very well.

For the last year or so, M would read hundreds of pages per day without provocation or reminder.  She read Shakespeare (a kids' edition - appropriate content and level is a whole other conversation) and laughed about the Roman mob when Caesar died.  The mob seriously cracked her up.  She has taken in enough to have an intelligent remark to make in a group of adults discussing the role and change of Christianity in governing powers, adding that Constantine was only baptized right before he died.  I never knew that until this week when my little girl told me.  And yes, she is still pretty little.

This Fall has been a challenging one.  Here's the perspective, now that we're (hopefully) on the other side of some of it.  She was reading about 10 pages a day, and only with nagging.  Thsi went on for weeks.  We had to implement consequences and discipline around it.  This is not like my child.  I had no idea what to do about this.  Our entire homeschool plan has had exactly one constant - the kid loves to read and learns well by reading.  Suddenly, she was not reading.  Apparently, I was in trouble again.

My husband wondered if the books were too hard after reading some aloud to her.  He's a very intelligent guy, but period language and accents throw him.  He did not know that she had already completed 2-3 books in a series with that same language, style and character without slowing.  I worried that we didn't give her enough time off this summer.  It was the first summer she wanted time off.  It was also the first summer I was prepared to deal with the volume of material she typically wants, so this took some adapting and compromise.

She's been in vision therapy, but hundreds of pages down to single-digits was a bit too much for me to attribute to that.  Kids put things off and choose to disobey.  While I know that, this had NOT EVER been true of our child.  In the movie, the Sandlot, wasn't it Smalls whose mother told him to go get in trouble?  Our daughter is like that.

Finally, I talked to her vision therapist about it.  K assured me that as the vision system is realligning and adapting, most kids need a scaled back workload.  I agreed and told her I had adapted her daily reading assignment to about 50-60 pages per day, and told her the previous and current reading speeds.  It relieved me to see her jaw drop.  Maybe it seems premature, but I have so much faith in the theapist that I just knew we had turned a corner with that jaw drop.  In a few questions and less than half an hour, we understood each other and had a common goal.

Here's what I learned, in a nutshell.  We were in the middle of light therapy, which expands peripheral vision.  My girl is intense and extreme, like her mother (and her father too - shhh!).  Apparently, slowing of reading is very common, but the extent was quite uncommon.  At the same time, her peripheral field had opened very quickly.  The pros and cons were both extreme.

Light therapy also can affect the entire nervous system.  That makes sense to me, and I even expected it.  It involved 20 minutes per day of looking at a special light with a colored filter in it.  Some families report behavioral changes.  Boom.  I got it.  This was not my child, actually.  It was directly related, but I had not expected all the side effects nor the extent their impact on our daily lives.

The good news is that things go back to their original quick pace, and should within weeks for M.  Some of her other "resets" have happened extremely quickly, and I have already noticed an increase in her speed since that conversation.  Her therapist gave her some things to think about and try as she was doing light therapy & schoolwork during that time, which also helped.  Everything is not back to normal, but understanding it makes all the difference.  

Imagine being born and going through life with blinders on, as if you were a horse.  Then, imagine having them removed, having never experienced site without them.  That is just the physical visual experience M went through with this over a very short period of time.   Now, I understand more about the internal journey as well.