ARE A LOT OF YOUR KIDS 'GIFTED'?

[P_Mom]

Well......just had my parent/teacher conferences Tuesday. I was told my older son was advanced.........doing well, only B (91%..heck, would have been an A in my day) was in math.....hummm???

 

But, then went to my younger son...(the worse PANDAS case of my two boys)..........the teacher thinks he is "gifted" and is curiously awaiting test results they took recently. He missed 1 point in all subjects combined.....except he got one C!! Yep...his handwriting stinks!! I asked her if she thinks this is something we should seek help with....she then flipped out a spelling test and showed me his VERY neat handwriting. She thinks his handwriting stinks most of the time because he is not challenged and just wants to get it over with...but, when he HAS to write neat...he can.

 

I know some parents are thrilled to hear their children may be "gifted." But, not me, not really. It makes me a little uncomfortable........you know, the "too smart for your own good" thing. Well, he is what he is....and he is a great kid.....if we can just kick this PANDAS in the butt, and then steer him in the right direction.......maybe he will come up with a cure for this stuff someday!

[ajcire]

I so hear you! I only had my ds tested because it was part of an eval to get speech services when he was 3. I mean we knew he was bright.... but when he had the psychological part of the testing and the psychologist told me she was so excited about his results... I mean she was beaming and ready to report to me how bright my son really was. She told me the results and then told me what it meant and waited for me have some great big reaction. She said to me, "Why aren't you jumping for joy at this?" This was pre any of my pandas knowledge but to me, he was my little secret... it's like I felt I had to hide his brightness for some reason.. couldn't talk about it with any of my friends for fear of sounding like that braggy mother... The psychologist did tell me that I would have my work cut out for me when he got to school because of this and explained that really it made him a special needs kid... just that they weren't going to provide services for him... In my gut I felt like there was more to his brightness but was assured it was not aspergers and that he was just a bright child with a few quirks... I too have often said he's just too smart for his own good.

 

I feel like it's like the problem of a really thin person... I mean that person might be struggling with to gain weight.. but really how many of us want to hear about how hard it is for them to gain weight... That's how I feel with my son.... who really wants to hear about the problems that giftedness brings.

 

Oh, as far as the handwriting.. interesting to me is that while my son doesn't exhibit the fine motor issues that many kids with PANDAS do I do sometimes notice an extreme of neat versus not.... His tests are always extremely neat. Unfortunately though she told the kids to try to write smaller (probably because some write sooo big) and well he seems to have taken her quite literally on that. I think she will need a magnifying glass to read his homework

 

It took me time to get that it was something to be proud of, not ashamed of... not something to feel guilty about.

 

 

 

Well......just had my parent/teacher conferences Tuesday. I was told my older son was advanced.........doing well, only B (91%..heck, would have been an A in my day) was in math.....hummm???

 

But, then went to my younger son...(the worse PANDAS case of my two boys)..........the teacher thinks he is "gifted" and is curiously awaiting test results they took recently. He missed 1 point in all subjects combined.....except he got one C!! Yep...his handwriting stinks!! I asked her if she thinks this is something we should seek help with....she then flipped out a spelling test and showed me his VERY neat handwriting. She thinks his handwriting stinks most of the time because he is not challenged and just wants to get it over with...but, when he HAS to write neat...he can.

 

I know some parents are thrilled to hear their children may be "gifted." But, not me, not really. It makes me a little uncomfortable........you know, the "too smart for your own good" thing. Well, he is what he is....and he is a great kid.....if we can just kick this PANDAS in the butt, and then steer him in the right direction.......maybe he will come up with a cure for this stuff someday!