The Good News Is, He's Brilliant

The bad news is, he's lazy. Or something.

(long, rambling and self-indulgent, because it's Saturday and nobody is reading anyway)

Pre-Pubescent One got put on academic probation for getting a C.

I know, I know...that doesn't sound like such a tragedy, and you're wondering why I'm having kittens over an average grade. There are a few reasons for that.

First, because he's not an average student. If I thought that he was putting forth his best effort and getting C's, I would be fine with that.

But he's not. He blows off homework and expects his test grades to keep him afloat. Why? You may ask.

Well, it used to be that he could get straight A's without doing any work because he remembers everything. His retention is amazing. If he hears it or sees it once, it's there. And that worked just fine for him in elementary school because he had an understanding homeroom teacher. She and his Target (gifted and talented) teacher both recognized that sometimes really smart kids just work differently.

Many of them just have a different way of thinking and doing things. They can be flaky and absentminded. They color outside the lines. They defy authority. They break rules. They buck trends.

And some of them have learnging disabilites. There is a strong link between giftedness and disorders like ADD, Dyslexia, and processing disorders. Pre-Pubescent One has ADD, but his symptoms are well managed with Strattera and certain behavior modification strategies.

So his teachers accepted him as an exceedingly bright kid with some intellectual quirks and didn't make too much of the fact that he never turned in his homework. I appreciated that to an extent, but I also think they may have set him up for failure in Middle School, where homework accounts for a large percentage of the overall grade.

So here we are, in 7th grade, and my son is in danger of getting kicked out of the AC (accelerated content) program. One more C, and he's out.

We met with the coordinator of the AC program this week, who is also his AC Social Studies teacher. She expressed to us that she would be very disappointed to see him lose his place in line for the AC magnet program at the high school level. They start evaluating students in 8th grade. She thinks it would be somewhat disastrous for him to be in regular content courses.

She feels that he needs to be around kids with similar intellect to challenge him to think, motivate him to perform, and keep him striving for excellence. It's a sound theory. Normally, he gets straight A's in his AC courses, while his regular content grades suck ass.

And you may be wondering why he doesn't have a full course load of AC classes. I wondered that myself. When he entered Middle School, I assumed that would be the case, since he had been in the gifted program in elementary school, as well as a special accelerated math class in which they were learning introductory geometry, trigonometry and simple calculus (who knew there was such a thing as simple calculus??).

The answer is pretty disheartening. They just don't have the staff or the resources to provide all the AC students with a full AC courseload. They put kids in the AC classes in which test results have indicated the highest aptitude. For some reason his did not include math and he ended up in a regular content math class, where he was relearning stuff he had had down cold since the third grade.

Did I make a stink about that? Oh yes. But you see, he was not getting good grades in regular content math and so, they reasoned, his placement made sense. But the reason he was doing so poorly was that he did not care about doing well. He considers himself somewhat of a math whiz, so he was terribly affronted by being placed in a regular content class. He simply refused to perform.

Anyway...all of that just supports what his teacher said. He needs to be in the accelerated program. He needs to be challenged or he becomes apathetic. And he needs the excitement of competing with other kids with similar abilities. Good grades in a class full of kids he can think circles around gives him no satisfaction.

All this sounds very snooty, doesn't it? La di da....my kids is so smart and everyone else's kids are hopeless dullards. It's weird having smart kids. People assume that having smart kids is great, but let me assure you, it comes with it's own frustrations. And it's hard to discuss those challenges without sounding like a big fat braggart.

But you know what? There are times that I would really rather have a child who is average. There is nothing wrong with average. And I think average is a lot easier for all concerned.

Another part of the problem is that he knows he's smart. You wouldn't think that would be an academic handicap, but believe me, it is.

He doesn't feel like he needs to do the work, and to be quite honest, he doesn't. He participates eagerly in class discussions, and that's really all it takes for him to absorb material and concepts. His teacher said that if she could grade him on articulation and class participation alone his grades would not be an issue.

But that's not the way it works in the real world. There has to be empirical proof of his intelligence and his willingness to put forth some effort in order for him to be eligible for the opportunities available for gifted kids. And if he doesn't straighten up, those opportunities are going to pass him by.

It's all enormously frustrating, especially since I experienced similar issues when I was in school. Some of you may remember my story. It's incredibly hard to watch your kids make all the same mistakes and be powerless to change it.

Oh, we've tried. We've done everything my parents did and we tried some things they didn't. We've tried positive reinforcement. We've tried the hardass approach. We've even resorted to bribery. All to no avail. And I'm stumped. Really and truly stumped.

I try to remember my own thought processes and why I refused to do what everyone expected of me. All I can recall is feeling disgusted and annoyed and thinking that it was all so stupid and pointless. What did any of it matter?

Of course, I didn't have the maturity to see that it would matter a lot later on in life, and I refused to be told, as does my son.

I was discussing this with several friends recently. One of those friends has a similarly gifted child, the other has a child with Autism. The third friend is a Middle School teacher. As you can imagine, they are a great group of gals with which to discuss these kinds of issues.

The one friend is wondering how to handle the problems her child is facing with homework. He is a perfectionist (as many gifted children are) but instead of being an asset, this can somtimes be a huge liability. His perfectionsim often results in homework not getting turned in, because it's just not good enough. Like my son, his grades and his performance are often not a reliable indicator of his true ability.

The mother of the autistic child, who has a lot of insight into differenly abled individuals had this to say:

"What I think some educators don't understand is that there is a trade-off in very smart kids... they excel in certain areas and have major deficits in others. Its really that simple. Well, simple when you find out where their roadblocks are and then implement a program that uses their strengths to help w/their weaknesses."

She's absolutely right, as any Mom with a gifted child knows. Many teachers recognize it as well. But unfortunately, people in the real world are not as informed or understanding. We cannot realistically expect them to make concessions for our brilliant but unconventional children.

Employers won't be so indulgent if they "forget" to show up for work, misplace an important document, or alienate a client. Banks, creditors and utility companies won't be so forgving ing if they "forget" to pay a bill.

We've got to find a way to help these kids navigate the real world, or they will end up lost. From my perspective as the mother of a gifted child, that would be a terribly tragedy.

Unrealized potential always is.

So yes, I think we absolutely have to recognize that they think differently, act differently, live differently. But I don't think that should be an excuse to coast through life. I don't think we should enable them in using that as an excuse to be less than they can be.

And right now, that is where all my frustration lies.

For the last part of the conference, we brought Pre-Pubescent One in. As we talked to him, he nodded obediently, but I could see him tuning us out. Just as I did when my parents and teachers gave me the same speech.

Still, I can't not give it. It's my job. And someday, when he's flipping hamburgers at McDonald's, I will know that I tried.

Will that keep the guilt at bay? SIGH. Probably not. Moms should get emotional hazard pay.