Home Educating a child who has 'turned off' from learning
Author: Natalie
Date: 09-01-09 22:51
We have a son who has just turned 9 and is on the 99.9th percentile for IQ and has quite severe behavioural problems. He is multi-modal and doesn't have any learning disabilities. School has always been an issue for him, escalating year on year, and we ended up pulling him out mid year 2008 for 6 months home-schooling (at a friend's home) as we, the school and he couldn't cope any more. This was a short term 'fix', and we aren't in a position to home-school ourselves at this stage, so he's going back to school in Feb. I also think that being at home with me would be very bad for him (and me), as he's extremely emotionally manipulative with me.
We have no problems with the school - they have bent over backwards to try to accommodate him, but we are scared that it's not going to work again. He is very rigid in his thinking, can sometimes be a bit arrogant about his abilities, dismissive of his peers and lots of other anti-social traits. Add to this the tendency to get aggressive when frustrated, and you've got a child who is a bit of a square peg in a 'normal' educational setting!
Has anyone out there got a child like this? Did anything work for you? I need to hear other's stories, even if they aren't success stories!
Re: Home Educating a child who has 'turned off' from learning
Author: Sue
Date: 09-01-09 23:14
Hi, Natalie.
Is either One Day School or Gifted Kids Programme (both one day a week pull-out programmes) an option for you? Being with a small class of gifted kids for some time each week might help your son get his own abilities into perspective and give him interaction with other kids who are on his wave-length. My daughter also tested at the 99.9th percentile and didn't 'meet her match' until she went to a one day programme with other gifted kids. Similarly, my gifted son lost most of his arrogance about his intellectual prowess once he started at the same programme and found intellectual peers. The interactions also helped him broaden his ideas and become less 'black and white' in his thinking.
Both organisations take children who are attending school or who are home-schooling.
I have a son (7), whose behaviour sounds quite a lot like that of your son. I have two other boys, one older and one younger, who behave in a much more socially acceptable manner (most of the time!). This massive difference led me to have my middle son assessed, to learn that he has mild dyslexia and is on the aspergers - autism scale, on the "low" side. Rather than being a concern, for us this was a huge relief. We have now dealt largely with the dyslexia in the space of only a few months (this was made easier for him, apparently due to his giftedness), and he now feels much more "able". As for the aspergers diagnosis, it has given us an understanding and empathy for his sometimes extreme emotional and behavioural responses. Recently (last week, actually) the psychologist we have been consulting pointed out, for instance, that we should give him clear boundaries and set "rules", rather than going through laborious explanations of why he should or shouldn't do things. He said our son will not respond at that level. There is lots and lots of interesting stuff going on which I won't go into here, but it really has made such a difference just starting to understand a bit more about our son's world, so that we can help him to live in ours. Have you considered an assessment? It is early days for us yet, since this has all only happened in the last few months, but it is energising rather than draining.
As an educational note, we have our son at a Montessori primary school, which he absolutely loves. It's not perfect, but he really does love it, and that is hugely important . We are currently reconsidering sending him to state school for various reasons, but we are very afraid that he might "regress" into some of the anxiety and violent responses of his earlier years if he is not happy. The schooling issue is a tough one!
Re: Home Educating a child who has 'turned off' from learning
Author: Cassandra
Date: 30-01-09 22:21
My oldest boy was very turned off learning and so we home schooled all the kids - four of them - for 3 years when he was ten and the other two were eight and six. We read quite abit about home schooling first and so we were prepared that it might be difficult. The most helpful book was Jean Hendy Harris's `Putting The Joy Back Into Egypt' which I found really inspiring. I dont know if you can still get hold of it but you could try at your local library.
We home educate too, and my 9 year old son also went through that gone off learning, everything became boring, and he is very arrogant too about finding things easy, when he gets frustrated he also has a tendency to get excessively fiery and too aggressive. Things have settled down quite a lot now that he is doing some extension activities with other gifted kids.
I too loved the book "Putting the Joy Back into Egypt"
Re: Home Educating a child who has 'turned off' from learning
Author: Melissa
Date: 29-03-09 16:48
We home schooled for two years after reading that very same book and yes I too found it very inspiring. Is the writer the same person who runs the acheiving potential holiday seminars for gifted kids does anybody know?
