Abby: homeschooling my illiterate gifted kids

[lilah]

In the middle of all of this colic stress, my only son's behavior problems have killed me. I straight out admitted defeat. My son appeared to met almost every criteria for "Oppositional Behavior Disorder" and I told my husband I was ready to get him into therapy.

I don't know what Jon said--but it was something like "just give it one more week to pray about it."

Then somehow this article came to my attention, "The Joys and Challenges of Raising A Gift Child." This quote really helped me, "gifted kids are almost comparable to special needs children. While their IQs are high, they have behavioral aspects that need special attention and the right teachers with the right understanding to guide them."

The article had a link to NAGC, but what really helped me was the link to SENG (Supporting the Emotional Needs of the Gifted). I can't even tell what that meant to me to find that site. I not only had a checklist that described my son--I had a checklist that described MYSELF.

Suddenly, my anxiety, my perfectionism, my extreme environmental sensitivity--those weren't just negative personality traits I needed to rid myself of to become a Saint--they weren't part and parcel of an artistic soul and a prayerful heart.

So now this home-schooling journey that I'm on--its really, really healing.

I learned that if I give my son stimulating engineering projects during the day- he's a super sweet kid who gets into NO trouble with his younger Sisters.

I've learned that STEM Movement (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) for elementary school students really mean "throw a couple of addition dittos and a volcano explosion at an 8 year old kid. That there is reason that boys are sucked up into computer games--it scratches that technology itch. I've learned that outside of legos--there is next to nothing for young Civil Engineers. (This being the exception). I've learned that if I want to engage my son, I've got to learn how to be an engineering teacher--and if I'm learning it for him, I might as well share it with his cub scout pack, our parish's Catholic School and our local public schools. (There are more "Rocket Boys" out there who need encouragement).

On a deeper level, I'm figuring how to gently love myself and my husband, and my five children.

(It's weird to write about this because I was taught very firmly by my mother that I wasn't gifted. I was "talented". But now the experts are saying that is the same thing. Moreover, my difficulties with simple math problems and my spelling mistakes and my poor organizational skill are not a sign that I'm not gifted--it's rather a common problem for gift students.

I'd started researching gift education many years earlier--but I sort of dropped all of that when I discovered that my kids had such terrible trouble learning how to read. How can you be considered gift when you can't read, right? But it turns out that 20% of all gift kids do have trouble reading. It's the same problem my kids have--phonics work is so boring they don't have stamina to do it even for a few minutes a day. That is the same problem both Jon and I had--we love to read now, but we hated it in elementary school. So now I'm tweaking my unschooling method to be more direct in reading instruction because truly, their life will be so much easier once they start really learning how to read).

Oh and this gem from the comments section

But then--most of the children's librarians are women, so how are they supposed to know that little boy desperately need directions on how to build things????

I'm trying to educate myself and then share with the larger community.

eye rolls all around for Abby's special snowflake kids. Who I think are probably suffering from the lack of physical stability (food shortages, money anxiety) and emotional stability (Abby has some kind of narcissistic personality plus lots of wild emotions) and that affects the kids. She talks in annother post about having a baby with such severe colic that she will leave her in another room and turn the fan on so she doesn't hear her cries and then she sleeps for a few hours, then comes back to see her baby is hoarse from crying all day. Yikes. Abby please consider conventional schooling for your children, it sounds like they need some stability in their lives and teachers who aren't exhausted and strung out.

Oh and as a female librarian who loves makings sure her elementary aged boys get reading material they will enjoy, (just today I had several boys checking out a spider on the window in my library so I thought "teachable moment" and gave them all books about different kinds of spiders) I suggest looking at the 600 section of your children's section for applied science.

[Maude]

he talks in annother post about having a baby with such severe colic that she will leave her in another room and turn the fan on so she doesn't hear her cries and then she sleeps for a few hours, then comes back to see her baby is hoarse from crying all day. Yikes.

That's neglect, plain and simple. Poor baby. :evil: Do you have a link for her blog? I'm not up on all of these fundies as some of you are. :)

[rock_girl]

Did Abby just want to boast about her own unacknowledged gifts? There are plenty of teachers who've experience with gifted children. I'd rather send a clever child to a school which had seen a number of those children through to successful adulthood than try and produce tiny engineers. Who's to say a child interested in such subjects is even going to end up an engineer? What her son needs are teachers who'll foster his gifts and passions for certain subjects while making sure that he doesn't slip behind in other areas. At least with school there's a level of accountability among the stuff. Home educating parents have done terrible things to gifted children, often with the best of intentions (and Abby doesn't even have those).

Good to see more of the "poor, poor, poor widdle boys" rubbish. Librarians are intelligent people, male or female, and aren't going to abandon an entire gender just because it's not the gender they've personally experienced. It's not as though female librarians are completely unaware of the maths and science books in their libraries. I know that Abby, were she working in a library, would remove any books that painted Catholicism in a negative light along with books designed to assist teen parents or that teach that birth control is a reasonable part of sex ed. Perhaps she thinks that wicked women working outside the home may, in a misguided act of feminism, destroy any book that a young boy would want to check out. Or that these same women working outside the home can't possibly care for and interact with their own children, or that they're all on birth control and having lesbian librarian orgies in their spare time and so can't possibly understand the needs of any children, lacking the will to breed a half dozen just for fun. Hard to say really.

[Gil]

Not only are her kids special snowflakes, but she's ALSO a special snowflake so don't criticize her for anything. :lol:

[gardenvarietycitizen]

That there is reason that boys are sucked up into computer games--it scratches that technology itch.

And girls never get that itch??? What the eff EVER.

(programmer, here.)

[emmiedahl]

Legos are the only engineering toys? orly? Like, erector sets and snap circuits and k'nex roller coasters and all of the other tiny pieces of foot stabbing hell in my son's room don't exist?

And, you know, little girls like those things just as much, even girlier ones. My 5 year old daughter is building a Hello Kitty megablocks collection that she is quite proud of.

[flojo]

The thing is, the classification of gifted and having special learning needs (it's called different things in different countries) does exist. The point is not to therefore ignore and neglect the child's literacy development, it's to enable the child to get the help they needs, both in their literacy and in their giftedness.

He can't be an engineer if he can't apply for a job, read contracts, or do the necessary paperwork to train. Ugh - stop neglecting your child in the name of speshul snowflakeness!

[Sola]

Linky? (plus extra required characters)

[rock_girl]

abigails-alcove.blogspot.ca/2012/09/how-god-helps-me-part-two.html

Here we go. You know what I really love about the gifted and talented label? That it's often abbreviated to g&t. How awesome it would be to have a gin and tonic child. If they were especially bright you could train them to mix the perfect drink before they were out of nappies.

[julie paradox]

You know what I really love about the gifted and talented label? That it's often abbreviated to g&t. How awesome it would be to have a gin and tonic child. If they were especially bright you could train them to mix the perfect drink before they were out of nappies.

My son was doing it at the age of five, does that count?

[crassy]

And girls never get that itch??? What the eff EVER.

(programmer, here.)

Not only do I have that itch, but it is pretty much a pox for me. I just finished DA:2 and Darksiders 2, I have Borderlands set up waiting for my kid to go to bed and I am nearly creaming myself waiting for AC:3 to be released.

I love video games. I love technology. I have a vagina.

[lilah]

Did Abby just want to boast about her own unacknowledged gifts? There are plenty of teachers who've experience with gifted children. I'd rather send a clever child to a school which had seen a number of those children through to successful adulthood than try and produce tiny engineers. Who's to say a child interested in such subjects is even going to end up an engineer? What her son needs are teachers who'll foster his gifts and passions for certain subjects while making sure that he doesn't slip behind in other areas. At least with school there's a level of accountability among the stuff. Home educating parents have done terrible things to gifted children, often with the best of intentions (and Abby doesn't even have those).

Good to see more of the "poor, poor, poor widdle boys" rubbish. Librarians are intelligent people, male or female, and aren't going to abandon an entire gender just because it's not the gender they've personally experienced. It's not as though female librarians are completely unaware of the maths and science books in their libraries. I know that Abby, were she working in a library, would remove any books that painted Catholicism in a negative light along with books designed to assist teen parents or that teach that birth control is a reasonable part of sex ed. Perhaps she thinks that wicked women working outside the home may, in a misguided act of feminism, destroy any book that a young boy would want to check out. Or that these same women working outside the home can't possibly care for and interact with their own children, or that they're all on birth control and having lesbian librarian orgies in their spare time and so can't possibly understand the needs of any children, lacking the will to breed a half dozen just for fun. Hard to say really.

If the library abby frequents has a small or to non existent budget librarians might not be able to spend a lot of money on children's math and science books.

I wish she could have seen the recess at my school. It was raining and the gym was in use so we set the kids up in stations and each played with blocks, legos, connecting blocks, dominos. They loved it. This was in the classroom of a female teacher whose daughter is a physics major so she clearly doesn't how to encourage kids to be interested in the STEM fields..

[So Many Lies]

:lol: By her logic it would be hard to tell gifted and plain dumb apart...

[gilora]

Her children are gifted because god loves her more! The fact that a "diagnosis" of "giftedness" gives her a reason to blame her son's problems on something other than piss-poor parenting is a mere coincidence. :roll:

[MrsYoungie]

(It's weird to write about this because I was taught very firmly by my mother that I wasn't gifted. I was "talented". But now the experts are saying that is the same thing. Moreover, my difficulties with simple math problems and my spelling mistakes and my poor organizational skill are not a sign that I'm not gifted--it's rather a common problem for gift students.

I've known a lot of gifted students. Some who couldn't spell, some who couldn't do math, some who were disorganized. I don't recall any who were all three plus didn't like libraries. Methinks the lady is a bit of a sluggard and a bit of a fibber.

[Lady_M]

But then--most of the children's librarians are women, so how are they supposed to know that little boy desperately need directions on how to build things????

I'm trying to educate myself and then share with the larger community.

This just kills me. Maybe it's just the fact that I come from a family of engineers/mathematics people, but I know a lot of women that are in mathematics/engineering/applied hard sciences (including my mother and most of my aunts). But they don't fit the narrative about fundie gender roles and thus are ignored... :roll: .

[LucySnowe]

But then--most of the children's librarians are women, so how are they supposed to know that little boy desperately need directions on how to build things????

I'm trying to educate myself and then share with the larger community.

I'd love to read her blog entry when she decides to explain to female librarians - who will have graduate degrees - better ways to educate little boys. :roll:

[Conuly]

*headdesk*

If you're seriously considering seeking out a diagnosis of ODD for your child, either your standards are MUCH too high (which, judging from this snippet of her life, doesn't seem to be the case - I must say it's a relief to read about somebody who considers therapy instead of beating for their child) or your kid actually has a problem. Or you're delusional, that's also a possibility, but let's assume that the kid wouldn't be harmed by getting an actual evaluation. WHY do people resist getting these things checked out by professionals?

Also, if your kid is having unusual trouble learning how to read, for crying out loud, contact a *professional* and have them help you teach your child, no matter how you're educating them! Sure, it's easy to teach most kids how to read... but if it's hard for your kid, break out the big guns already!

In fairness to her - and this is only a little bit of fairness - it's entirely possible to be gifted and still have one, two, or three different learning disabilities. ADD plus dyslexia could easily cause problems with reading and also with organizational skills, and neither of those precludes giftedness, however vaguely or strictly that's defined. But, again, you don't ignore the learning problems because you'd rather be lazy and just talk about how wonderful your little brat is.

[chaotic life]

My son is highly gifted and Dyslexic. That's not just my armchair diagnosis, I put him in school when I absolutely could NOT figure out his learning struggles when he was clearly so smart. After they partnered for a year and got us going in an Orton-Gillingham reading and spelling program we went back to homeschooling.

My son does collegiate level work on several subjects but must work slowly and painfully through his O-G work to address his dyslexia. When he gets frustrated, I do NOT walk away and just say this is simply acceptable to not be able to read! I remind him that he has serious career goals that don't have room for him to NOT read. I remind him that dyslexia work is hard, monotonous, drillwork. We must retrain his brain to work the way written language requires it to work. He rides his bike to build his body's muscles. He pushes on his dyslexia to build his brain's muscles.

I find it really ODD that I see a new trend in homeschoolers with this insistence that suddenly ALL struggling readers are so easily explained that it's not the fault of the parents. I totally took responsibility that just ONE of my children not reading was my fault. It took formal testing for me to let go of that guilt. If you choose to homeschool you get to take credit when things go right. However, you also MUST be held accountable when things go wrong as well.

[lilah]

But isn't Oppositional defiant disorder very common in children who are parented by neglectful/abusive parents? It's often a coping strategy for students who can't trust the authority figures in their lives?

I suspect that Abby's oldest kid might use defiance and boundry pushing as a way to cope with his mom's mood swings, narcissistic obessions and lack of food (as mentioned before Abby brags often about her shitty money managing skills in under the guise that she's so awesome at being poor and being a martyr for povery because she ble the family food budget on toys and snacks)

[singsingsing]

I had to laugh when I read this. She suffers because God loves her more, and her kids can't read because they're gifted. Of course, that's the easiest explanation... my kid can't read, he/she must be gifted! Oh and BTW, she's gifted as well. Because she has anxiety. Huh?

What bothers me is that she's now going to use the excuse "they're gifted!" to make up for their bad education. She is clearly struggling, and is obviously not the best person to be teaching her children how to read and write, but hey, she has to keep the whole martyr thing going.

Abby, stop self-diagnosing! If you think your child has a problem, get him/her to a professional! You are not qualified to decide that your kid has ODD, or a learning disability, or is gifted, just because Mommy Mary is on your side!

She's so narcissistic and emotionally unstable - I'm not questioning her love for her children, or her desire to do what she believes is best for them, but I can't imagine the damage she's doing them in the long run.

[SpeshulTaterTot]

This just kills me. Maybe it's just the fact that I come from a family of engineers/mathematics people, but I know a lot of women that are in mathematics/engineering/applied hard sciences (including my mother and most of my aunts). But they don't fit the narrative about fundie gender roles and thus are ignored... :roll: .

My mother was fantastic at maths, I'm not. She got incredibly frustrated when a teacher told her that I was just better at the "girly" subjects like languages and history. I almost feel sorry for the poor man, he didn't know what hit him.

One of my best friends is incredibly smart and dyslexic. Her mother spent hours upon hours working with her on it. Not only did she manage to learn how to read, she managed to become a medical doctor. Saying oh well, he's gifted, he doesn't have to know how to read, just speaks of Abby's narcism and laziness.

[mirele]

And girls never get that itch??? What the eff EVER.

(programmer, here.)

Systems analyst here, remembering my childhood chemistry set and telescope.

[FeministShrew]

And girls never get that itch??? What the eff EVER.

(programmer, here.)

^This. Civil designer/CAD operator here. My mom was a machinist & the first woman to enter/complete the CNC program at our local technical college, and the first woman to run a CNC machine at the Westinghouse Airbrake plant she worked at.

My son loves video games, but wants to be a chef.

[MonkeyMomma]

My son was doing it at the age of five, does that count?

You win parenting. :clap: