So this month we faced the challenge that came from his teacher. At our monthly parent-teacher meeting she told me that she is unable to keep our son challenged in math. In the classroom he is already in a textbook that is two years ahead of his grade level but with the multi-grade classroom his teacher can only spend so much time with him and she feels he isn't getting enough challenge. So after talking it over we did some research and discoverd the Stanford EPGY online school that offers courses for gifted children. If you haven't seen this program, it's a great resource for those kids that just don't get enough academic stuff after being in academia world all day long. I highly recommend looking into the program if your child is itching for more stimulation when they get home at the end of the day. It's not cheap but we are beginning to figure out that you cannot put a price on our child's well-being!
He is now five and the older he gets the more demanding he is becoming for stimulation and constant academic work. I am having a hard time keeping him busy and I am finding these online programs a god-send because he works at his own pace and anytime he wants, which is so important. We are finding weekends are very challenging since there is no school over the weekends and he is not happy just skiing, playing and relaxing. We can now do online school all weekend and keep that brain busy and happy. WOW, I just can't relate to this life - I know as a child I couldn't wait until weekends when I had a chance to just play and be a kid.
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
Friday, January 23, 2009
"I'm too evolved for that!"
Have you ever had one of those moments when you felt your child just didn't get you! When I dreamt of being a mother it included playing with toys again! :-) I even saved some of my childhood toys for the occasion. I didn't mind too much that my infant didn't play with toys, he mostly looked at books, played with my calculator or banged on my keyboard. I kept thinking
that as he got a little older he would really enjoy puzzles, board games and other fun kid stuff. Okay, so now he's five and everyday I beg him to play games with me and he just thinks I am nuts!
Most of the time I just get a look but sometimes he tells me he doesn't have time. If I do persuade him and it's not a nonsense game he makes up with his rules the game doesn't last very long. It makes giving him holiday and birthday gifts very hard since he has very expensive tastes as well. Scientific calculators, wii, the latest mac laptop, iPod, a baby grand piano! Is he really five? If this is his wish list now what will it be in another five years? I suppose I wouldn't be as bothered about all this if he entertained himself better but somehow he always wants me involved in his projects but it's more just my presence that he wants than my help and I never understand what is going on and it's never a contribution just my presence. How do you play with your gifted child?
that as he got a little older he would really enjoy puzzles, board games and other fun kid stuff. Okay, so now he's five and everyday I beg him to play games with me and he just thinks I am nuts!Most of the time I just get a look but sometimes he tells me he doesn't have time. If I do persuade him and it's not a nonsense game he makes up with his rules the game doesn't last very long. It makes giving him holiday and birthday gifts very hard since he has very expensive tastes as well. Scientific calculators, wii, the latest mac laptop, iPod, a baby grand piano! Is he really five? If this is his wish list now what will it be in another five years? I suppose I wouldn't be as bothered about all this if he entertained himself better but somehow he always wants me involved in his projects but it's more just my presence that he wants than my help and I never understand what is going on and it's never a contribution just my presence. How do you play with your gifted child?
"What it is, is a cacophonous assault of eucalyptus, bayberry, cinnamon, and vanilla."
Anyone else have issues with your child eating!! Ever since we started on this whole solid food thing, my child has been a pest. I introduced solids to my son at six months and he looked at me then like I was a nut. So we tried again a month later to the same issues and so on until at last at approximately 9 months of age he finally gave in and tried my "super" cereal I had painstakingly had made for him. It all went downhill from there!
Like every good mother, I tried to introduce him to fruits, veges and various proteins. But my child would have nothing to do with the proteins. As I would place mashed chicken on his high chair he would either fling it across the room or just scream bloody murder. Every day it would sit there and every day he would fling it. He would happily eat his fruits and veges but meat never made its way down his digestive system.
Fast-forward several years and we are now dealing with a self-proclaimed Kindergartner that likes to tell the whole world how meat is evil. When he was about three we had a melt down one day about the eggs in the refrigerator. I walked into the kitchen to find my child crumpled on the floor crying. When I asked what was the matter, I finally found out that he was worried about the eggs in the fridge - weren't they cold and lonely sitting in there all by themselves. After a long discussion about what was really inside that egg, the only compromise we could agree upon was covering the eggs with a blanket and checking on them periodically during the day to say hello.
Thankfully, we have passed this phase and today he will eat the occasional egg but we still do not eat meat because he knows too much about where the animal has come from and went through to get to his plate, but how could he have possibly known this at 10 months of age? That is my question of the day?? Today, it appears he just doesn't want to be bothered with food at all, it's a necessity he realizes but trying new things takes time and energy that can be much better used on his important tasks of life! So I guess I will just continue to follow my child around the house with the PB&J sandwich begging him to take a bite!
Like every good mother, I tried to introduce him to fruits, veges and various proteins. But my child would have nothing to do with the proteins. As I would place mashed chicken on his high chair he would either fling it across the room or just scream bloody murder. Every day it would sit there and every day he would fling it. He would happily eat his fruits and veges but meat never made its way down his digestive system.Fast-forward several years and we are now dealing with a self-proclaimed Kindergartner that likes to tell the whole world how meat is evil. When he was about three we had a melt down one day about the eggs in the refrigerator. I walked into the kitchen to find my child crumpled on the floor crying. When I asked what was the matter, I finally found out that he was worried about the eggs in the fridge - weren't they cold and lonely sitting in there all by themselves. After a long discussion about what was really inside that egg, the only compromise we could agree upon was covering the eggs with a blanket and checking on them periodically during the day to say hello.
Thankfully, we have passed this phase and today he will eat the occasional egg but we still do not eat meat because he knows too much about where the animal has come from and went through to get to his plate, but how could he have possibly known this at 10 months of age? That is my question of the day?? Today, it appears he just doesn't want to be bothered with food at all, it's a necessity he realizes but trying new things takes time and energy that can be much better used on his important tasks of life! So I guess I will just continue to follow my child around the house with the PB&J sandwich begging him to take a bite!
Thursday, January 22, 2009
Shoes & Tags
I have to jump ahead a few years just so I can write about my experience today. I suppose it's just another day living with a gifted child but I will never get used to the things he focuses on. We went today to buy new shoes because he is learning to tie his own shoes now. It's funny how he can do advanced math and tell you the name of every president but he can't tie his own shoes! Anyway, we stopped at the store and as he looked around at all the kid shoes he was pretty disappointed at the selection. He did not want a pair of shoes with a character on them (he watches no television unless it's educational and so he has no interest in superheroes or cartoon characters). Then I saw his eyes light up as he was jumping for the top shelf, a plain white pair with the number 32 written on the top. "Look!" He yelled, as he jumped up and down - it's a pair of big boy shoes with a number on them and it's also the number of Perek Lamed Bais (which is something he is learning in school right now). Dream come true!
If that wasn't enough to just make this shoe experience weird, as we were trying on the shoes, he noticed the tag on the box had a sale sticker on it(numbers, his favorite thing). It was a cardboard sticker that was attached to the box and stood straight up. He started scanning the floor for more of these unassuming tags in hopes of finding more. We were in luck, another one had fallen off a box and rolled under the chair he was sitting on. He scooped it up and gently put it in his pocket, as he was asking if he could also keep the one from the pair we were trying on. Next, he noticed a security tag on the left shoe that was kept on by a tack. He became fixated on the tag and kept asking if we could also keep this tag and completely forgot about the fact that we were in a store to try on shoes! I kept finding myself reminding him to focus on the shoes so we could find a comfortable pair and get out of the store. Of course at that point he fell in love with pair #32 and I don't think it mattered if they were 10 sizes too big and hot pink he would have bought them regardless!
Okay, so here is the other piece of this. My son knows how to charm the pants off of anyone. Ever since he's been about 6 months old - he figured out how to bat his eyelashes, coo and giggle at everyone. People would stop me all the time to tell me how cute he was and how alert and smart he seemed. The older he got, the more he thrived on the attention and the more he "improved his game." I never noticed how much attention he received, but all of a sudden we realized our son could charm his way across the Khyber Pass. Before I knew it, he was getting people he didn't know to give him things, always telling him how smart he was, handsome he was, cutest boy in the world, etc. etc... So now here we were in the shoe store with this young woman telling my son how he was the cutest little boy she had ever met and how would he like a sticker. As he charmed her, I realized she was giving him 10 stickers because there just wasn't a little boy any cuter than this one! Another day, another win for my son...
If that wasn't enough to just make this shoe experience weird, as we were trying on the shoes, he noticed the tag on the box had a sale sticker on it(numbers, his favorite thing). It was a cardboard sticker that was attached to the box and stood straight up. He started scanning the floor for more of these unassuming tags in hopes of finding more. We were in luck, another one had fallen off a box and rolled under the chair he was sitting on. He scooped it up and gently put it in his pocket, as he was asking if he could also keep the one from the pair we were trying on. Next, he noticed a security tag on the left shoe that was kept on by a tack. He became fixated on the tag and kept asking if we could also keep this tag and completely forgot about the fact that we were in a store to try on shoes! I kept finding myself reminding him to focus on the shoes so we could find a comfortable pair and get out of the store. Of course at that point he fell in love with pair #32 and I don't think it mattered if they were 10 sizes too big and hot pink he would have bought them regardless!
Okay, so here is the other piece of this. My son knows how to charm the pants off of anyone. Ever since he's been about 6 months old - he figured out how to bat his eyelashes, coo and giggle at everyone. People would stop me all the time to tell me how cute he was and how alert and smart he seemed. The older he got, the more he thrived on the attention and the more he "improved his game." I never noticed how much attention he received, but all of a sudden we realized our son could charm his way across the Khyber Pass. Before I knew it, he was getting people he didn't know to give him things, always telling him how smart he was, handsome he was, cutest boy in the world, etc. etc... So now here we were in the shoe store with this young woman telling my son how he was the cutest little boy she had ever met and how would he like a sticker. As he charmed her, I realized she was giving him 10 stickers because there just wasn't a little boy any cuter than this one! Another day, another win for my son...
"I'm polymerized tree sap and you’re an inorganic adhesive."
If anyone has ever watched The Big Bang Theory on CBS you would recognize that quote from the character Sheldon. My husband and I stumbled upon that show and have been hooked ever since because we are pretty sure our son is going to grow up to be a Sheldon! We really get some good laughs out of it because we see so many similarities between the two. I wonder who came up with this Sheldon character (if he is based on a real life person), and if they hang around a exceptionally gifted person much because they have hit the nail right on the head when it comes to characteristics!! Anyone else see their child in this guy?
We took our son to a specialist at the age of 3 because that was when we started really worrying about him. At the age of 2, he started really obsessing about numbers and letters but it was cute at first! He could say his alphabet in two languages before he was two as well as count to twenty in two languages. We had nothing to do with this, no encouragement whatsoever! He just wanted to practice, practice, practice all the time. We're talking nonstop - did I say all the time? Did I mention we were seeing numbers and letters in everyday objects like doorways, food, trees, the dog - it didn't matter and letter or number popped up everywhere. At 2 1/2 he figured out he could write his letters and numbers to and count backwards as well as forwards, O Joy! Next came the names of states and where they belonged on maps. Had all these memorized before we turned three.
At the third birthday, we asked him what he would like to do (like have a party, be with some
friends.. you know, normal stuff). He told us he wanted to spend the night at a hotel. So, my husband and I took him away for the weekend to a hotel with a pool and thought he might also enjoy a zoo. We spent a few days trying to swim but those darned letters kept getting in the way of us swimming because they kept popping up all over the place and then at the zoo, I had a total nervous break-down! Here I was pointing at the very old and very cool looking orangutan with dredlocks in his fur (he had to be at least 70 years old), and my son points behind him and says "Look, look! I found the number 13!" That was it for me, I started to cry and 
cry and cry. The entire trip to the zoo was all about my son finding more and more numbers. You see, the zoo had signs by all the cages that allowed you to punch in a key on your cell phone to get more info about an exhibit if you wanted. The number on the sign was the key you would use on your cell phone to get that information. My son seemed to think that we were there to see numbers and not animals. I don't believe he noticed one animal the entire time we were there. And yes he is wearing necklaces he made and they have the English alphabet on them and Hebrew alphabet. He wore those day in and day out for I don't know how long!
This is how we ended up at a specialist at the age of 3. I just couldn't understand his obsessions anymore. Since we had now moved on from states to presidents and we were eagerly gobbling up the names of all the presidents and presidential facts and he was already planning for his 4th birthday to have Mt. Rushmore on his birthday cake. Calgon take me away!! All I can say is thank you G-d for our local university and their Psych Department. After a few phone calls to some friends and folks in the world of PhD's - I was pointed to an amazing woman at our local University and we brought our DS down for an appointment.
At this point, we knew he was smart but had all along just planned to put him in public school or maybe homeschool some if we really needed. I had placed him in a preschool co-op for a year with kids approximately one year older than him who were all planning to go to Kindergarten the following year. I was only sending him 2 days a week and he was not enjoying himself because he didn't fit in with the kids socially and academically he was bored. The teacher was wonderful and even agreed to bring the gifted educator from the public school in for a day to observe him. After they watched him for a few hours she called me the next day to tell me that we should either petition to place him in Kindergarten now (at 3 years old!!) or just find a private school for him because the CA public schools had nothing to offer us. Great advice, isn't it! We knew then we could not rely on CA to help educate our child.
Back to the therapist at the University, she was our first breath of fresh air in 3 1/2 years. We did some testing to rule out any type of neurological issues, psychological problems, learning disorders, mental health disorders etc.. After that it became an issue of what to do with a 3 year old that is never satisified! More next time....
We took our son to a specialist at the age of 3 because that was when we started really worrying about him. At the age of 2, he started really obsessing about numbers and letters but it was cute at first! He could say his alphabet in two languages before he was two as well as count to twenty in two languages. We had nothing to do with this, no encouragement whatsoever! He just wanted to practice, practice, practice all the time. We're talking nonstop - did I say all the time? Did I mention we were seeing numbers and letters in everyday objects like doorways, food, trees, the dog - it didn't matter and letter or number popped up everywhere. At 2 1/2 he figured out he could write his letters and numbers to and count backwards as well as forwards, O Joy! Next came the names of states and where they belonged on maps. Had all these memorized before we turned three.
At the third birthday, we asked him what he would like to do (like have a party, be with some
friends.. you know, normal stuff). He told us he wanted to spend the night at a hotel. So, my husband and I took him away for the weekend to a hotel with a pool and thought he might also enjoy a zoo. We spent a few days trying to swim but those darned letters kept getting in the way of us swimming because they kept popping up all over the place and then at the zoo, I had a total nervous break-down! Here I was pointing at the very old and very cool looking orangutan with dredlocks in his fur (he had to be at least 70 years old), and my son points behind him and says "Look, look! I found the number 13!" That was it for me, I started to cry and cry and cry. The entire trip to the zoo was all about my son finding more and more numbers. You see, the zoo had signs by all the cages that allowed you to punch in a key on your cell phone to get more info about an exhibit if you wanted. The number on the sign was the key you would use on your cell phone to get that information. My son seemed to think that we were there to see numbers and not animals. I don't believe he noticed one animal the entire time we were there. And yes he is wearing necklaces he made and they have the English alphabet on them and Hebrew alphabet. He wore those day in and day out for I don't know how long!This is how we ended up at a specialist at the age of 3. I just couldn't understand his obsessions anymore. Since we had now moved on from states to presidents and we were eagerly gobbling up the names of all the presidents and presidential facts and he was already planning for his 4th birthday to have Mt. Rushmore on his birthday cake. Calgon take me away!! All I can say is thank you G-d for our local university and their Psych Department. After a few phone calls to some friends and folks in the world of PhD's - I was pointed to an amazing woman at our local University and we brought our DS down for an appointment.
At this point, we knew he was smart but had all along just planned to put him in public school or maybe homeschool some if we really needed. I had placed him in a preschool co-op for a year with kids approximately one year older than him who were all planning to go to Kindergarten the following year. I was only sending him 2 days a week and he was not enjoying himself because he didn't fit in with the kids socially and academically he was bored. The teacher was wonderful and even agreed to bring the gifted educator from the public school in for a day to observe him. After they watched him for a few hours she called me the next day to tell me that we should either petition to place him in Kindergarten now (at 3 years old!!) or just find a private school for him because the CA public schools had nothing to offer us. Great advice, isn't it! We knew then we could not rely on CA to help educate our child.
Back to the therapist at the University, she was our first breath of fresh air in 3 1/2 years. We did some testing to rule out any type of neurological issues, psychological problems, learning disorders, mental health disorders etc.. After that it became an issue of what to do with a 3 year old that is never satisified! More next time....
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
First entry... why write in a blog
Today I decided to start writing about my son. He turned five years old a month ago and it's been really challenging for my husband and I to raise him. The more I think about it, the more I think maybe it would be helpful to other families out there to read about our experiences and hopefully share some of theirs. I've learned quickly that it's quite isolating to raise a gifted child and very difficult to find answers to daily questions. I figured it could be therapeutic to write about our experience as well as a great way to just remember all the stuff that has been happening in our lives!
"Trying to increase the alpha wave activity."
Guess I will back up a few years and start when we first figured out something was 'different.' Our son was about 18 months when we started seeing differences in him and other kids. Maybe I should back up a little more since my husband tells me I may have been the cause for some of this because of the way I handled my pregnancy and very early years of our sons life. We tried for a long time to get pregnant and finally settled on in-vitro fertilization so I felt pretty lucky to be pregnant at all and was determined to have the perfect pregnancy! I read every book by the time I was 3 months pregnant. One thing that really stood out for me was literature I read about introducing the fetus to sound in-utero. After some research, we settled on the Baby Plus System - that you strap on to your tummy twice a day. It was really cool and I have to say it had quite an affect on the baby. I used it up until the day he was born and if there was a day I had something going on and I didn't get a chance to use it or was even a little late putting it on, he could kick and raise a total raucous. Clearly he was into it - whether it made him smarter or not, I have no idea but he clearly came to depend on it and like it. He also was a preemie and when we brought him home from the hospital, we used it externally for the first week and it seemed to calm him down everytime he cried. It was a very cool gadget!! I also read to him in-utero every day, kept super healthy, didn't wear deodorant with aluminum or pump gas. So overall, I was very cautious.
Okay, so back to out of the womb! Right from the beginning we noticed that he was very alert, and strong. He was a preemie but came out perfect weight, holding his head high and eyes open. We noticed early on that he was very intense and it was clear that he was not going to walk until he could do it perfectly. So he watched all his buddies get up and fall down a lot and he kept crawling around and watching until finally he took off walking and did it quite steadily and never looked back.
Then came all the milestones that we came to understand later were pretty advanced. It wasn't until I read the book by Deborah Ruf, PhD - Losing Our Minds that I started thinking about his milestones and writing them down. If you haven't heard about this book, it's a must read for parents with gifted children or if you are questioning whether your child is gifted, she will for sure answer many of your questions. We just thought it was normal that he was looking at pictures in a book and turning the pages by himself at 3 months, using sign language to communicate at 6 months, and starting to introduce his imaginary friends at just under two. Little did we know that over 20+ imaginary friends would come to live with us by the time he was four!
As I am thinking about the milestones, what keeps popping into my mind that really set him apart from other children when he was about two were his interests and obsessions. Next entry I will write about those. Enough for now.
"Trying to increase the alpha wave activity."
Guess I will back up a few years and start when we first figured out something was 'different.' Our son was about 18 months when we started seeing differences in him and other kids. Maybe I should back up a little more since my husband tells me I may have been the cause for some of this because of the way I handled my pregnancy and very early years of our sons life. We tried for a long time to get pregnant and finally settled on in-vitro fertilization so I felt pretty lucky to be pregnant at all and was determined to have the perfect pregnancy! I read every book by the time I was 3 months pregnant. One thing that really stood out for me was literature I read about introducing the fetus to sound in-utero. After some research, we settled on the Baby Plus System - that you strap on to your tummy twice a day. It was really cool and I have to say it had quite an affect on the baby. I used it up until the day he was born and if there was a day I had something going on and I didn't get a chance to use it or was even a little late putting it on, he could kick and raise a total raucous. Clearly he was into it - whether it made him smarter or not, I have no idea but he clearly came to depend on it and like it. He also was a preemie and when we brought him home from the hospital, we used it externally for the first week and it seemed to calm him down everytime he cried. It was a very cool gadget!! I also read to him in-utero every day, kept super healthy, didn't wear deodorant with aluminum or pump gas. So overall, I was very cautious.
Okay, so back to out of the womb! Right from the beginning we noticed that he was very alert, and strong. He was a preemie but came out perfect weight, holding his head high and eyes open. We noticed early on that he was very intense and it was clear that he was not going to walk until he could do it perfectly. So he watched all his buddies get up and fall down a lot and he kept crawling around and watching until finally he took off walking and did it quite steadily and never looked back.
Then came all the milestones that we came to understand later were pretty advanced. It wasn't until I read the book by Deborah Ruf, PhD - Losing Our Minds that I started thinking about his milestones and writing them down. If you haven't heard about this book, it's a must read for parents with gifted children or if you are questioning whether your child is gifted, she will for sure answer many of your questions. We just thought it was normal that he was looking at pictures in a book and turning the pages by himself at 3 months, using sign language to communicate at 6 months, and starting to introduce his imaginary friends at just under two. Little did we know that over 20+ imaginary friends would come to live with us by the time he was four!
As I am thinking about the milestones, what keeps popping into my mind that really set him apart from other children when he was about two were his interests and obsessions. Next entry I will write about those. Enough for now.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
