Need Help With Little Miss Knowitall.

[Alison]

Seriously, there is a way to say things, and a time to shut the hell up - i still haven't learnt to do it very well and it seriously impacts on my working life so i would really try to explain to Emily how what she says (and more often it is the way in which it is said) can affect other people. These are basically socialisation skills and have sod all to do with how intelligent or not she may be - I know that that isn't strictly true but to be able to reach her full potential she must learn how to interact with people. One day she will need to convince people of her argument (whether in academia, work or just in the playground) and learning how to influence and persuade people without making them feel small, judged or stupid is very very important.

So much of what Kelly said both resonates with me and makes sense (again, to me).

 

I would add that particularly as a female, one can get away with almost anything if said/asked for with a smile and genuine charisma. That's something a bright girl will pick up from the successes of those around her and best taught by example. I can't remember a time when anyone ever denied my Mother anything or failed to respect her opinions quite simply because she charms them so effortlessly, makes them feel like the most valued and important person in the world. Teach Emily that and she'll be able to say whatever she likes to anyone she chooses without seeming cheeky.

 

This item (link to "listen again") featured on Woman's Hour last week Cheryl. I know that the title might turn you off but honestly, there was loads of info and interesting stuff in there relating to gifted girls and how to help them. It wasn't confined to a discussion about fear of failure or compliant children by any means.

 

Message Board. I haven't read through but there may be other mums in the same situation as yours who might have commented here.

[Rileyroo]

I deeply regret that I did not take the opportunities I had due to my ability to coast, I never learned to appreciate it, and now find myself at a point in my career where the lack of a full third level degree is almost an embarrassment, and will have to undertake a degree/postgrad in order to advance further whilst working full time, I do have professional qualifications, and even now years later, coasted through them with no difficulty.

 

finally I hope I have not caused any offence Ms. Bejo, just relating my own experience, and hoping some of it is a help.

 

I think that really illustrates that there is no right answer to how to do this - you regret being able to coast, I (on the whole) don't. I know exactly what you mean about still being able to do it as an adult too - I've done a second degree in a totally different subject from my first and further professional qualifications while working full time and still didn't have to put in any real effort. That's what brought home to me that I'm not normal

[cassiespookymum]

NAGTY are definitely worth trying - my son was a member throughout his secondary school - and they provide summer schools and workshops for gifted children which challenge them - I think that they may also provide the school with support.

 

It is also worth speaking to the Special Needs Co ordinator too - if children are gifted and talented they are also classed as having special needs and work should be provided for them which is at their level and stops them from becoming bored. Parents partnership - their number should be available from school should also be able to give good advice.

 

Claire xx

[K9Fran]

I echo getting in touch with the SENCO for her school. Gareth and Scott are both under their respective SENCO's for different reasons. Gareth also has a tendancy to be 'blunt' to the point of rudeness sometimes, and I've been accused of it too at work. I struggle to get my head around the 'rules' of society, to me it's as plain as the nose on my face and I sometimes can't help myself but pull people up on their mistakes, and G is the same.

 

I sometimes wonder if it's a characteristic of being on the Autistic spectrum?

[laura g]

Something i meant to put yesterday..... whatever happens with your daughter, i think its fair to say you're going to have to stay on top of it and of the school. It might not be fair to say that formal education 'cant be trusted' but in the case of our children (especially daughter) they dont always do what they said they will and we do a lot of the 'extending' work ourselves at home.

 

Rachael will get the same project/homework as the other children ... but in her case its not unusual for her to do it in ms publisher (laminated and bound!!) or present it as a powerpoint presentation. research is a good way to 'slow her down' and will often take her brain off in different directions and keep her thinking. we also get her involved in our work: when i was writing regularly she had to come up with three new words that i had to insert into the article in any way i could...fun for us both (and my editor!) and she gets involved in alot of the bookshop paperwork. espcieally good as one of her faults (because she's bored) is to rush things and make silly errors because she's not paying attention ..... it stops her doing that so much.

 

For reading: if the school cant suggest alternative books, see if your local library has a really good librarian who knows their stuff. or a second hand bookshop run by someone who can make recommendations .... quite often kids won't read what parents suggest but will happily take on an outsiders ideas. There's no crime in not reading fiction .... that'll come. How is she with talking books?

 

last thing that occured to me: keep on top of the bog standard day to days... if that makes sense. I started a thread a while back because I suddenly realised we've never shown the kids how to get on a bus / put a meal together / read road signs etc etc. All those brains are pretty ineffective without common sense..........!!!!

[JessandCos]

Graham my son who is now 17, was always years ahead at school. He was never disruptive, but always spoke his mind. I spent alot of time with him developing his interests out of school, he also got a tutor who put him on GCSE level work by year 6. The primary school were not interested wahtsoever - not their problem

 

When he went to secondary school he was put on the gifted and talented register and they provided after school projects and more stimulating homework. He was fast tracked on Japanese and took his GCSE a year early and his AS a year early. He also took a ridiculous amount of GCSE's.

 

He is now at 6th form college after exceeding all expecations of his secondary school, in the gifted group doing 1 A2 this year and 5 AS's and he is looking at doing 5 A2's next year and being tracked for Oxbridge

 

Ar each stage of education the schools react in a different way, GRaham has not gone to private school but with the right guidance he was kept stimulated and excelled.

 

Good luck in years to come you will have an amzing daughter to be proud of

[phoebejo]

Good luck in years to come you will have an amzing daughter to be proud of

I already have

 

She breaks up for the school holidays tomorrow so we'll discuss things at home over the next two weeks and speak to her school once she goes back.

 

Thanks for all your help. Fugees are the best

[Fiona711]

We went to Emilys school last night for parents evening. We came away looking a bit like this

 

Emilys teacher doesn't know what to do with her, how to teach her or how to avoid causing trouble in the future and I completely understand her point. Emily is six and incredibly clever. She always has been and everyone who knows her says she's speshul She isn't a typical six year old girl, she's not into girly things, pink, flowers, fairies, dolls, Barbie she likes science and in particular planets, dinosaurs and she talks like an adult. She questions everything, her latest bugbear is why do we write across the page, why is it not acceptable to write down the page, who decided it had to be that way and why can she not chose which way to do it? She corrects adults if they say something incorrect, she's not doing it to be rude but to her everything has to be right and done properly.

 

She's way ahead in her reading, but absolutely hates to read, especially the books they have in school. Every day she is supposed to chose a book, bring it home to read to me then change it again the next day. She will not! The books are all too easy and do not interest her. She's no desire to read anything fictional, she cannot see the point to it. Her teacher now says she's stopped bothering trying to persuade Emily to read the books she's supposed to, she knows they're not challenging enough for Emily so instead Emily now has a 'challenge book' and each day her teacher writes a question in it, Emily then has to research the answer then write it in the book the next day. This suits Emily down to the ground. One of the questions this week was 'what is the distance between the Earth and Mars?' and Emily enjoyed reading about that in one of her many books on the planets. Recently the children had to write about Little Red Riding Hood. Emily didn't want to, she hates fairytales, looks down her nose at them and refused to do it.

 

She writes some of her letters back to front, S is always the wrong way around, and quite often D is too. She's been told a million times it's wrong but she says she can write whichever way she wants to

 

She refuses point blank to use phonics. Her teacher said for all the other children, when they come across a word they don't know they'll look at the letters and say the sounds to figure out the word. Emily demands they tell her the word, saying she'll remember it for next time and she does, once she knows a word she'll never forget it. I asked her about this this morning, why does she not try phonics like everyone else and I was quite astounded by her answer. "It's like souveneirs. You see souveneirs and they make you think of the place they are from. I see a word and I remember it". Well she's got a point

 

She's in the top group for maths along with three boys. This little group are set much harder work and work away from the rest of the class. Her teacher was worried that Emily wouldn't enjoy it being the only girl but Emily has spoken to me about it and is quite happy being with these boys and learning more than she does at other times. Most of the time if anybody asks Emily what she learnt at school that day she'll say "nothing, I know everything already, there is nothing they can teach me" So for her, this seperate maths group is working but not every subject can be like that, she has to conform, but she doesn't want to.

 

I know we've been lucky, Emily must spend much of her time at school feeling bored and she could become disruptive, but she hasn't........... yet. Her teacher is fab, she says it took a while to get to know Emily and understand her because she's so serious and gives nothing away, but now she humours Emily and finds ways to make Emily do some work. However, not every teacher in the future will be so accommodating. In a class of 30 when given a task, there will come a time when Emily cannot refuse to do it by saying it's silly, a teacher will give her a piece of work and expect it to be done. Emily is very strong willed and this will upset her. Her teacher is worried that by pandering to her now, making exceptions, that she's setting a precedent that Emily will expect all teachers to follow, whereas if she said "this is the way we do it, you will do this" she'll crush the spirit Emily has. I don't know what to suggest, I'm thankful that she understands Emilys needs right now and that she is willing to work with her, but neither of us, or Ian, know how to proceed with Emily.

 

It was quite cute to see a four year old correcting her teacher, but now she's getting older some might see it as rudeness. Take for instance the class teaching assistant who often mistakenly calls her Molly instead (she's previously taught Molly). Emily said to her "I'm fed up with you calling me Molly, if you do it again I'm going to call you Vicky instead of Mrs S"

 

Are there any other parents of clever clogs who are bored at school and if so how do the teachers cope with them? What should we and them not be doing? How do I persuade Emily to do as she's told even when she can see no point to it? I know we've a few teachers here too so I'd appreciate knowing how they'd feel about seperate work being set, would they do it?

 

I know it's an epic post, thanks for having the patience to sit through it. I'm just so worried that very soon Emily will hate school and cause trouble

 

Have you thought about looking into autistic spectrum disorders Cheryl ? Im not trying to worry you but a lot of what you are saying sounds like my son who has Aspergers Syndrome , He is very intelligent and like Emily does not see the point in doing things he cannot see the point in .

 

Kids on the spectrum say things as they see them , think very literally everything is black and white with nothing in between , their lack of social skills can cause problems for them as to them they are not being rude just saying things as they see them , i can laugh about things that have happened with Robert but other people dont think its funny when he tells them straight

 

 

It is really difficult to get your head around the way these kids think , it takes a long time to understand their reasoning as they do think in a different way that we do totally and education can be a huge problem if teachers dont understand the childs needs , for example my son refused point blank to learn French in high school , when he was very good at it in primary school , because he said he is not going to ever go to France so whats the point ?

 

I can explain to Robert until i am blue in the face why something is not acceptable but if the same situation arises again his responses would be the same for example he went through a faze of Burping really loudly , i told him it was not polite and his answer was its natural and you cant help it , when i went on to explain that its not nice and against the rules( thinking if i told him that he would be able to understand better as most of these kids do tend to obey the rules ) his answer then was well if its against the rules , whoever made the rules about it was stupid as it is a natural thing and everyone does it , thankfully he seems to have grown out of that faze a few years ago but at the itme it was very frustrating because i could see exactly where he was coming from when he explained it his way .

 

When a child is very intelligent and they dont have any problems they would understand that it could be seen as rude to correct a teacher , however kids on the spectrum honestly would not see anything wrong with saying what they think no matter what the circumstances .

 

These kids tend not to lie either eg when my other kids were young and knew they were going to get into trouble for something , like most kids do they would try to blame things on each other but i never had that problem with Robert if he was told for example he was not allowed a biscuit , then he helped himself , if i asked him did you take a biscuit he would say yes , because he did not grasp the consequences the others would know they would get into trouble for not doing as they were told but to Robert he just did not grasp that at all.

 

As i said Cheryl im not trying to worry you or upset you but it might be something worth looking into for Emily , as reading your post i definately ticked a few boxes , maybe its not Aspergers but i think i would certainly look into the possibility of that or one of the other Autistic Spectrum Disorders , Robert was not diagnosed until he was 9 so it is not something that is easy to pick up on i thought a lot of his behaviour was down to him having 3 big sisters that spoiled him rotten , as sometimes he sounded and acted like a spoiled brat .

 

Another thing that took me ages to get my head around was Roberts Sensory Perceptions are totally different from ours , his hearing is very acute and he can hear things that we cant until they are a lot closer , for years i thought he was scared of flies and did not understand why he covered his ears and screamed when one was in the house it was years later i realized he was not scared of them but the buzzing drove him nuts .

 

I could go on for ages explaining the differences in his sensory perceptions but i think i have given you enough to think about for now , im not saying Emily has an ASD but i do think its is worth considering

 

Fiona xx

[Red Rotties]

Read this on another site and I just imagined your little girl in my head

 

 

 

 

A stranger was seated next to a little girl on an airplane.

 

When the plane took off and settled into its climb, the stranger turned to the little girl and said:: "I've always found that flights go quicker if you strike up a conversation with your fellow passenger."

 

The little girl, who had just opened her book, closed it slowly and said to the stranger, "OK. What would you like to talk about?"

 

Oh, I don't know," said the stranger. "How about nuclear power?"

 

"Yes," she said. "That could be an interesting topic.

 

But let me ask you a question first. A horse, a cow and a deer all eat grass -- the same stuff. Yet a deer excretes little pellets, while a cow turns out a flat patty and a horse produces clumps of dried grass. Why do you suppose that is?"

 

The stranger thought for a few moments,, then said: "You know, I've never thought about that. I have no idea."

 

"The little girl began to open her book again, saying: "Do you really feel qualified to discuss nuclear power when you don't know sh*t?"

 

Sorry

[ranirottie]

that sounds just like my son when he was little! He is dyslexic with slight ADHD but brainy as hell. He could never be bothered with simple things at school either but he was/is a whizz at computers. Could read anything from a very early age but could not put it back onto paper. He got his letters back to front and couldn't sequence months, tables etc. He was doagnosed at statemented at about 7 years old. x

[phoebejo]

Emily would love that joke She's staying at her grandparents until tomorrow but I'll tell her then.