Making sense of it all....

So, my son is in the process of being tested for the gifted program at school. We have pushed for the past two years to make this happen, and now that it is, we are having mixed feelings. Are we pushing him? Will this add more stress to him ? As a parent, you are always asking yourself "am I doing the right thing?" I am lucky, I get to talk with Ethian's teacher every morning and from the 4th day of knowing Ethian she suggested we should have him tested. Now, before I go on with this story, let me give you a little background.

We have always had a struggle with school and Ethian. It began in preschool, we thought it would be best to get Ethian used to going to school and to interact with other children. He had been going to a sitter. Shortly after he began preschool, we were told it wasn't a good fit for him. After asking several questions, it seemed Ethian was "too advanced for preschool" . WHAT?!?! how can a 3 or 4 year old be too advanced for preschool?!?!?! It seems, since he already knew how to count to 100+ and could say the alphabet forwards and backwards (yeah, he was given a sad face that day because he wasn't saying the alphabet correctly, all I could do was laugh, I mean in a 4 year olds mind, if you already know it, why keep saying it ?!?! I was proud of him for being so inventive) and knew a little math, this made him too advanced for preschool. I have never heard of such.

So, we ended up taking Ethian out of preschool and sending him back to his sitter, we figured he would be in school long enough. Ethian was happier with our decision, it meant he could be a kid again. No stress!

Well fast forward to Kindergarten and first grade.....talk about stress, I would have to say I felt terrible for everything my son had to experience in those two years. Once again, we experienced Ethian's advancement in the class, and this lead to behaviour issues because of being bored. When we asked the teachers to give him extra work, we were told, " we have a curriculum to follow and this is not something we can do" What?!?!? so, the school system can make exceptions so "no child is left behind" but if you have an advanced child, they can't change the rules. It was so frustrating as a parent to see my child not enjoying school, being sent to the office and even being put into ISS for being disrupted in class. Are you kidding me?!? ISS for that? When I went to school, ISS was reserved for the children that got into a fight. After speaking to his current teacher, we found out the reason the teacher's did this was because they didn't want to deal with it themselves. You know out of sight, out of mind. Ethian's report card always had comments about his advancements, how he was doing such a great job and was working above grade level, but the teachers never tried to relieve the stress by working with Ethian.

So, this year, we had prepared to experience the same thing as the previous two years. We were going to have to fight yet again for our child. But.....that has yet to happen!!! Mrs. Kenward, Ethian' s second grade teacher, has been the best thing ever! I cannot say enough about what she has done for us and for Ethian. She gets Ethian, and could care less about the curriculum. She has worked with Ethian, by giving him extra work, and actually allowing him to be a kid. She read his school chart and said the only way she will send Ethian to the office is if he hits another child. Oh my goodness, is this teacher for real??!??!!? She is working with Ethian on his level, by challenging him, he has yet to be sent to the office this year, she is allowing him to be a child, she is laid back........wow.....we have found an angel!!! The stress for Ethian and us has been zero...ahh it is like a breath of fresh air . I wish we could have started off Ethian' s school career with her, but hey thank God we finally found her.

Fast-forward back to the testing. They tell us Ethian's testing is going very well! We are told Ethian is enjoying the testing and he's up for the challenge. Funny thing happened last week though.....Ethian was taking one of his test and had 5 minutes left to finish it. He had finished early but he was told to use the whole time to finish the test and check his work. Well, for whatever reason, Ethian decided to erase all his answers on the test. By the " time's up" call he had finished only 5 questions. When we asked why he erased his answers, he said"they told me they were wrong, so I erased them and started over" We found out, no one had told him that, so not really sure who Ethian was talking about. We do know he has an imaginary friend (tiger) that lives in his tummy that he often blames stuff on, but have no idea if this was the case. Thank goodness they made note of this. And may re-test that section!

So, never give up, continue the fight!! I will let you know the outcome of the testing once we receive the results!