Uncertainty Again

Not gonna cry....


I worked Saturday, of course.  Then, we went to a surprise birthday party (my first ever) for one of my husband's co-workers.  It was a family event, and both kids did a wonderful job of playing nicely with the other kids - younger and older.  Here's the thing:  Abbie plays with all kids of whatever kind.  Grant plays well with  all girls, younger boys, and sometimes boys his own age, but not really with older male children.  I'll try not to speculate, since I am delicate this morning.

Sunday morning we cleaned, and then the kids came with me to meet new friends.  We met at the mall and had bubble tea and play time at the....what are those things really called?  We call it The Play Place.  Everyone did extremely well, and I went to bed thinking, "This is so much better than I had feared.  I don't have to be totally alone.  Book on the way.  Advice from new friends who really know about this stuff, and that makes total sense.  This unhappiness is just a temporary chapter in our life, and we are going to handle this, no problem."

I had nightmares all night.  I hear all the time about people dreaming of showing up to work or school naked.  Never had that one.  Or falling.  Never had that one, either.  My recurring stress dream is about school, though.  Often, I don't remember my class schedule, or I can't remember my locker combination and am, therefore, late.  Late to a recovering shy person is a BIG deal.  Why?  Because when you are late and walk in, EVERYONE TURNS TO LOOK AT YOU.  It's heart-stopping.

Last night was sort of a mutation of that dream, with evidence of my new frustrations mixed in.  Listen to this:  I go to class, but my teacher has been replaced with a new teacher.  She looks at the roster, and decides that I was never in that class to begin with.  I go to my locker to get my things, and of course I can't open it.  This time instead of representing lateness, it represents the inability to escape.  Then, because dreams are like that, it is open, and I am ashamed I couldn't do it by myself.  There is all my stuff, and I have to get it and go, but it won't fit in my bag, so I am carrying a lot of it in my arms.  I'm very conspicuous, and people are watching me in the hallways.  I go to the office to find out where I am supposed to be, and I can't get anyone's attention.  While I am waiting, I am thinking about all the work I've done for nothing.

End Dream.

This morning, we found random food in Abbie's lunch box.  Because of a concern for disease prevention, my kids' school has a policy that you only eat your own food.  Sharing is not allowed at lunch.  So, I had to email the school this morning to say that Abbie had been sharing food.

They are both getting sneaky, which I'm not sure how to handle.  And I can tell that one or both of them is running pretty much wild at school.  Please, please buy our house, someone.

Today I have an appointment with a realty person, but I was only told yesterday.  The house is in no fit state to be seen. 

Guess my time would be better spent attacking the messes.  Wishing you a decent Monday.  Next to research:  anxiety.  His, not mine.

Well, Don't I Feel Foolish

Well, Grant, not in one of his outbursts, said something particularly hurtful to me last night.  Possibly, he thought it was funny, but it doesn't really matter.  I was so upset by it that I burned dinner.  I haven't burned a thing in this house, except the time I bought the wrong sized pork roast for the recipe.  Doesn't work so well when you cook a 2 pound roast as long as you would a 5 pound roast.

Grant knew he had upset me.  I had sent him to his room for rudeness.  Then, when Josh came home and confronted him, he pretended to be surprised.  Then he said he couldn't remember what he said.  Then he said I had misheard him.  I pulled up Abbie, my witness, and made sure he knew that I wasn't falling for it.  I firmly believe in the consequences of one's actions.

So....the day after I'm wondering why people aren't believing him.....

*sigh*

It was a very rough night.

Today, I worked and the kids and husband cleaned.  One can finally walk in the basement.

When is that book going to get here...?

Update, as I dash off to work.

Hello!  Not my day off, so I shall have to leave in about 15 minutes, but wanted to give you an update.

The less-than-good news first:  Grant pitched a small fit in art because he forgot his pencil.  He recovered and got to work.  Then, he pitched another one because some kids who were done got to go outside and play, and he was not done.  These were both what I would call "Stage 1" fits.  According to the art teacher, he made the squished up face, whined, and started to cry a little both times, but didn't progress to the anger or lashing out that I am aware of.

Discovery (gifted program) is once a week, and it was yesterday.  Details were not provided, but the teacher says that he still talks about being "bullied" at school, but the teacher believes it is not true. 

1.  "Still?"  Meaning, this has happened before?  This is not what I've been told.  I was told that he was paranoid about whether kids liked him, but no one ever said, "bullied."
2.  This could be an interpretation of looks and body language that have negative undercurrents.  What is her basis for assuming it is false?  He is pretty smart, and might not rely solely on actions and words.
3.  His behavior this year has been such that he has probably earned disapproval from other kids.  Why, as a GIFTED teacher, isn't she teaching him how to prevent the original problems, or how to make reparations when he fails, or how to have more open relationships with his classmates?  This ostrich approach is doing nothing for me.
4.  Not to beat a dead horse, but why have we decided not to believe my son?

But on to the good news!

I ordered the book, and it is on its way.  I look forward to a future where I can share SOLUTIONS with you all. 

YAY!

Two Steps Back

Library not only does NOT have the book, no affiliated library has the book.  Reserving/requesting it would be utterly pointless. 

Figures.

And it wasn't at the book store, so...

Should I buy the book online?  Husband really doesn't want me to, but the title just seems so exactly what I need.  To tell you the truth, I'm a little afraid of encountering my husband's usual response, which would be, "Well, you can, if you really want to...but it will be one of your Christmas presents."  Which always makes me feel like I'm a kid being warned against bad choices.  But this book isn't for ME.  And it goes in the NEED category, not the WANT category.  Seriously, Friends.  I can think of many, many more enjoyable ways to spend book money.  It's practically my specialty.  I guess we will start with finding out how much the book costs.

Okay.  We are looking at 12-16 dollars.  I'm not opposed to buying it used.  I think I will try that, after consulting the husband guy.

In other news, Grant was mad at some boys in gym yesterday, and vented his frustration by pushing some girls. 

What I said, "Grant, that was not a good idea.  You can't take your frustrations out on people.  Those girls won't understand why you are pushing them.  If you keep that sort of thing up, they are likely to just think you are mean.  Try something different next time."

Not very good, is it?  I'm sort of waiting to read the book before I suggest the "something else".  Probably a bad plan.  But that was when I still had hopes of getting hold of the book today.  :(

Also, Abbie got in trouble again, for not paying attention.  Again.

*sigh*

Funny Abbie story:  Abbie has been given one of those bookmark coupons for Dairy Queen.  If you write down titles of a certain number of books that you have read, you get a free treat.  She was reading a giant hardback collection of the Little House books by Laura Ingalls Wilder.  When she got the bookmark, she suddenly switched to reading a little Candy Fairies book. 

In a way, it was another one of her manipulations.  I almost didn't allow it.  However, another of her problems is not finishing things she starts, such as books.  I've decided to reserve judgment.

Finding My Feet

Know what I love?  Books.  The kind made of paper.

I am currently in search of this one:  Emotional Intensity in Gifted Students:  Helping Kids Cope with Explosive Feelings, by Christine Fonseca. 

We were at V-Stock today, and I actually got the nerve up to ask for it.  My plan was to buy a cheap, used copy, read and understand it, then donate it to the gifted program in my kids' school district.  They seem to need it.  It wasn't at V-Stock, though, so I'm back to my original plan of appealing to my dismally inferior local library.

I did come home with Passage to India and a P.D. James book that my grandmother wants me to read.  I love bookstores! 

Finally allowed bits and pieces of my troubles to leak out amongst a group of friends this morning.  (Translation:  I burst into tears and explanations were required.)  It was not as bad as I had thought.  I might even have some true "army" support.

My husband was angry with Grant when all of this started coming up.  Then, when I started doing research (and thought to check about gifted kids) and found a probable source of the problem, he wasn't worried anymore.  A.  I had found an answer, and B. being smart is fine.  Nothing wrong with that.

Uh...tell that to the school.

It was another week and a half before I brought up the subject again.  I don't like feeling like the only one trying to fix things!  His kid, too, you know!  His response was that I had it under control and he didn't need to do anything. (You know, like support me, or listen to my concerns and ideas, etc.)  Let's just say I set him straight on that one.  So, now he doesn't think like that, but the result isn't any different.  He was late coming home every night this week except Friday. 

Still can't talk to Mom.  She knows both kids are in the gifted program, but doesn't know that the counselor is involved, or the severity of the school problems, or that I've been miserable with worry.  That's the thing.  I don't want to share that.  She had her own gifted kids, and I know she has a few regrets about how it all ended up.  I don't want her to have to think about that all over again, and how could she not be reminded of it, under the circumstances?

But - even the lack of family behind me is not as bad as it was a few days ago.  I am deciding to not allow this to get the better of us.  Plus, it always helps to have a plan.

In other news, we have put our house for sale.  My plan is to be the counselor myself, to help my son cope with the world as it is, to be totally victorious, and then to take my gifted children and their test scores and LEAVE.

Possibly not all aspects of that plan can be realized.  And it does seem a little vengeful for me...

But, like I said, it helps to have a plan.

How It Came Up

I'm not sure how I want to tackle the subject of "What Happened to Bring Me Here".  For today, I think I will rely on some of my own correspondence.  I haven't really been able to tell anyone about it.  Then, one day I just unloaded on a poor, unsuspecting friend who lives abroad.  This is, at least, most of the story:

"School started in August.  I started working there the second day of school.  I introduced myself to both of my kids teachers, and told them to stop me in the halls or find me in some way if there was anything that needed my attention.  My assignments was for 2 months.  Parent teacher conferences were about 2-3 weeks after that.  The gym coach (nice guy) had told me a few times about Grant having issues in gym, but he was sure it was stuff that would work itself out with time.  But he told me anyway.  The morning of parent teacher conferences, I was asked to come in a little early.  I had no idea what it was about.  In fact, I was hoping they were going to offer me more work.  It was about Grant.  The principal had a whole panel in the conference room.  All these teachers, including his classroom teacher, told me that Grant was having troubles almost daily, and that recently he had pushed someone out of anger.  When he was told of his punishment and that it was early and he could still, "have a good day," he said that he never had a good day.  That's red flag stuff, you know, so they called me in.

This is how I found out that my son cried in class every day for the first two weeks of school, and no one thought it was important enough to tell me.  This is how I found out that he is somewhat paranoid about the other kids' feelings for him.  This is how I found out that for weeks he had been distancing himself from the other kids.  This is how I found out that, no matter what he tells me when he comes home at the end of the day, my son is unhappy at school.

Here's the part I don't like talking about.  Grant is gifted.  Not just gifted.  When he took the test for the gifted program, he was in the 99 percentile, nation wide.  I HATE saying that.  Being told that you have a gifted child (especially one deemed "highly gifted") is just as life altering as being told that your child has autism, only there's no group out there crusading for you.  No one, and I mean NO ONE feels the slightest amount of pity, unless they are the family of gifted kids, too.  And there are none out here in Warrenton.  It's like trying to get pity by saying, "DAMN it!  My stay-at-home-gourmet chef supermodel wife did all my ironing on Wednesday instead of Thursday and I had to wear a shirt that was merely dryer fresh!  WHAT THE HELL!?!?" 


The Discovery teacher was one of the ones called in for the meeting.  She says that Grant is the main discipline problem in the class, and it's only gotten worse now that Abbie is there, too.  He's bossy, but also short tempered and whiny.  No one in the school cared much about that all year, but now he has also started to have emotional outbursts.  They care about that."  

FYI:  The sort of emotional outburst I'm referring to when I speak of my son is like this - He squirms, squishes his face up, uses a whiny voice and face, and then becomes angry.  I've never been around when he says horrible things (not profanity, but threats, sometimes about killing), but lashing out verbally and physically is the next step.  He trips people, kicks, pushes, and hits in a sneaky, underhand kind of way, accuses people of cheating, etc.  He has done this in the recent past to my husband.  He has never done anything like it in my direct presence. 

"At the end of the meeting, I asked Grant's classroom teacher to please write me an email anytime Grant was having a bad day. The other thing that was decided, and I agreed to it, was that the school counselor would see him once a week for an undetermined number of weeks. 

I've had no emails from the teacher.  However, last week I did get calls from the principal and from the Discovery teacher about Grant.  Plus, Friday, there was another red flag incident.  It is reported that he said something so bad to another kid that there is now talk of sending Grant to a professional.  The worst part is that it was only one kid telling the story.  I have asked the school to get another witness to confirm or deny what Grant said, so I can make this very hard decision based on a fact, and not a rumor.

I started doing Internet research on highly gifted children, and I am slightly less hysterical than I was.  He is in the normal range.  Even violence is not uncommon for highly gifted children who are "frustrated", and the things that frustrate them are not what one would expect:  imperfection of their own work, something they can't immediately succeed in, not understanding something - already knew about those ones.  But highly gifted children get frustrated when the actions or reactions of their peers aren't what the child predicted they would be.  And who can predict the actions of kids?!?!?  So....that explains a lot.  Now I have to keep reading to know how to fix it, and whether I still need outside help.  Getting cooperation from his educators would be a start."

This is definitely the short version.  Plus, it doesn't really give you much of an idea of the impact it had on me.  However, as for Grant, I've been presenting it in a very particular way.  He has been told:  1.  Some of his recent actions/reactions have been brought to my attention by the school.  2.  Although what he is feeling is normal, he needs to work on what he does about feeling that way, because losing control is not acceptable.  I've never used the word "gifted" to him.  I've never said anything about his being "different".  I've just continued my normal parenting, which relies heavily on reason.  When I say that, I mean it in both ways:  my responses are reasonable,and full of advice, and I always give a reason for an expectation, and a reason for the natural consequences.

Part of me thinks that the reason I was blindsided by this, is that I already am what Grant needs from a parent.  Then, when he didn't have similar reactions from the adults at school, he started having the frustration that he could have experienced all along.

Probably, that should make me feel better about what kind of a parent I have been.

It doesn't.  I feel awful.  I feel responsible.  I feel inadequate.  I feel like I'm being eaten from the inside.

I owe it to him to research this, to find the right answers, and to present the information to his school, and especially to the gifted teacher, who, by all rights, ought to be presenting it to me.

This is a picture of my children when we were all still at home together:

Allow me to introduce myself.

I was a kid in the 80's, when all the after school shows specialized in types.  But I wasn't the glamorous popular girl.  And I wasn't the brainy straight A student.  And I wasn't the sweet churchgoer.  And I wasn't the wild and crazy quirky friend.  And I wasn't the wealthy but evil girl.

Probably, it should be the relief of my life that I defy description.  Or at least description in 3 words or less.  It isn't, though.  It has always upset me that I didn't have that sort of ice breaker.  That I couldn't look out there, point, and say, "Ah, yes.  Those are my people."

So.  Even though it takes longer, I will have to explain myself a little, before I introduce the other main characters.

1.  My parents are both very educated.  My father is a pharmacist.  My mother has a P.H.D.
2.  I grew up in a University town - an Engineering University town.
3.  My grades were mediocre.  Few people probably suspect that my intelligence was tested at a point in late childhood, and that I am an equal of my brother.
4.  My brother is gifted.  He looked gifted.  He acted gifted.  He was in the gifted program at school. 
5.  That program would not accept me as well, despite the testing.
6.  I never minded.  I was not scholastically ambitious. 

*And a brief intro of other main characters*

7.  My husband is a smart guy.  But that's all.  (Well, he's nice and stuff, but we're talking about degrees of intelligence right now.)
8.  We've never had money.  We scrape by.
9.  I STAYED HOME WITH MY CHILDREN ANYWAY.
10.  My children never had any sort of glaring problems until they were in school.
11.  Our school is inadequate.  (This is not a below the belt blow.  We were ordered to restructure by the state when our test scores were abysmal.)
12.  Both of my children are in the gifted program.
13.  Both of my children are experiencing behavioral problems of different types.

*sigh*  Thirteen.  The unlucky number.

On my days off, I plan to write in this blog about what is happening with my children.  I will start with how what I thought of as a flattering label became the most upsetting thing I've encountered in years, and then I will let you know what I find in my research, which is ongoing.

And please comment, if you'd like.  What I mean is, don't comment if you have something you would like to advertise, or if you want to be critical of me, since I'm not sure I'm tough enough right now.  But I sure would like to be able to point and say, "Ah.  Those are my people."

To Be Continued.