My son has always been advanced for his age in most areas of development, from speech development and toilet training through to memory and maths. He has always been defiant of authority and has been hard to parent at times. He's now 7 and has just moved to a new school as we moved house. His teacher called me in to talk to me about an incident where he started bossing another child around. It turned into a much more detailed conversation about him - he is v good at maths but often chooses not to write down the answers, he is 'stuffed with knowledge' but sometimes chooses not to share it, he is sometimes arrogant to the point of rude with the teachers, and he doesn't interact on a level with the other kids. At home he is like this too, and watches and memorises documentaries on nature. His general knowledge is scary. He also comes out with very advanced comments. For example my husband and I were joking and I said to him 'You have no soul!' My son piped up with 'There is no soul. Souls don't exist. There's only DNA. The only soul you have is the sole of your foot.' Is this normal for a 7 year old? His teacher thinks we should have the family support worker into our home. I thought they were for people who can't get themselves or their kids up and dressed in clean clothes. I'm thinking more along the lines of an educational psychologist to assess whether he is gifted and to give us all guidance. What should I do? I just want him to be happy and make friends, as I think he makes life so hard for himself.
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He sounds just like my little brother 
Who is now all grown up, very clever and very successful and very happy.
I would see the FSW.
he sounds very bright, but he also sounds rude and bossy.
children who lack social skills need support whether they are gifted or not, so it might make sense to separate out these things in your mind and deal with them differently.
yes, ask school to refer to ep for testing if you think they need clarification of how bright he is, or you feel that educationally they are not differentiating appropriately. if they are, it might not be necessary.
but also ask if they are able to work on some social skills targets (these can form part of an iep if they want to formalise the process.) if they want to do an iep to help with target setting for g&t or whatever and you feel that you help them differentiate appropriately, then also fine.
if it helps, ds1 is a bit similar. he would want to debate religion and evolution at 6/7 due to the obvious curriculum conflict. at three he was working out shopping and change, and how many different ways you could pay with a pocket full of assorted coins. he's also socially quirky and has some definite anxieties. his teachers usually just suggest he has some sort of einstein thang going on, and so don't expect him to bother himself to do the same work as everyone else (which imvho opinion doesn't help at all). so essentially he's been encouraged to only bother to write down answers to the q's he deigns to answer. this year's teacher wants him to sort his life out though. so does the new paed. for which i am extremely grateful because it is becoming impossible to live with.
various dx have been suggested - add,adhd,odd, aspergers, asd but none fit particularly. he's just bright and a bit odd (in the odd sense, rather than opp defiant lol). to be frank, we take any help we are offered but there isn't much as he's bright enough to get awqy with not following the norms. i'd be a bit sceptical about a family support worker, but it shows willing, and recognises that they do have real concerns about his social abilities.
dd2 is 8 and extremely bright and also a bit odd socially, but she has cp, so it's tricky to sort the wood from the trees really. dd1 is bright (regional gifted programme, mentorship programme etc) but absolutely 100% nt as far as social skills - understands all social nuances and how to behaqve, lots of friends. all kids are different and some need help. it's feck all to do with parenting, and some outside guidance might be useful! it's somewhere to start, anyway. you can always say no thanks later.
and you might want to lose the prejudice about kids with issues and assumptions about their background.
terms of reference will vary wildly depending on area and individual cases. perhaps they just use them as signposting in this case? there must be some reason for the teacher to suggest that particular avenue of support. they are usually pretty much snowed under and wouldn't take on unnecessary casework.
i'm sure they'll be an assessment visit where if it isn't an appropriate use of the service they will say so
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