How do we help ds see that it's OK for boys to be clever?

[overthehill]

Our ds is 7, and after reading threads on here & according to friends of ours who are experienced teachers, we've come to the conclusion that he probably is gifted. However, he messes around at school, often refuses point-blank to do work, lacks confidence in his abilities and says that he doesn't want to be seen as clever as he'll be teased & have no friends . He got 2 Level 3's in his SATs & a 'could do better' report, which we really found quite depressing, as it majored on his poor behaviour and lack of conformity rather than on his talents. He goes to a state primary with a lot of middle-class families but also some children from quite deprived backgrounds, and problems with naughty boys do seem to occur throughout the school. He is great with adults on a one-to-one basis and loved his teacher last year, but he finds it harder to relate to his peers and is quite immature socially in some ways. How do we help him & turn around his hatred of school into something positive??? (And we're not going to move him into the private sector, even if we could afford it).

I know a lot of kids with all 3's in their sats who though bright I would not call 'gifted'

What do you think makes your ds gifted?

I had a friend who was definitevely gifted, he got the social acceptance (or the forgivenes from being so clever) by concentrating also in sports, I think that was how he managed all the rest of his peers to see him as just one of them, their equal)

I spent most of my teenage years hiding my intelligence (I was a library mouse TBH) and it was lonely and frustrating, eventually I made friends with people older than me and with them I could be myself, not sure if that would help.

NotAnOtter, I looked at the NAGC website, and ds really fits the bill for the indicators of high ability they give: he has an extremely good memory & attention to detail, is very good at problem-solving, never stops asking questions, has a lot of interests unusual in someone of his age (eg gardening, cooking, church liturgy(!), and he watched the entire Mystery Play cycle of 5 hours last w/e) & has v good powers of reasoning eg when the burglar alarm went off after a power cut the other week in the middle of the night he was the only one in the family who could work out how to stop it...I could go on

Thanks, Chandra, it must have been awful for you. Sometimes I think he might have to wait until secondary school/?university before he flourishes & finds kindred spirits, & I hope that as he matures he'll come to accept himself as he is. Unfortunately he's hopeless at sport, but he does get on pretty well (usually!) with his older sister, who's 10, & her friends, & doesn't have the same problems of having to be in charge etc that he does with his peer group. It would be good if we could cultivate a few older geeky boys to act as role models, maybe!

Something that also helped was to have afterschool activities where I could be part of a group that had a wider age range, where I could make friends with the older ones, they still called me Einstein but it was in a lovely tone. I felt accepted despite my brainyness.

Now, starting university was great, I was soooooo happy I thought my life was more than perfect! I thoroughly enjoyed being able to have deep conversations without people looking at me with a WTH-is-she-talking-about?-face. Heaven!

That's reassuring, Chandra, because it suggests that we seem to be going along the right lines: he goes to an allotment club which is meant for 8-12-year-olds, has joined a choir with children of his own age/older children/adults and has recently started learning the piano. Whenever we get home from school he wants to be doing something, & for his teacher's end-of-term present he made a set of windchimes out of tin cans & old bits of wood! It's exhausting to try & keep him stimulated, but does reap rewards when you can. It's just a pity they can't switch him on at school as he'll spend so much of his life there.

It's not that bad Overthehill, my sister and one friend were too advanced for their age and were sent to the next grade, so was my bestfriend who was 3 years younger than the rest of the group. All of them complain of being good enough to cope with the workload easily but not mature enough to take important decisions thrown upon them as choosing what to you want to study>do with the rest of your life being just 15 yrs old. I guess is much about finding a balance.

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Bloss, it's interesting what you say (only just reading it now as have been at work all day!), & a wise friend of ours (who's also an ex-teacher) has also suggested private might be better for him. Dh & I both used to be Labour Party members before it became hi-jacked by right-wingers, & he's probably more anti-private education than I am on ideological/egalitarian grounds. We also couldn't afford it, & I think it might make his big sister feel inferior (dh was sent to a 'better' school than his sister because he was brighter & both resented the other). I also think that some private schools might expect children to conform more eg by having strict uniform policy, expecting boys to have short hair.

The difficulty at the moment is that his school doesn't seem to accept that ds is particularly bright: because he doesn't do as he's told & perform that well & doesn't get brilliant SATs results, then they seem to think he's just average - but to my mind average 7-y-o's don't make broad bean & mushroom quiche with minimal help & using beans they've grown themselves, watch mystery plays for 5 hours, ask searching religious questions at the age of 3 (when his grandma died) etc etc...

He is going into Juniors next year with a very well respected teacher, & we're just hoping that this experience might help him turn the corner. We'll see.

Overthehill, it may help, if I said my teen years were so bad was because that was when I went from private sector into the state one. That's when I learn that being good was not cool. Now, every school is different, so even if you choose not to go to private, choose a good small school.

There is more to conforming than using a uniform and keep their hair short. We attended a Montessori school were several grades shared a huge classroom. We were not allowed to ignore things that didn't interested us but we were allowed to go beyond the requirements of our grade if we showed an interest. My favorite area was Spanish and history, I covered the materials up to sixth grade before I finished fourth grade. And one of the things that makes me think we all were having a good time was the battle we had every morning to be the first to get to a particular material were we could practice maths, we even hid the thing out of view in order to ensure we had a first go at it the day afterwards!

DS1 gets away with it by his love of sports. Although he occasionally gets called a 'swot' by some peers I don't think it unduly bothers him - he says he is used to it - a joke going around the school at the moment is 'what do you call a swot?' ...Boss!

I think if our ds could accept himself more & not worry what other children thought/said, that would help him a lot - but that's hard at 7. I still think his school is a good one and there are lots of bright boys in my dd's class (Year 5) who still seem to be seen as cool - but most are good at sport or into the common playground crazes. Trouble is, we don't have a TV either & ds is not interested in Star Wars/Bionicles/YuGeeOh! (Sp?)- but does play imaginative games with dd & her dollies - not that he would admit it to the other boys in a million years!

I think that's one of the main problems of being young, it's more about fitting in with the rest of the group than about being yourself

Perhaps a erm... point of contact with other children may help, a bit of TV will not ruin him but may provide some conversation topics to help him to fit in. Or even avoiding TV, books that have been turned into movies could do the trick.

Now, this will sound absolutely superficial but... get him some nice wardrobe. Children who, according to their peers, dress well are always seen under a more benevolent light.

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maybe one of your strategies as others have said would be to work on helping him blend in. To an adult it might be impressive that he watches no tv & grows his own beans & makes his own quiche, but it in the average playground it's surely asking for trouble. Intelligence aside, to bw honest I don 't see that as being the biggest problem here. Kids have a need to blend in and not stand out, to be part of the group, and us parents I think have a duty to help that happen.

Individuality is obviously ok, to be encouraged and (esp later) very important, but the average kids also needs to feel invisible sometimes & we need to help develpo both these things

get him a tv

knowledge of B Daman will go further than homemade windchimes believe me

actually even better, get him a playstation

instant cred

exactly. He's seen as being different because he is, not because he's girted. he's probably playing up so as not too look too nerdy,but because he has no telly and grows beans, not because he's so clever. help him fit in & he'll be more confident to work. computer, playstation/x box /psp at least birthdays & christmasses will be easy to sort out

I would not get a TV unless you want to. That would just be giving in to peer pressure rather than encouraging your son to take some pride in being himself. He sounds lovely btw (and he did better than my DS3 ).

What is this "lack of conformity" that the school is making such an issue of? You say the school is a good one, but is it a good one for him? If they are trying to turn him into their view of the right sort of child rather than taking account of who he really is, that is not good.

It is possible matters may improve in Year 3 - when the Year 2 SATS are out of the way there is a little more room for individuality, so I wouldn't give up on the school quite yet.

agree with playstation idea.

he's probably desperate to fit in with his peers and would love to know what they're talking about.

children this age don't want to be different, it's not peer pressure it's normal.

Like others have said, I think you first need to concentrate on the social aspect of things, like developing interests which others in the class share and ensuring his clothes "fit in". It may be galling to have to do this if it doesn't align with your own personal beliefs but if you can make him feel more comfortable with his peers it will probably give him the confidence to do his best at his schoolwork. I remember a documentary on child development by Robert Winston (you probably won't have seen it if you don't have a tv ) and one of the interesting things they said about school age children was that research had shown that dressing your child nicely was one of the most important things you could do to help your school-age child be accepted by others.

One thing I have noticed with boys is that boys with an older sister often have different interests to those with an older brother. The 2 yr olds with older brothers are often the ones who are into superheroes, etc while the ones with older sisters tend to like the things they have seen their sisters do (like arts and crafts). I know there will be many exceptions to disprove this but maybe you could look out for boys your ds's age who have older sisters who might be more likely to have similar interests to him....

The fitting in thing is difficult, if he is just not interested in the things other boys in his class are. DS1 (nearly 8, at the end of Y3) naturally gravitates towards crazes like Yugi-Oh! (even though they don't watch the TV programme very often, he collects the cards) and Dr.Who. We don't have Gameboys, PS2, X-box, but he does play on-line computer games and CD-Roms.

But it is hard to tell from your post whether your DS would like these things, but doesn't have them, or is just not interested. I don't think you should get a TV etc if you don't want to.

Some of what you say about your DS strikes a chord with me - my DS1 is also in my opinion underperforming, but in his case because of distractibility and a general lack of interest in what other people are trying to tell him. He learns stuff he is interested in phenomenally well and everyone he meets outside school comments on how incredibly bright he seems. But he does not perform particularly well at school and would certainly not be seen as outstanding by any of his teachers (unlike his younger brother).

DS1 has one very, very close friend who understands him. Though he is quite widely liked by other children, he has a reputation for being 'crazy' and eccentric, and has cultivated the 'class clown' personality. I guess it helps if you are not sporty and no-one knows as much about all the regenerations of Dr. Who as you do.

does he have friends round to play? I think I'd be encouraging lots of (same age) friends round on a one to one basis. If you are set against the TV/play station you could get him some good board games to play? Could you also encourage him to take up a sport - even if he wasn't interested in football, something like tennis?

That's interesting what you say KTP about some boys with older sisters. My son is very like that and prob his favourite pasttime, until quite recently, was dressing up as a princess and taking part in his older sister's kings/queens/princesses games. If it wasn't for the fact that he loved playing football, he would come across as being totally girly!

Yes ds1 is quite girly (though he has done football but tbh don't think he is much good at it) and really enjoys playing imaginary type games with dd. But he likes to have things with Power Rangers/Spiderman etc on, even though he wouldn't sit down and play with a Power Rangers toy, for example (that's just because he knows other boys like them iyswim). He was never really into cars/trains etc. as a toddler. Ds2 is far more conventional, likes his cars and trains and being a "super".

I'm torn a bit about the "blend in" thing tbh.

DS1 (9) will never blend in - he just won't. He had major speech (articulation) problems as a toddler; now he is easily comprehensible to anyone, but sounds "very odd" the moment he opens his mouth. He is also has very poor coordination, and is rather bizarre in many other ways; today for instance he wore bright green socks (with his red football shirt, black trainers, and b/w shorts)!
He sticks out like a sore thumb, in a nerdy, geeky sort of way, and always will IMHO.

Of course I would love for him to be able to fit in, but I have to be honest and realise there is no way he is going to. It took me a long (painful) time to come to terms with this; but now I have I accept that it is more important that he learns to accept and cope with being different, than that he feels the be all and end all is to learn to fit in and not be noticed.

Atm he doesn't mind at all, and seems to enjoy his slightly wild/mad eccentricity. Long may it continue! I'm sure when he is older the desire to 'conform' will probably increase, but I hope his self-esteem will be sufficiently strong that he copes well when he is not able to blend in as well as others.

Of course we ensure he is encouraged to share experiences and common ground with his peers, so he does watch TV - Dr Who and The Simpsons, he does go to the cinema, he does have a Gameboy, Pokemon cards, does play daft PC games; and he seems to have plenty of mates.