Obstinate know it all

[Asmallgiraffe]

Ok here goes. My lovely son we think is a fairly bright cookie. Couldn’t possibly say he is gifted as I don’t have a comparator. He is about to turn 7 and reads avidly. Likes many typical books of his age group- lots of Enid B and Roald Dahl a year or so ago, recent stuff is Crissida Cowell, David Walliams, but also enjoyed CS Lewis. He is an interested mathematician, taught himself multiplication and division, long multiplication and the like. Actively asks us to give him maths puzzles and we have done simple things like multiplying by 1.5, 2.5, 1.2, 1.25 and the like which he seems to “get”. He also appears quite delighted by powers and square roots. Similar idea in science - generally loves to understand how things work and if you explain a concept, he will talk about it and put it into practice and general conversation for principles such as gravity/forces/pressure and the like. However.....all these lovely, juicy brains don’t seem to be appreciated by his school, and never have been since reception as his downside is that he doesn’t really have attention in class and thinks he knows best. Don’t get me wrong, he has massive attention span, will sit and build beautiful Lego creations, read two hours a day, but doesn’t seem engaged by learning or the pace of learning in school. This drives my husband and I to distraction. He sees himself as an equal and has an enthusiasm for knowledge at home and we happily engage and indulge his requests however I wonder if we are setting him up to fail, but how on earth do I get him to do what he is told in class so he shows workings/does what the teacher asks and generally isn’t seen as a cocky kid. Its at the point that I have been saying at parents evenings since reception oh he can do x and y which is farcically ahead of what they are doing in class and they just aren’t interested and just say well he isn’t showing us in class. But he is so turned off by some some subjects in school that I feel they have a duty of care not to ruin his favourite subjects and make him further disengaged. Thoughts welcomed assuming you made it to the end!

So his teachers don’t think he’s as bright as you think he is? Not sure what to suggest. Maybe a private school? Or it could be he’s just average for his age despite what you think. Sometimes it’s hard as a parent to think that might be the case.

I hear you! However when the rest of the class seem to be doing multiply by 2 and 5 and my kid seems to be interested 3421.5 and is setting himself maths puzzles with scraps of paper, it does make me think, perhaps I need to investigate. It’s entirely possible this is average, but quite frankly, I have limited terms of reference and I guess there is a differential between class teaching and child being left to own devices at home. I guess it’s not about pushing it’s about ensuring there is active engagement for my child.

Is he Y2? I teach maths in Y2 and this is well ahead, in fact it’s what I’m currently teaching my Y5 class, but you’ve hit the nail on the head, there is a massive difference between intrinsically motivated learning and learning what someone else is insisting you do. I currently teach a gifted Y5 child whose parent has given me an awful time for not stretching him but actually he’s not that interested in learning what we need to teach him - he’s not very fluent with his tables for example because he doesn’t put the effort in to learn them and he’s not that great with procedures for the 4 operations but he’s very very good at reasoning and problem solving. My student sounds pretty similar to your son - he’s amazing at what he wants to do and fairly average at what he’s told to do. I haven’t found a solution. Sorry!

Yes year 2. I am glad it’s not just me. I worry for him a little cause he isn’t getting the concept of little and often with regard to the discipline of learning and there will be a point that breezing through doesn’t happen, and to go far, grit and determination are required. Additionally, I guess what I’m struggling with is engaging without pushing ahead of the class.

The importance of school is for them to grow into the realisation that they are one of many other children, but the intelligence to do this does not develop equally in all children.
You could talk to him about respect for his teachers and the right of all the other children to get an education. Ask him if he thinks it likely that he knows better than the teacher. If others in his class had his opetunities

Posted too soon...
If others in his class had his opportunities, they would probably do equally well. By talking and listening to him you could improve his social ability.

I think your ds is clearly doing the kinds of things most y2 kids can't. Do you think the teacher won't give your ds harder stuff because they don't believe your ds can do these thing? Or they do believe your ds just has to demonstrate understanding of certain concepts in class before moving on? We got around my dc finding school boring by hiring a tutor who did really hard fun maths / logic puzzles with her. Now they just spend an hour a week talking about sciency things. She absolutely loves it and it seems to have reignited her interest in learning.

I do agree with another poster above though that it's also really important that your ds learns that he needs to follow teacher instructions and appropriate social skills.

Yes, we do explain the importance of listening and the like. He isn’t feral or completely disengaged and to my knowledge stopping others from having an education, just the most stubborn child I have ever come across and making him see the value in something that he finds ridiculously easy or interminably slow paced that is not particularly differentiated just switches him off. Not quite sure what you mean by if other children has his opportunities?

My posting isn’t to try and figure how to push him further ahead as we can happily give him educational day trips, access to technology, books and arts subjects, it’s more how to say, take a step back, breathe and stop thinking you know best and rushing your work!!

He has obviously had an encouraging upbringing in which he has had the opportunities to learn. Not all parents have the interest or ability to provide this for their child. Trying to instil a sense of humility about his abilities is one aspect of social skills In the world of work, the days of the lone genius have all but disappeared So much is done now in teams or in collaboration with other. These shills are as important to develop as academic abilities. The title "Obstinate know it all", does suggest this is an aspect you are looking to help him with. Listening to his thoughts while offering guidance by asking questions will help.
If you feel the school are not providing the education he needs, that is a different problem.

My ds loved this game when he was around 6/7 and became obsessed with powers and roots. Starts off easy but it gets harder.

www.mangahigh.com/en-gb/games/bidmasblaster

A few suggestions:

1. have a look at this article, in particular "Type II - the challenging".

2. Have a look at mathswhizz. it has a built-in assessment which would tell you roughly where he is in that area.

3. Don' t assume that because he can concentrate on things that interest him, there is no issue with his attention. It's perfectly possible to be able to concentrate for long periods on subjects of interest, and yet not be able to hold it together to concentrate on something that's not intrinsically interesting in class. A bright child with a mild attention issue can have both issues missed. I'm not saying there is any issue - just that it can't be ruled out by an ability to concentrate on self-selected activities.

Re: the "well he isn’t showing us in class" situation, the danger is that if schools won't meet them where they are, the kid can get trapped in a catch-22 : so bored by what they're being offered that they don't/won't demonstrate what they really can do.

Regarding the attention, what I'm getting at is that it's impossible to know from the information provided whether they are very bright and just bored by inappropriate provision, or whether they are very bright, bored, and also have an issue with attention / executive functions that's obscuring their ability in the classroom. Some info here:
article1
article2
book

Asmallgiraffe I think they like to call it 'high learning potential now. Your son certainly sounds very able. My dc is like this and a perfectionist. His prep have not been able to stretch him suitably, although they do their best but the gulf between him and his cohort is quite large. He was placed on their G&T register in year 1 and he gets lot of extension work but nothing that really pushes him. We're moving him to a highly selective school in September as we feel he needs to learn to work hard. Have a look at the PPUK website, you can call them for free advice. Hth

I really appreciate your thoughts and ideas, I will look and read into your resources. Thankyou.

I think my DS was probably quite like this. Very able and self-motivated as a little child eg asking why there are only ten numerals when there are so many more numbers and grasping the concept of place value very easily when he was 3. He didn't mind school for the first two years then he got three teachers in a row who didn't get him at all and he had a really hard time. He was in trouble a lot for being dis-organised and having tantrums when other children wound him up. As a teenager all but one of his teachers said how 'disengaged' he was. He got a diagnosis of ASD ( mild) when he was 8, which would probably have made more of a difference to his enjoyment of school if the senior management had taken it more seriously. His primary teachers went on and on about him " having his own agenda". Eg he had to repeat a piece of maths three times because he wasn't setting it out correctly. Despite this he continued to do things his own way. On reflection, after observing him carefully and coming to the same realisation about myself, I came to the conclusion that he is incapable of concentrating on anything he hasn't chosen to do or doesn't see a purpose for.

Also he would appear to be stubbornly refusing to write down his workings, but watching him I honestly think he couldn't write out his workings. It would interrupt his train of thought, or something. It seems that many ASD people have a real need to have things justified before being able to commit to them. He was also hindered by being apparently articulate; excellent vocabulary, but nevertheless having communication difficulties. Eg, the shoe shop assistant who thought he was rude when he didn't answer the question, ' How do those shoes feel'? ( To DS a difficult Q because how to put into words how they felt, boingy and new perhaps) In a classroom this is unhelpful obviously. Is your DS like this at all?

I would celebrate your DS curiosity and ability with him. But also work hard at praising effort and other good qualities such as kindness, patience etc. And encourage him to develop his self awareness and understanding of the way the world works/ value of lots of different personal attributes. Do you have a choice of schools? I ask because my DS' school although considered to be a good school, really didn't suit him. The senior management had zero interest in or understanding of ASD. Also, IMHO there are some teachers who feel threatened by very bright children. Luckily the ed psych advocates for him to get one teacher in particular who was a really good match.

Apologies if ASD isn't relevant to your DS.

I worried about my DS for the same reasons as you. However he has turned out to be a nice young man ( on the whole, he still drives me nuts occasionally) I hope this doesn't sound arrogant, but I honestly think that's partly down to me working very hard to instil in him respect for other people, tolerance of other people's beliefs, good manners and not making a fuss about trivial things. One of my proudest moments was reading that he was very respectful of other people's beliefs in RE. And it was drilled into him that being clever is not in itself useful. And having a gift makes you lucky, not superior to anyone else. Oh lord, the endless discussions about why school had particular rules etc, seeing things from the teacher's POV etc. The very fact of you not valuing cleverness above everything else, while still valuing it will surely protect your DS from developing into an obstinate little horror. You sound to me like a very good parent.

FWIW, my DS did well in his A levels. Not well enough to get onto any course at any uni, but well enough to do almost any course at any uni.

Another thought.

If you can impress upon the school that you want him to behave well in school and be a valued member of his class his teachers are more likely to want to help him achieve his potential. I know most teachers are very professional, but they're human like everybody else.

I think it's quite dangerous to let your child think they have to 'see the value' in something before they have to learn it. Tell him to do as he is told? It's great that he is very bright and it does sound as though they should be differentiating some things for him, but if the teacher doesn't think she has seen him do X yet, she can't move him on. Just tell him he needs to follow instructions, no questions asked.

Absolutely.

It's a problem for teachers if children require justification for every little thing. However some children seem to have an innate sense of questioning everything. Perhaps OP's DS has this. IME children like this need extra support from their parents. .Lots of explaining why classrooms are run the way they are etc and talking about the general good, value of being co-operative etc. However some teachers inspire the best efforts of children more than others.

rogueantimatter

Agreed.

My rule as a teacher is that I will explain why I want you to do something once. After that I expect it to be done. All the 'but you're not answering my question!' in the world will not change an instruction, so why bother arguing?

My DS had this thing where he would do maths his own way. His Y5 teacher would try to get him to repeat it with the correct layout. It would take three or four goes. She was consistent so he knew he wouldn't get off with doing it another way. But still he persisted in missing out layers of workings, starting tiling in the corner instead of the middle of the page etc. The teacher went on and on about him having "his own agenda". But I honestly think he wasn't concentrating or couldn't concentrate, on something he probably thought was pointless. She was not sympathetic to my theory. As a slightly older boy, who was very able, he said how his heart sank when he turned to a whole page of 'sums', to generalise. He knew he would make lots of careless slips. He did go on to do well, but possibly not as well as his early ability might have predicted and he was turned right off maths. Which is a concern OP has, I think, for her able DS. While also wanting him to be a likeable well-behaved child.

I had sympathy with my DS and with his teachers.

Wow. Just reread OP and noticed "shows workings". Definite similarities.

Come to think of it, this was the same teacher who wanted DS' friend who was one of the youngest in the year to repeat Y5, mostly I think because of his less than average fine motor skills. The family didn't take her advice and he got the scottish equivalent of AAA* and a scottish higher in his last year of school. He won several prizes too. Individual teachers can make a huge difference to how a child gets on at school.

Hi OP, just on the matter of 'learning discipline' and seeing the value of little and often (without racing even further ahead than he is already).

Firstly, consider extending sideways. Music, coding, chess, a MFL. It won't matter how far 'ahead' he goes; presumably, it will be challenging eventually (or even from the start); and the 'little and often' approach will yield noticeable progress (make sure you point out his progress to him though; sometimes with the 'little and often' approach the progress is so gradual that you fail to notice it if you don't step back occasionally and compare what you can do now compared to, say, 6 months ago). He can also make the experience of finding something hard but achieving it anyway, by persevering.
DS has been doing French on Duolingo for about half a year now, just 10 minutes/day, it is amazing how much he has learned and it has definitely shown him the value of 'little and often'.

Secondly, I think you need to give up on the notion that school maths might catch up with his abilities. (This notion I feel is implicit in your desire not to push him even further ahead. Why not? Two years ahead or four years ahead, what does it matter? School maths will be boring, either way. It only matters if you are hoping/waiting for school maths to become interesting /challenging eventually.)
Once you've left that notion behind, there is nothing stopping you from doing maths with him that is both interesting and challenging, and where he might learn the value of 'learning discipline' as well.

Tell him that showing your workings, and being able to communicate what you know by doing the work you're asked to do in class is like eating your vegetables.

You may not want to do it or like the taste, but you do it because it's good for you.

I'd try simple bribery as well.

You get 50p for every bit of class work where you got 20/20, that kind of thing. Set the value low enough that you can afford it if he continuously does well!

What is it that he isn't doing?
Is it one specific thing, like times tables? Is it that his test scores are average when they are testing things he knows really well because he isn't including workings? Is it because he's making small arithmetic errors?