Yesterday I opened a letter from the school district inviting my seven-year-old son to attend a special school for gifted children. Based on test scores and teacher recommendations, he was invited to start attending a new school in the fall. He would then continue enrollment at the school under the same gifted program for the next four years. Hmmmm. I sat down with my son and had a little chat. I explained to him what a great opportunity this was, and told him he could go visit the school and meet the teacher. But Liam wasn’t so sure.
“What about my friends?” he asked. He was referring to his three best friends at school who live within walking distance.
“You’d still get to see them after school everyday,” I said.
He thought for a moment, puzzled. “But they wouldn’t be in my class anymore.”
“Well, they might not be, anyway. Your friends could be put with a different teacher next year.”
“Yeah, but I play with them everyday at lunch.”
“That’s true. You wouldn’t be able to play with them at lunch anymore.”
Liam furrowed his forehead. “I don’t want to go to a gifted school,” he said. “I really don’t want to.”
For a moment I thought about how strange this was. As a mother of special needs children, I’m supposed to find good programs to meet each of their unique needs. Now I have a program I wasn’t even looking for and a child who says he doesn’t want it. So now my dilemma is, do I force my son to attend the school, because it’s in his best interest? And then again, is such a program even important enough for a seven-year-old that it’s worth separating him from his friends and starting over?
I guess the answer is that I have to investigate this “gifted school” further. Secretly, I wonder what this program offers gifted children that typical schools don’t. And whatever the amazing curriculum might be at this new school, shouldn’t those same innovative teaching methods be available to regular kids? Special-ed kids? What differentiates a “gifted school” from an ordinary one? Why can’t all schools be “gifted schools?” This is uncharted territory for me.
Things kids don’t want to do that parents make them do:
- Clean their room
- Do their chores
- Go to the dentist
- Go to the doctor
- Eat their broccoli
- Do their homework
- Take a bath
- Wear a coat
- Brush their teeth
- Quit fighting with their brother
- Quit fighting with their sister
- Quiet down
- Go to bed
- Wear a seatbelt
- Keep a curfew
- Use good manners
- Apologize
- Share
- Take piano lessons
- Perform for relatives
- Turn off the television
- Give the stolen candy back to the clerk
- Brush their hair
- Take their medicine
- Get off the computer
- Use dental floss
- Wear clean underwear
- Go to Gifted School (?)
Kristyn Crow is the author of this blog. Visit her website by clicking here. Some links on this blog may have been generated by outside sources are not necessarily endorsed by Kristyn Crow.
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