So after weeks of obsessing about the damned postcard for the Gifted program testing ... I screwed up and missed the test!!! How could this happen? I'm pretty organized, have everything on my calendar which I check twice a day, and as I already said, I've obsessed about it, so it's not like it slipped my mind.
The answer? I may (or may not) be the mother of a gifted child, but apparently, I can't read! The web site had mentioned testing date(s) and time(s) would be on the postcard. The postcard said the 11th and the 25th. I interpreted that somehow as either/or. Like, if the store is have a sale on Friday and Saturday, you don't have to go both days, right?
Normally, I would have gone on the first date. Get it over with and start obsessing about the next step. Knowing he's healthy today and might be sick in two weeks. Knowing it fit better with his soccer schedule. But no, he got invited to a sleepover party, and it was a friendship I want to encourage. So I let him go, and we'd just do the testing in two weeks.
I'm glad he went to the party. I like the child and their circle of friends, I like the parents, and they had tons of fun. But, they stayed up until midnight and he twisted his ankle, both of which screwed up soccer. His ankle wasn't swollen and he wasn't limping when he wasn't thinking about the ankle, so we let him play. Even after a nap, he was a little zombie running down the field, although he's usually a very good player. (And they were playing a much more experienced team and totally got their butts kicked, but everyone had fun.) But now the ankle is definitely swollen, so we're taking a break.
The worst part of the decision? I got a call that afternoon asking why he'd missed the testing. Um, because we were going on the 25th? Nope, he has to be there both days. Dang it!! I got Day 1 rescheduled, but since we're already Round 2 applicants vying for the few remaining slots, since I didn't think of having my preschooler tested before I even got a chance to see how he fared in kindergarten ... now I'm afraid that's just one more strike against him.
I always just figured that if he didn't get accepted this year, he'd get it next year, because it was almost certainly a matter of availability. Then I realized that once you're in the program, you stay there unless the parents opt out or the child doesn't meet goals 3 consecutive years. So it sounds to me like if he doesn't get in now, he might never get in, and I know he would thrive in that environment.
So, am I ruining his life by screwing up his Gifted chances, or am I ruining his life by moving him away from this circle of friends? Oh well, as a father joking told me: I'm saving money for their college tuition or their therapy, depending on how badly I've screwed them up.
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Comments
What happens is that the gifted kids become their peer group. Some years no one in their regular class was in the gifted program.These kids are almost always in the honors classes in middle school and high school, so they remind their best friends. This is not a bad thing; these kids tend not to get in trouble with sex, drugs, and booze. Certainly it reinforces academic elitism.
PAG presented all sorts of problems for grade school teachers. The PAG kids were not supposed to catch up with rote, drill homework, but some teachers insisted they do. They sometimes missed class trips, special events. They always were outsiders in their regular classes.
Parents don't always keep their kids in it. Some were disappointed because it was more creative than strictly academic. Some kids objected to being away from their friends.
On the other hand, the PAG program was wonderfully creative, and all of them absolutely loved it. If I had to do it over, I would again put them in PAG. But none of them were particularly social kids; they were all introverts who valued a few close friends.
Try to relax. Nothing you do is ruining his life. I wasn't able to save money for college tuition or therapy. They won scholarships and apparently all my years in therapy have spared them any years.
Redstocking: Ours is a compeltely separate class, except they do art, music, PE, lunch, and recess with the rest of the grade. My biggest interest is that they're also focused on meeting the emotional needs of a gifted child.
Martina: I'm not sure what you're saying. I'm obviously (I hope) being overly dramatic about the whole thing, and I know it's not ruining his life either way. It's just the whole motherhood guilt trip. Aren't we always to blame? But thanks for saying I'm narcissistic. I think most of the bloggers here (myself included) are to some extent.
I guess what I don't know is how old he is, or how far away the testing would be, which would be an indication of why or why he could not go alone. As a kid, after age 11, I went to and took all such tests alone, though most of them were held at my school A few were not and those so chosen went together on a bus or the EL. They did the Iowa Benet Testing in school during regular school hours.
He does NNAT testing for 30 minutes (whatever the hell that is, even after my brief research), and I have no idea what the remaining 4-6 hours of testing is.
Professor, that's what ticks me off, and why I'm obsessing, is that I feel like such an idiot in academia. I'm intelligent, educated, a good mom, until he entered kindergarten. And now all of a sudden there's a new language and now I'm a complete moron with the language. Like on their E-book sales fund raiser, they gave us a "sample" but didn't say to return it. I read everything. They never said anything. Until we lost it, of course. :-)
NO. In the long run he's better off with strong social relationships and comfort in that sphere that you fostered by choosing the party.
From someone whose 3 kids all scored "higher than the average college-bound high school senior" on PSATs the first time they took it - in fifth grade. Now that they're all in their 30's I can say for sure that their greatest strengths were fostered in their very strong social circles of kids I liked and respected. (That said, they were in very good schools to start with.)