Need during-HS gap year ideas for bright, failing son

Parents Forum
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<p>yea–$40,000 in tuition and another $12,000 in board and fees. That’s outrageous.</p>

<p>The combo of homeschooling and community college might work but I suggest that you draw up a contract with your son as to the expectations and requirements that you set. You can’t allow his lack of motivation to continue during the homeschooling. Set up the rules and consequences for breaking the rules and be sure to follow through with every single breech of the contract.</p>

<p>In our district, a few kids who homeschooled did continue to take AP classes at the high school. They would show up for the AP classes and then go home to continue with their homeschooling.</p>

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<p>Tearing, I was going to suggest Simon’s Rock, and was glad to see it come up in this thread.</p>

<p>Homeschooling with some EPGY/JHU distance learning courses thrown in sounds like a great idea, too.</p>

<p>I very much doubt that community college courses are going to be any more interesting to him than high school courses have been. I know it is a solution suggested by many when a kid is unmotivated in HS, but when the problem is that the kid is very gifted and bored stiff in HS, subjecting him to the kind of pedestrian courses I’ve seen in our local CC may well be the worst possible alternative.</p>

<p>In addition to contacting CTY, I would suggest that you visit the Hoagies gifted website and look through some of the resources there. You will find subscription lists devoted to G/T kids and families, and it is likely that you will find parents who have also had to address this situation.</p>

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<p>Is there a reason your son would have to lose his social contacts if he wasn’t in school? Most homeschooled kids have lots of friends who are in school. Mine did. It’s not like the school day is optimal socializing time anyway.</p>

<p>But you and your son can figure out ways for him to stay connected to his friends. That’s not nearly as huge of a problem as the problem he’s having with school. I think if you leave him in there he’s just going to dig himself a deeper and deeper hole – and not just his GPA. It’s damaging on so many levels.</p>

<p>Yeah… and about homeschooling with “contracts” and community college classes. No. Whatever you and your son decide to do, don’t replicate a horrendously failing model. This is a hard thing to get for people who’ve bought totally into the institutional ed paradigm. You need to really up-end that whole way of looking at things for the sake of your kid. (Not saying there’s anything wrong with cc classes – just that your son needs to figure out what will work for him.)</p>

<p>Anyway – read that book. Better yet, your son should read it.</p>

<p>When my son was in the “gifted” 1st grade and my daughter was 5 years old, she was sent to some “evaluation specialist” (or some such title) prior to entering kindergarten. We already were completely fed up with our brief school experience with my son. Not that it was a bad school, I could just tell the whole enterprise was all about something that felt fundamentally wrong. (I have to say it felt fundamentally wrong to <em>me</em> – different people have different values, and it’s not my intention to debate that on a wider level.)</p>

<p>My daughter spent about a hour in a cubicle with the nice evaluator lady. This was a person who worked for the public school district where we lived at the time. An affluent community with “good” schools. When she came out she sent my little daughter over to the other side of the room to play, and she said, “My advice is for you to put her in the very best school you can afford.”</p>

<p>Well, we couldn’t afford any private school, but we had been toying with the idea of homeschooling the kids, at least temporarily until we figured something else out. That meeting sealed the deal for us. It felt like we were about to take the hands of our darling little children and jump out of an airplane.</p>

<p>Funny thing is, when we actually stepped out, it turns out that airplane was never even in the air. We left and never looked back. We didn’t know what we were doing, but kind of made it up as we went along. In retrospect it is the best choice I have ever made in my entire life.</p>

<p>So no one can tell you how to do things, or make sure of this or make sure of that. You have an exceptional kid there, and he (and you) have an exceptional life to live. Really, read that book. It will get your mind into the clean fresh air – and off that airplane.</p>

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<p>It sounds as if he is extremely bored in high school and can grasp the material (demonstrated when he aces tests) without doing the practice (homework.) If you were to homeschool using the Stanford program and maybe a couple of CC (Where I live, once you’re 16, you can enroll in CC courses irrespective of high school status.) or local college courses that interest him a lot (and don’t have a lot of busy work) to supplement, is there some other way he could be around peers in an organized way? Are there out of school extracurriculars – a youth orchestra, a club sport, a chorus, an improv group, an organization that does good works with lots of volunteers, a robotics group – that would interest him? Also, in areas with a lot of homeschoolers, there may be organized activities that he’d enjoy. Once homeschooling including a bit of college work is underway and he is doing well, he might also be able to get connected with a research project too. There are a lot of ways to skin a cat…</p>

<p>You might also want to talk with the CTY people. Perhaps they have seen this before. While clearly many highly gifted students do fine in regular high schools, there is certainly a camp of educators who believe that some brilliant children just implode in a regular classroom setting that doesn’t meet their intellectual needs. Also, there is that national association for highly gifted children, which might be able to put you in touch with resource people. Historically, Hopkins took a certain number of brilliant, quirky students at a quite young age without their having to complete high school. I wonder if this is still the case? Given that your S thrived in a very enriched, intense CTY academic setting, I wonder if he would thrive again if he were back in such a setting.</p>

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<p>would some boarding schools be an option? Maybe a change in environment would wake him up. financially, could you swing it? But a lot of boarding schools have reputations for turning nonachievers around</p>

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<p>I wonder about the quality of the testing you had done on him. I find it hard to believe that there are not underlying issues affecting someone like him.</p>

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<p>depending on the specific community college and the specific course, it can be a great solution for a student who likes being with others while studying; this is why study groups are common in college. A combination of online classes and community college courses could do the trick. The college classes would provide much needed structure to a student who is a bit immature and lacking in self-discipline.</p>

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<p>What does HE say that he wants?</p>

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<p>TMHO - I wish I had known about CC and posted something like this two years ago. My D’s story is similar - probably not as off-the-charts brilliant as your S but close, and grades not as bad but disappointing and definitely not a reflection of her ability. We also tore our hair out about her motivational and organizational issues and the fact that she just didn’t seem to care about school. She didn’t need to do much work to get passing grades, so she did the bare minimum. She saw a psychologist periodically but depression really wasn’t an issue - she was happy and passionate about her ECs and pretty social.</p>

<p>This past summer, as she prepared to enter college, she underwent a complete neuropsych evaluation. Long story short: she was diagnosed with executive functioning and working memory deficits, and ADHD. Both the psychologist who did the testing and the learning disabilities director at her college have told us that it is not uncommon for really bright kids to have undiagnosed learning disabilities that don’t come to light until they get to college.</p>

<p>Our story may not be applicable to your S but I throw it out there for other parents who come across this thread.</p>

<p>My heart goes out to you. Good luck to both you and your S.</p>

<p>P.S. owlice’s son goes to Simon’s Rock. I’m sure she’d be happy to help you.</p>

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<p>While you consider the homeschooling option, find out whether your school district allows homeschoolers to enroll in some classes on a part-time basis, and whether it is possible for homeschoolers to participate in sports, activities like theater, and other clubs. Some districts are very open to this. Others aren’t.</p>

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<p>Yo! Nice time to hit this thread; thanks, PRJ!</p>

<p>Yes, my son is at Simon’s Rock; I’m leaving shortly for Parents’ Weekend there. </p>

<p>High school is great for some kids, but many schools do not serve the highly-gifted population well. My son was in a competitive-entry science/tech program (17% admit rate, lower than many colleges!) and some of his classes were just horrible – a waste of time. My kid didn’t even drop out of high school; he was too young to do so. He simply didn’t return.</p>

<p>(We had told the school – principal, GC, etc., – that our son would NOT be returning to the school back in June. Usually a kid is unenrolled at the school if the kid never picks up his schedule. Of course this year, the school had hundreds of kids show up the first day who didn’t have schedules because of problems with the new computer system for assigning schedules; it took a couple of weeks before all kids had schedules. When mid-quarter grades came out, I got a phone call from the school asking where my son was, as none of his teachers had seen him and he had all failing grades so far. Since no truancy officer had shown up on my doorstep, I’d assumed the school had figured things out. They had not. I was not surprised, and was somewhat amused, but also, very very glad my son was out of that school! But I digress…)</p>

<p>Your son may much prefer online courses; for some courses, such as math, he could get credit just by taking the chapter tests, midterm, and final. If he can do those without getting into the lecture/learning stuff, it’s a quick way for credit. CTY/EPGY and I’m sure other organizations offer self-paced online courses. You might look into those for him for right now. They can be a little expensive, but if you sign him up for three months of math, for example, he can take as much as he wants in that three months.</p>

<p>I’m happy to talk about Simon’s Rock, but it’ll have to be next week because I really have to get on the road here! You are welcome to email me at my moniker at hotmail.com, or PM me. </p>

<p>I leave you with pictures of SR; I took these just before Columbus Day: [Simons</a> Rock pictures by owlice1 - Photobucket](<a href=“http://s861.■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■/albums/ab178/owlice1/Simons%20Rock/]Simons”>http://s861.■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■/albums/ab178/owlice1/Simons%20Rock/)</p>

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<p>I would second testing for things like ADD and Aspergers. Unfortunately as others have said under achievement with very high IQ can be a huge life long problem. I think you need to contact any resource you can think of for guidance. I would include all the universities that have gifted programs and magnet math/science high schools. You might not be able to get him into any of these schools but perhaps they could suggest books, websites, and/or other resources to help you. I don’t think homeschooling is the route to take. He would not have the socialization with his peers plus would you feel qualified to teach him and would he do the work for you?</p>

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<p>You’re welcome owlice :slight_smile: Have a great weekend. Nice pics BTW.</p>

<p>OP - I forgot to mention this: we did try an online accelerated math class for D, which I thought was going to be perfect for a bright, bored kid. but even that didn’t work - she couldn’t motivate herself to do the work and missed being around her peers. again, maybe not relevant for your situation, but perhaps helpful for other parents. it was expensive, a huge hassle to persuade the HS to let her do the online class, frustrating to see her not take advantage of it, and then a challenge to ask the HS to let her back into the regular class midyear.</p>

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<p>I’ve known several different boys that remind me of you son.</p>

<h1>1. First met him when he came over for a playdate with DS at the beginning of first grade. He picked up the Wall Street Journal, started reading from it fluently, out loud, and then asked me questions about leveraged buyouts. Fast forward nine years: he had a profitable computer services business, but is barely passing 10th grade. Solution: takes the GED, passes, starts community college where he can choose his classes and hours, gets a high level techie job, and thrives. Transfering from community college to Berkeley.</h1>

<h1>2. Started reading philosophy when he was 13. By 15 is corresponding with prominent philosophers. In danger of failing in high school. Starts taking university philosophy classes with a reduced high school schedule – much happier. Finishes high school and segues into undergrad career at same university.</h1>

<h1>3. Avid, avid reader. Won’t do assignments. Parents try many different schools, testing, etc. They try a military academy. Kid loves it and thrives. I have no idea how to explain this.</h1>

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<p>My brother was in a similar situation after taking a lot of drugs in early high school. He felt he had burned his bridges and didn’'t want to try to get decent grades his senior year. My parents called a small, LAC in Kentucky. They found someone in admissions who agreed to take him for the day to tour, go to classes and experience the college and then the admissions officer told him…if you make a complete turnaround this year…show what you really can do…you can come to this school. The fantastic test scores showed the latent ability/intelligence…kid had to show his ability to take control and step up…worked like a charm. I would do it…at SR or at any other very small school that I could afford … there are a thousand of these schools … you don’t care about college at this point…you want him to be motivated to do something, anything. He needs someone, other than his parents, to tell him…you are valuable, we want you, but you have to show us that you can do your part. Good luck.</p>

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<p>OP, have you considered something like [Intercept</a> Program for At-Risk Teens by Outward Bound](<a href=“http://www.outwardbound.org/index.cfm/do/are.program_intercept?]Intercept”>http://www.outwardbound.org/index.cfm/do/are.program_intercept?)</p>

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<p>My brother was a lot like this, and my nephew as well. Both managed to graduate from high school, got fairly low level jobs, and moved up, up up thanks to their talents and abilities. Both are doing quite well now. School isn’t the place for some people–they need more hands-on challenges. (And imho, home schooling would be disastrous in such a case.)</p>

<p>An earlier poster asked the essential question-- what does HE want? If he knows, then what can you do to help him reach that goal? If he doesn’t maybe he needs a good shrink-- not because there’s anything really wrong, psychologically, but because he needs to sort through his motivational issues and decide what paths he might feel comfortable on-- and that is really hard to do with your parents at this age. </p>

<p>I hope it goes really well, he sounds like he has such great intellect!</p>

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<p>What Dinmor said.</p>

<p>This is not something you can plan for him; he needs to be taking the lead here.</p>

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<p>I don’t buy the so-bright-they’re bored scenario at all. Many people who have extraordinarily high cognitive abilities are hampered by a serious deficiency in other brain functions, such as processing speed or other things that are necessary to organize and produce work. These type of people are “twice exceptional.” The fortunate ones are those whose intellectual capacities are matched by the perceptual and processing skills as well and their output can match their input and instead of being “bored” they can be productive with their prodigious intellect.</p>

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<p>You’re never bored in a slow moving meeting where the discussion goes round and round and doesn’t move forward? This is what school is like for a highly gifted kid in a regular classroom. It can be positively painful.</p>