[Breeze]

Hey Izulde,

I appreciate the input so don’t feel bad about interjecting whenever you want… just because this part isn’t specifically tied to swimming doesn’t mean it is off limits, and moreover, I appreciate suggestions and observations.

Your assessment of him needing harder work is accurate. Brett is extremely bright and this often causes problems...His mother and I have been attempting to get the school system to recognize this as well, but we are fighting a real uphill battle. As I mentioned in his profile section above, Brett is extremely ADHD (to give you a measuring stick, when we got him diagnosed the Psychiatrist we used specialized in ADHD and Autistic Children and she said, “He is not only ADHD, he is ADHD for ADHD kids…”), and the school system seems to be incapable of handling a gifted ADHD child, (In the Georgia school system, the gifted program is for children that reach certain high standards on some specific tests).

All through Brett’s elementary school years he was identified as needing to be tested for the gifted program…but because of the way the test is designed, he was unable to get in. He qualified on several of the areas, but he can’t qualify in motivation (the test administered for determining motivation is one of the same tests that were used to diagnose him with ADHD – and you can’t score as motivated and having ADHD). This becomes the major sticking point…because he is viewed as not motivated and unorganized so the gifted program doesn’t want him (he would require too much effort on the part of the teachers).

Thankfully, in middle school we were able to reference his grades and we got him placed in advanced classes (and because he is doing so well in Math – he’s currently targeted to go to Accelerated Class in 7th Grade – which is even faster paced harder classes). However, for him to get into any more Accelerated Courses, like Science, he’ll have to do a better job on the basics (like study guides and worksheets) and not just concentrate on the tests and projects. The teachers don’t see the lack of doing the work as an issue of being bored, but rather an attitude of not caring or being so unorganized that he can’t remember and thus can’t handle the harder curriculum in the already advanced classes (we actually just had meeting with his teachers a few weeks ago, where they were arguing that he should be in on level classes, even though he got mid-90’s grades in all his courses last quarter).

It is all very frustrating. I really wish I could afford a private school for him, because he could honestly do high school level math and science right now, but he is always going to struggle with the little things because they don’t seem important enough to him for him to remember them (like a study guide when he doesn’t need to study). I have tried to impress upon him the need to get all his work done (even explaining how it effects the teacher’s impressions of his abilities), and that failing to do it, is only holding him back – but he is 11 and getting great scores on his tests and he doesn’t see the big deal with missing the work or turning it in late.

Hope this makes since...Thanks for chiming in, and your instincts are good on this one…nice interpretation of the underlying problem…