u/ihatedarkroast

I want to whine here a bit and seek some encouragement. My 2e son who is 8 loves math a lot. He has been teaching himself math since he was 4. He is doing Prodigy and DuoLingo Math and Boddle for fun at home. So at school he has always been out of sync with the curriculum. When the class learned addition, he was learning multiplication. Now they are on subtraction but he is teaching himself division.

I have been asking if his math curriculum could be compacted or be sped up in some way to match his pace. But the IEP and classroom management and behavioral goals are mostly what the teacher wants to focus on. I get that. We work on that stuff at home too. That's important.

The school's gifted program seems to only be geared for horizontal enrichment though not vertical advancement. And that bums me out. Basically he and the other gifted kids are given extra hard math problems with added complexity to work on after they finish the regular work instead of being introduced to new material. ( not that any of this advanced work has ever made it's way home, so I have to take her word for it)

But I feel this age can handle speeding through material a lot easier than later when math becomes more complex. That this is the best time to accelerate.

I also feel that making progress on IEP goals is tied to the rate at which my child is developing and there is no magical cure for AuDHD. We're doing therapy, meds, and reinforcing strategies at home. But his emotional development amd executive functioning are a couple years behind and likely will continue to be behind until he reaches his early 20s. So for the school to require him to be caught up in executive functioning in order to compact his math curriculum to me is purposefully setting a goal that is out of his reach.

Moreover, his teacher is exhausted and discouraged as a family member is in serious condition in the hospital. I can't really talk to her about my child right now as she needs time to focus on her loved one. The timing right now is wrong. I'm going to wait a couple months before checking in again. But I have a feeling this is a closed door. She is not going to be any more open to listening to my requests. She already made up her mind and isn't open to suggestions.

How do I approach this? Do I try talking to the gifted program head at the school instead? They might circle the wagons and become more resistant if I go up the food chain. Do I accept this as a nonstarter and just focus on math at home? And try again next year?

*Edit. If I could somehow give my child a practice SOL test and show him passing for his gradelevel at the beginning of the year, do you think this would help convince them? I'm having trouble finding a complete set of SOLs though. My state seems to release partial practice segments but no full practice tests.

It's a lot to read. But what do you guys think of this article and the ideas it presents? I know it's 10 years old. There have been a lot of advances in genetics since then. There are some sweeping assertions made. And this study is possibly addressing one phenotype or expression of some genes.

Of interest to me is:

>Autism has long been characterized by relatively low intelligence as measured by most standard tests (e. g., Hoekstra et al., 2009). However, a suite of recent studies, described in more detail below, has demonstrated that alleles “for” autism, that is, common alleles that each contributes slightly to its risk, overlap substantially and significantly with alleles “for” high intelligence (Bulik-Sullivan et al., 2015; Clarke et al., 2015; Hill et al., 2015; Hagenaars et al., 2016). To a notable, and well-replicated, degree, then, many “autism” alleles are “high intelligence” alleles. How can these paradoxical observations be reconciled?

I'm so thrilled. My 7m AuDHD ate some chicken fricasee! It was not in chicken nugget Xtra crispy form!! It was bone-in leg quarters cooked in a black pot with the sauce so the meat had half gone strings. It even had mushrooms in it!

I asked him to smell the air without looking at it. I prepared him by telling him we wanted him to try a little bit on some plain egg noodles (his favorite). And if he didn't like it he could have the chicken and noodles separate. We talked about solutes and solvents since he likes science stuff. We talked about how much he likes butter and chicken and cream.

He did not sob, negotiate, barf, lose his silverware, drop food on the floor, bang his chair, run away, or hide in his room under stuffed animals. I did end up cutting some less stringy chicken and putting it on a clean plate not touching the noodles. But he talked our ears off and ate half of it with a cheerful attitude. Then did look at it too long and gagged once. But we told him to stop. And said he could have ice cream. Cuz dangit a win is a win and half is darned good! So the hubs and I were just thanking Jesus and kissing each other in the kitchen. The dog thinks we're nuts! Haha!

If you were diagnosed as 2E later in life, what were some clues that the challenges you were facing were more than asynchronous development? Or the asynchronous development was enough to cause support needs as an adult? Or that you were burning yourself out compensating for deficits? When did it get bad enough to seek help? If you had cognitive testing did you see a big point spread or spiky scores beyond the usual gifted spikiness?

So, last year in 2nd grade, my son got hooked on Prodigy math. I bought him a membership so he can play at home. So far he has mastered 92 skills. He is usually around 96% correct in a given month. On grade 3 he's 100% correct.

But the school tested him and said he was actually at a 4th or 5th grade math level halfway through 2nd grade. (He taught himself watching youtube videos of Numberblocks).

Prodigy still has him at grade level 2. The algorithm has only given him 11 grade 3 questions, on which he got 100% correct. Why isn't the algorithm calibrating upward to match his proficiency level? Should I go ahead and override him up to grade 3? Or just let him keep answering questions and let the teacher switch him over when he starts 3rd? (not sure if they will accelerate or skip 3rd for 4th at school but they might). Is this game really too slow for gifted kids? He really likes it tho. I'm afraid if it suddenly gets harder he will get frustrated and quit.

I need some encouragement from other parents. And I need to vent. When did your kids start learning gratitude more? When did you see them start to be more patient without having a melt down? When does being super irrational start to shift? Does it ever shift?

I am really struggling today to be patient with my AuDHD son who his turning 8 years old tomorrow. We are taking him, his sister, and 2 friends to the trampoline park to jump--which is a lifelong dream of his he has never done before. We are having a sleepover with his favorite friend and with frozen pizzas for dinner. We are having a Minecraft themed cookout/splash birthday party with other kids coming on Wednesday to eat hamburgers and hotdogs and play in the little 10' above ground pool I bought them. He asked me to bake him a cake from scratch that looks like the one in Minecraft. Cool. I'm happy to do all that. He also wants a pet gecko. Ok, having a pet to care for is good for a kid, I can a tank on Facebook Marketplace so let's do it.

I'm feeling very stressed and rushed between buying presents, (he is getting a new Minecraft backpack for school and some legos) baking, cleaning the house, hosting a party, and we're stretched financially because...We have to drive 12 hrs to New York to stay 4 days and go to a family funeral as well, pay for a house sitter, (plus a lot of other life events going on the next couple weeks and I just had a car repair ugh). So I told him we have to put off buying the pet gecko until after we come back from NY. He is sobbing on the sofa inconsolable over having to wait an extra week to pick out his pet lizard. I have talked to him about this the other day too--same reaction.

While in NY, we are going to take the Staten Island Ferry past the Statue of Liberty, going to the American Museum of Natural History to see the dinosaurs and going to Teddy Roosevelt's house to see all the cool stuff there, all things he and his sis have never experienced before but my parents did for me and my brother. And going out to eat at nice restaurants with family members who have never met my kids because we haven't visited in so long.

In other words, these two weeks are going to be the most incredible week for him. It's going to be like having 3 birthdays. Growing up, my birthdays were relatively simple and low budget, and this kid just has no idea.

I know that he has issues with cognitive flexibility, that he really has problems with anything that isn't "immediate" and having to wait, that he is self-focused and hyperfixated on getting a lizard as it's his current special interest topic he talks about night and day. I know he's emotionally developmentally delayed to more the level of a 5 year old. He's getting OT help with all this stuff. It's all in his goals. And I can't blame him for being this way. It's not his fault. He's growing differently. I'm just fed up right now and have to tell someone who understands.

I've tried talking him through the emotions. I've tried explaining to him about how it's ok to wait for things we really want, that baby geckos need to have someone feed them twice a day and we need to be home for that. I'm trying to be super patient and not chew him out for having a stinky ungrateful attitude. But I'm so frustrated and ashamed at how spoiled he acts and how unaware of other people's sacrifice or the fact that a family member passed away and others are sad, or how much money we're spending and trouble we're going to for his birthday. He's just a kid and I don't even want him to think about grown up stuff like that. And the fact that I want him to know also makes me feel ashamed of myself. His tantrum is already over now and he's back to being happy. But I know the topic is going to come up again and he's gonna have another meltdown about it. I just need to pull myself together so I'm prepared to talk to him the right way and not blow my top when it does. Any advice or encouragement is appreciated. I'm sorry this was a terribly long post.

For those parents who attend church, what does your church do to support your ND child as a church attendee? How does your pastor or staff make your whole family feel welcome or comfortable? What reasonable accommodations do you expect, or are most helpful to your family, or let your family know it's a safe place to worship and have your spiritual needs met in a supportive space?

Or if you are a church staffer or volunteer, what sort of training or support has your church made available to your team on neurodiverse kids and ASD needs? Especially for Sunday school at the elementary and nursery levels? What sort of best practices, expectations are in place with parents to keep everyone safe and the number of incidents to a minimum?

I'm a church admin and nursery volunteer. I have a son who is Audhd lvl 2 support needs. He's the only kid with a diagnosis we currently have. (We are a small church.) We have done pretty well overall with minimal support for Sunday School. But there is a new family coming with 7 kids, including a young child who is still in the assessment phase of diagnosis, whose needs are presenting more of a challenge.

She is 4y but the mother requested to put her with the toddlers/two-year-olds. She had a catastrophic meltdown and was aggressive/violent with the nursery staff, who were completely unprepared and overwhelmed. Also some volunteers are quite elderly, and don't have the physical strength to withstand a meltdown if it gets physical. Typically, we send for a parent in those cases (for some reason they did not last week.)

The regular Sunday school teacher who should have had the student, is unwilling to take her in her class since she cannot sit still and follow a lesson. We are considering splitting the class into two groups by age and having two teachers and a volunteer aid or "buddy" assigned to help with the 4yr old, with both classes sharing the Fellowship Hall.

The parents of this child have gone from church to church partly because of conflict of expectations. They have a teenaged daughter who acts as a caretaker who they would like to be with her own age group instead of with the 4 yr old. The parents also do not want to be with the 4 yr old during service as they are suffering burn out. (They also homeschool.) They possibly look at church as a kind of respite care opportunity? But the Sunday school volunteers are not trained to work with special needs children (except the one who is refusing to take her). Nor do we have a special class just for her. So I'm trying to look for ways to help ease the situation and keep everyone safe. And at the same time, I'd really like to support this family and their spiritual needs in any way we can.

Besides assigning more volunteers and reducing class size, should I ask the parent to sit with their child in Sunday school for a transitional period of a week or two to help us get to know her and help her settle in? Should I set up some sort of training with the staff? I know I should sit with mom and dad and find out more of their needs and what works best with their child. What things should I ask when I talk to them?

Hi. New crab owner here, technically a crab grandparent as my 7 year old son is the main caretaker. He has been watching Youtube tutorials and reading books on hermit crabs from the library for months now. We finally caved and got him two male purple hermits from Sparky's in Myrtle Beach.

Still setting up the crabitat, so no pics yet. Still reading over the wiki and links. Crabs are temporarily in an old 5g betta tank in my shower under a heat lamp staying warm, tank plastic wrapped to keep humidity up, fresh water and sponges in a chick waterer currently-- while we scrub down our old 29g and prepare the substrate.

Main question for now is, do I need to use water conditioner on the water for the salt and fresh water bowls? We live in the country and have a well. The soil here is a red clay (Virginia piedmont area of the USA) The water tends to be a bit hard with iron in it, and very slightly acidic. (like 6.8~6.7) It is clear, but has that unpleasant iron taste that takes some getting used to. We use a whole house filter that removes sediment, but no water softeners.

I have several bottles of Tetra brand water conditioner and a bottle of Prime somewhere in a cabinet. Will these help with the iron-y hard water? Is the iron-y hard water even an issue?

I am also going to have to use aquarium salt for the salt bath temporarily. There is no pet store in our rural area. I've ordered marine salt, heating pad, digital thermometer/humidity meter off Amazon. They should arrive in the next day or two.

Please show me photos of your bean trellis. Usually I plant Dr. Martin Lima Beans, Blue Lake, Fortex, and some yellow wax and bush bean types. The Fortex beans are pretty vigorous. But the Dr. Martin Lima's are unreal in terms of creating a massively heavy jungle of vines and leaf canopy. Their weight easily bends down plastic step-in posts, and a lot of wire fencing. We usually just do a 30-35' long double row for the Dr. Martins, (enough to generate a year's supply for our family) but I'm open to suggestions.

This year we pulled out all our bean posts and expanded the garden. I used the heavy steel T-posts for outside fence posts. We are moving the beans to an entirely new place as they got a lot of viral rust last year. I need a new trellis. I was thinking about trying one of those lashed-together wooden trellises out of saplings/tree limbs. 6' high would be nice?

What are some odd, interesting, or entertaining things your 2E child does? Or things you used to do as a child, if you are 2E, that others considered unusual?

This week my child was hanging out in a laundry basket with his tablet on the piano bench. Then with his left hand he would solve math problems on the Prodigy game. With his right hand he would pop up like a jack-in-the-box to plink out the notes on the piano of the song the game was playing during math battles...all while chewing his shirt collar.

On the second day of him doing this, I tried to take a picture. But he got embarrassed and ran away.

Hi. We're going through IEP drafting for my 7 yr old son in Virginia public school Audhd/gifted/sensory processing/anxiety with some speech needs (addressed thru ASD/social needs IEP) FSIQ 134. Lower verbal composite high on abstract reasoning/nonverbal.

I reached out to the child development clinic that did the diagnosing for help with this IEP stuff. They referred me to an Educational Consultant who is assigned to public schools free of charge.

Has anyone used this type of service before? What was your experience? What questions should I ask? What reports should she look over? Doctors clinical notes? How far into the future should we plan?

I feel like I already have pestered the school staff with too many questions like missing wmi/psi scores and caught a mistake in one report where they copy/pasted in the wrong kid's name. So I want to pester this new person instead since I'm all anxious as a parent and need hand holding lol. I probably won't be seeing her in the future so I gotta squeeze out as much help as I can.