How to challenge bored child
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Anonymous
Thank you. My friend thinks her son is a genius because he finds school boring. That kid complains about everything. |
Anonymous
+1 While my preschooler wasn't particularly into classical music, she was into math. She played with numbers in her head like a favorite toy. Before she started K, she had figured out multiplication, even though she didn't know that's what it was called. She learned basically nothing in math at school K-2, but she was happy playing math games in class and that was fine with me. By third grade the repetition of doing essentially the same thing she'd already done K-2 in the spiraling curriculum got to be too much for her and she needed the opportunity to learn more. When she approached her teacher and was turned away, I had to come up with something to spark her interest. My child, who had been so ravenous to learn new things on every subject before K that I'd had to pry her out of the library with promises that we could always come back and get more books, was shutting down. It was really hard to keep up with her, although sometimes she felt like coasting and just doing her schoolwork, which was fine with me, because it gave me a break. I'm not a math person. I wish she'd been happy doing her class work. I had originally envisioned my role as answering the occasional homework question. I know everybody's heard of pushy parents and I'm not arguing. However, not every advanced kid has been pushed there. Some have gotten there pulling their parents behind them. |
Anonymous
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"Bored"
I bet you didn't know the can of worms you were opening with that one word. As PPs have indicated, bored can mean very different things. It can be used to describe unpleasant but necessary tasks, especially (but not necessarily when repetition is involved) ex. memorizing multiplication tasks. It can also be used to describe tasks that are unnecessary because they've already been mastered. Finally, as posters have indicated, it can be used (especially by kids) for anything they don't enjoy (for whatever reason). A child who is frustrated because work is to challenging for them may describe it the same way a child who has mastered it would - boring. With so much ambiguity inherent in the term, it naturally draws different reactions depending on the reference of the listener/reader. I learned that it was better to be specific about the problem. (My child already knows this concept, x% of the material, etc.) I once found this article helpful, but it concerns advocating at school, which may not be relevant to your concerns. https://www.hoagiesgifted.org/never_say_bored.htm |
Anonymous
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OP. Thanks for the helpful tips!
And yes, maybe I should not have said bored. He already knows most material that will be covered in third and wants to learn new material . I also have a middle schooler who has always barely been able to keep up with school, so it’s new to me to have a child who needs more than school can offer. |
Anonymous
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I was often bored in school, but am not a math person. I just read constantly, and often surreptitiously during lessons. As a teacher, I would encourage you to meet with the teacher and child, and see what you can come up with. He is surely not the only bright math kid in the grade or in the teacher’s experience.
Third grade is hard because there isn’t a lot of new material that good math students either haven’t seen or can’t master quickly. I’ve had a lot of kids need more at that grade level. |
Anonymous
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Yes, some children develop passions early on. In most cases, they latch on to something that they might have only had casual exposure to. Parents don't have to push.
If you read interviews with many top classical violin soloists, for instance, many of them talk about having heard a violinist in a relatively casual way (on Sesame Street, busking on a sidewalk, etc.) as a preschooler, and instantly being seized with the desire to Do That, often pushing their parents into getting them lessons. My mother insisted I start playing the violin -- I had never ever heard a violinist prior to starting lessons -- but once I'd done it for a year, I wanted to keep doing it. Decades later, I'm still a violinist. |
Anonymous
| Private school |
Anonymous
| Refer for the gifted program. |
Anonymous
The problem for some gifted kids is they understand "casual exposure" is rarely that. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/suffer-the-children/201206/the-drama-the-gifted-child |
Anonymous
So he's specifically interested in learning more math and math-type content? I think a lot of parents have wishful thinking this is the case but their child is just a complainer. If he is really into math try music lessons, Sudoku, Art of Problem Solving classes or books, Kangaroo math contests. |
Anonymous
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Is your kid doing well in other subjects?
Some kids use boredom as an excuse for behavior issues. Is that possible? Is bored a word used frequently in your home? I was a Girl Scout leader. I still remember one obnoxious child who constantly said she was bored when we were in the car going on a field trip. She was like a broken record. I suspect her mother also used it frequently. (This child was not a prodigy at all.) She was always bored or hungry in the car. She also used it at other times. Frankly, she just enjoyed complaining. After that, I treated "bored" like a four letter word in my own home. If my kids ever used it, I quickly found something for them to do. It usually involved work. Kids need to learn that from time to time, life can be a little boring. That doesn't mean he should sit in class doing nothing, but you do need to consider that it may be something besides boredom. It may be a desire for constant entertainment--not just a need for a challenge. Not saying that is what is the problem, but it is a possibility. |
Anonymous
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Have you heard of Mathnesium? One in Cathedral Heights and one in Capitol Hill. I don't have first-hand experience, but I was told they provide activities that go beyond/alongside what kids are learning in school. I'm sorry your kid is so bored. It doesn't mean they'll be bored forever; I was bored until about 5th grade until I realized, holy bleep, everyone has caught up and now I need to step up my effort!
https://www.mathnasium.com/cathedralheights |
Anonymous
They know which buttons make their parents jump. |
Anonymous
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Does your child enjoy open ended problems and math discussion? I teach third grade and we use sites such as the one below to build number sense. Could you use something like this for your third grader?
https://visiblethinking.weebly.com/daily-routines.html |
Anonymous
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We did Living Math with our math-gifted child. Lets them explore the theories; history; mathematicians, etc. instead of just computation.
https://www.livingmath.net Living Math® History Lesson Plans are for use by families, individuals or co-ops / groups on a self-paced basis. A single Unit of lesson plans can last from a quarter of year, to an entire year, depending on how much time you allocate to the reading and activities in the course of your weeks. Lessons are based on a full cycle of history, split into four quarter units, with the focal point of each lesson on an individual(s) who created influential mathematical ideas. History Cycle 1, Ancients and World Cultures through the Modern Age of Mathematics: Units 1 - 4 are available for the Intermediate Level. Primary and Advanced levels are completed for Units 1 - 3. Unit 4 Primary is being completed and will be available by the summer of 2018. History Cycle 2, Classical Logic and Philosophy through Math in the Age of Technology and the Arts has been outlined and is in process. Sample Unit 1 topics: Lesson 2: Ancient Roots of Mathematics in Africa and Mesopotamia Lesson 3: Ancient Roots of Mathematics in Asia Lesson 4: Ancient Roots of Mathematics in the Americas Lesson 5: Thales and the Egyptians Lesson 6: Pythagoras and the Early Greeks Lesson 7: Archimedes’ Geometry Lesson 8: Eratosthenes, and Archimedes’ Large Numbers |