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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]OP, I have a similar kid. ADHD, Generalized Anxiety, high IQ. I agree with PPs about supporting both sides. It can be challenging in school when teachers kind of average  out strengths and weaknesses and don't help enough either way.

It really depends on the child, but what I noticed was mine is that school--instead of being a source of pride and self-esteem, as we naively expected it to be--was incredibly frustrating for him. [b]The disparity between what was in his head and what he produced on paper was enormous [/b]and he was frustrated and annoyed. The difference between his quickness at something and slowness at others was painfully huge. He constantly felt like he was failing and became very depressed.

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New poster here with gifted, kid who has ADHD, dyslexic, dysgraphia and just finished 2nd.

I gotta be honest; I'm depressed as hell. He took some other kids' work samples home (dumpster diving he told me) and has been reading their stories and appreciating their work and telling me all about it. None of that pride in his own work. I'm actually in tears now, was last night when I saw all this and probably will be again.

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It will get better.  Slowly. Small steps do add up over time.

My son is intellectually gifted and has a profound form of dyslexia (double or triple deficit depending on where you are in that debate), severe dysgraphia, combined ADHD and a few other borderline issues (sensory issues, OCD leanings....).  His self esteem was very poor in 2nd grade, but that was the nadir.  We started to make self advocacy one of his IEP goals- putting a little more on him each year.  By 11th grade he was fully in charge of IEP meetings.

In 2nd grade, we started with a reading tutor who was certified and experienced with Wilson 3 times a week including summers- from 2nd grade to 7th grade he went 2-3 times a week.We had "homework" on the non tutor days.   In school,  he received daily one on one reading tutoring in ES and took two reading classes in MS (one each year) I scribed and read for him until he was competent on technology- it was gradual and did not end completely until he was entering his junior year of HS.  He had an IEP from 2nd grade until he graduated in 12th grade.

We used audio books from the library and Learning Ally and Bookshare.  He still uses audio books in college.  He had a scribe, reader and extra time for all assessment in MS and HS and now in college (they are electronic in college).  He received teacher notes for classes from 7th -12th and still gets them in college.  He has use of a calculator. He gets electronic textbooks. He loved science and historical non-fiction books as well as the usual fiction.  In later ES we mined the Newberry Honor and Award books- they were always available on audio and are excellent. Sometimes, We hooked him in a 20-30 minute car ride and he would listen to the rest at home.

We used graphic organizers to help his with the non-printing aspect of dysgraphia (there is a ton online for every type of writing assignment) We made sure he was in the accelerated math classes ( he took the full route from Algebra Honors in 7th to Multivar calc and Matrix Algebra in 12th).  Supporting our children's gifts is as important as supporting their weaknesses. He won the math award for his graduating class.  He took team taught English from 7th through 12th grade. He took 2 math and 4 science AP classes.  He has used Kurzweil since the end of 6th grade and still uses it in college- excellent for text to speech of handouts and being able to scan and type answers on handouts.

You would not believe how far he has come from that 2nd grade scared mad little boy with so many walls of frustration built up. He is home from his first year in college and did very well.  He is a math major and trying to decide on a double major (physics or environmental/evolutionary biology). I think we over achieved on building up his self esteem.  :wink:

Good luck in the coming years, it is a long slow slog and you have to pace yourself.  Tackle one or two things at a time, you cannot do it all at once.  ((((hugs))))[/quote]

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