Yeah, what you describe is something. My son showed many of the symptoms you listed and got an initial diagnosis of SPD. Not saying that's what your son has, but half the things in your list were enough to get my kid that label. The Sunday School class might just not be doing the things that make him "freak out." My kid is perfectly happy and quiet in a classroom, until it comes time for a "class party" and the music cranks up and the kids are dancing and being loud and silly - and there's my kid under the table in the corner with his hands over his ears and a look of pain and fear on his face. And yet so many teachers would tell me when he did this that he was being disobedient, or wondered if we were running a super-rotten home life (we're very boring and normal, seriously, but thanks). Did the speech therapist say anything to you about his behavior? Is there any way you can get back in contact with her and ask her if she has any ideas? Do you know a SpEd teacher or Ed psych or anything like that through church or somewhere? Maybe your DH and you could take him or her out to dinner and share your concerns under the guise of "seeking a new direction." If the "professional" responds with "you really need to get that evaluated" then maybe your DH will listen (men are like that sometimes, kwim?). As for finding cheap backdoor solutions - you could also walk into your local YMCA and ask at the desk if they know of anything for preschoolers needing help with social skills or developmental issues. I've found the Y very useful for knowing about free community services and special programs that were otherwise completely invisible. And yes, see if you can put him in preschool. Preferably one that has SpEd teachers on staff. But, if the teachers are negative about his behavior, then pull him immediately.

Well, TSC is genetic, but not direct (what the technical term for that?). My uncle (cousin's father) does not have it, neither did my grandparents. But if you branch out you find mild cases among more distant cousins currently living and in family history (but if you go too far back you run into problem of the condition probably being hidden and severe cases being put up in the attic Jane Eyre style). His skin is perfectly clear, so that's why I say he has no obvious signs. As for seizures - I would've said no, but another thing the preschool brought up with DH is that they see Babypants shake his head back and forth from time to time. Just a quick and brief "no" shake. Can that be a sign of having a seizure? I know I've run into the idea of "invisible" or extremely brief seizures before, but I'm not sure if that's what it is. I've lumped it together with other physical sensory seeking patterns I see him do (run around in a circle just to experience the thrill of being dizzy, walking around the room with his eyes closed while making ghost noises). Just this evening I saw him do the headshake, and I asked him why he did it and he just smiled and said "Cause." Just because. Just because he likes to get that feeling of a sudden head rush? Or because his brain tells him it needs a jostle? I don't know if he has headaches. Sometimes he says he's tired and will want to lay down a bit. But that could be lots of things. The language test you describe, we did something like that when he had his vision test. They had the pre-reader chart with pictures, but he wasn't sure what to say for some of them (a stovetop kettle was one of them - I think I had one of those briefly around the time he was born) so they gave us a print out of the pictures to review at home with him. He could repeat immediately after us while pointing to each picture when we practiced it, and could do a 30 or 60 second delay if we came back to a picture and asked him to identify without prompting (I think we did is 4x over the week). But then a few days after the last practice he brought us the chart and misidentified about half the things. So he called the kettle a kettle, but he also called the water jug a kettle, and something else was also a kettle. It was weird. Maybe not so weird if he was 2, but he's 3. That's a bit weird, yes? As for abstract words, I'm not sure how to prompt him the second time. So I say "maybe" and have him repeat. And then wait a few seconds and say "what was the word we just said?" Also weird is that sometimes his language use seems random. Like, DH was getting ready to go to the store, and Babypants came running and said "me me go store with you!" which is the longest sentence he's said. But then at other times he'll be quite silent and do only very low level baby talk when I try to engage him. Going to the store is a high interest activity to him (since that's where skittles come from), but it's still confusing. Is this common for SLI or general speech delay, or is there something more neurological going on?

Huh, I think Crazypants played this last year sometime. Was the free intro course in Beta then? A techie friend sent us the link for it, and I remember the home page looking different. Oh, yep, he has an account there, but they want it to be updated to a teacher account. I remember that he liked it at first, but then he didn't. Maybe because it was beta and glitchy? Or maybe there wasn't anything to do past the intro course? But he also really liked Prodigy at first, until he didn't. He's a frustrating kid like that. $70 is a lot considering my classroom only has one kid in it. Maybe I could split it with my SIL and have cousin sign up, they play computer games together all day long. Hmmm.....

All I see is SAT. Maybe they'll add items for the PSAT(s) in particular in the future?

Oh yes, the Dutch do trust the school system. That turned out poorly for DH, which gives me extra incentive to be overly involved with Crazypants. But thinking about it, I don't think the IL's still don't see that DH issues (both in school and continued issues with poor EF having workplace consequences) were utterly misdiagnosed by the school system and poorly dealt with by nearly every teacher he had (and some teachers were extremely negative - a math teacher plied into DH's 2e to destroy his math confidence and score a personal vendetta against his parents, and his parents let it happen and then never did any follow up to make sure he didn't have math anxiety). I mean, on the one hand you have the issue in America of kids doing amazing academic things and their high schools fawning all over them as a public school success story, but in reality the kid did a full load of supplemental Kumon or Russian Math tutoring during the school year, more tutoring summer intensives, extra music or art classes or whatever, plus more out-of-school academic clubs and competition teams. At least in the Dutch system you know that the PISA scores and other academic outcomes are actual reflections of the school system, and those outcomes are quite respectable, so yes, you can honestly say that the school system isn't that bad. But on the other hand, unlike in America there is no striving, interest in striving, support for striving... Don't get me wrong, I do support the Dutch no-homework-in-elementary policy (besides the fact that it frees up time for my afterschooling, I think it's a good approach) but thinking of the kangaroo as super strange, or not thinking about enrichment for kids who are clearly more than capable of it.... I don't get it. I mean, free play is great for kids (if they don't spend all their freetime watching stupid videos about minecraft on youtube) but what if the kids wants to do something but needs to be provided the resources to do it? Grr, this is so frustrating.

As far as I know, only sample questions of the PSAT 8/9 have been released. Never a whole practice test. That drives me crazy. I like to sometimes evaluate where my kid stands with regard to peers/grade level/some standard and a grade level test doesn't tell me much, and the practice SAT/PSAT materials have stuff he just isn't ready for. An official practice PSAT 8/9 would be golden to me. Especially since we are effectively locked out of taking it "for real." Maybe CB is not releasing a full test because of concerns over prep or cheating?? Or maybe they just don't see dollar value in releasing prep materials?

Wow, that looks a LOT like many British Revision books. Not that that's a bad thing, I picked up stacks of old editions of those things when we lived in England. But it's kinda funny.

The verse itself isn't bad, no. But for it to be the "motto verse" of homeschool group would suggest to me that the parents who formed the group lean towards disciplinarian/authoritarian parenting, and possibly homeschool primarily for "culture war" reasons. I'm not saying that that's what that verse says, I'm saying there's a sociological convergence centered on the popularity of that verse in certain social groups. I'd run fast the other way if I saw a group that highlighted that verse. But I'm sensitive. When I heard of "Teach Them Diligently" just the name sent my defense-o-meter into red alert. I don't even know much about them, but that's probably because I do not visit their website, I do not open thread which discuss them, and otherwise go out of my way to bleep them out of my mind, just because of the name. Gah. It's so horrible!

Yes, it's Hanen. But I think the therapist only has the materials in Dutch. I can poke around the internet and get the English materials somehow, I'm sure. But it's bothersome and will probably be expensive. I did do a lot of reading on the Hanen website yesterday. Maybe that plus what the therapist tells me would be enough? Yeah, I did a lot of reading yesterday on websites from just about every English speaking country, and I'm not sure what exactly the parameters of SLI are. Delayed speech, low quality speech, difficulty with receptive language. Though, I mentioned upthread about my own language delay and the speech issues of my siblings, and many of these descriptions of SLI had me nodding "Yes, I know that. I've seen that. Oh, so that could be why...." Then I read that SLI could have a genetic component. Well. Lol. Not sure if you can speak to this CW (or anyone else), my profoundly disabled relative has tuberous sclerosis (he has one of the most advanced cases in America right now, I guess, but it's a pretty rare condition). I ran across studies that looked at the overlap of language disability in children with TSC and ASD in particular parts of the brain. Now, I have not seen any of the usual symptoms of TSC in Babypants (on that side of the family we all double check our babies for the signs of it, since it is genetic) but there is the language delay. Have you seen any research that looks at an overlap between risk for TSC and SLI, or do you have any opinions about whether there is anything to be found in that line of questioning? Or is this one of those areas that just "isn't well understood" by researchers? If you don't know, that's fine, I'm just wondering whether or not to bring it up if we go down a medical investigation route.

Just an update - Went to the 2nd appointment this morning. The therapist is pretty sure it's a specific language impairment. She observed him playing a bit and observed his interactions with me, and said that he seemed to be passing the screening checklists she was mentally running with flying colors - except for language use. She did have us start the referral process to take him for a full audiological screening, just to rule it out. So the plan is 5-6 months of therapy sessions with her using the program It Takes Two to Talk, and training me to do some daily work with him. If he doesn't respond as he should to that, she'll refer him to more exact and thorough evals. But I think she was saying that she would need to write "does not respond to therapy xyz" for the referral. Otherwise he would just be tossed back to her as just being SLI. So now I'm reading up on SLI and It Takes Two to Talk. And cursing not living in America and not being able to ILL a massive stack of books about SLI, lol. Can anyone recommend the best website (there's so many, I don't have any way to evaluate what's good) or tell me if there's a MUST BUY book? I guess there's a guidebook for this program? Should I get it, or would the therapist tell me everything that's in it?

So OP, just trying to nail down what is happening here - You said that when you looked at the texts they were very serious. So was your dss saying things like "when we get married...." "how many kids do you want?" "I can't wait till our wedding night..."??? Those sorts of things? Or was it just silly stuff like "I love you" and "I think your hair is so pretty"? If it is the former I see one of two things happening there. One, his parents are divorced and no matter how much he accepts that or sees the reason for that, kids still have an idealistic idea of marriage between their own biological parents. His way of dealing with the dissonance is by thinking about marriage and idealizing marriage for himself. Which is weird since he's only 15, but also not weird, since he is post-puberty. In lots of human cultures his thoughts about marriage would be considered normal. The other thing that could be happening here is the way your church equates romantic feelings with marriage. He has romantic feelings for this girl, ergo he is going to consider marriage to this girl. Of course he is, that's what's expected. But if it's the latter silly stuff - yeah, 15yo boys say sappy, weird things. Usually they grow out of it. I agree that I think the best thing if you want them to "stay as friends" is to heavily support the friendship. If you want them to interact mostly in groups, then organize group events for dss, this girl, and a few of their friends. Could be as simple as a Friday night pizza and board game night. But, yes, I agree that an overabundance of facetime (actual irl facetime, lol) might be good. If they want to get married someday, they may as well realize now that everyone farts, even pretty girls with nice hair that you think you're in love with.

My DH was employed by a small church once. The paycheck was small, but okay. But then the paychecks started to be late by a few days. Then we would get the late paycheck, and it would be less than the agreed pay. Finally, we found out that the treasurer had been supplementing the paycheck himself for months already because the church had money problems. Well, okay, thank you, BUT WHY DIDN'T YOU SAY ANYTHING!!!! I guess he was embarrassed. I guess he was hoping that something would happen to turn the finances around. Something. But by the time we figured it out, it was too late to come to a joint solution and DH had to leave to find other employment. smh. I don't know, with Christian organizations I see a lot of "well, let's all pray really hard and ask for a miracle." Well fine, but while we're at it maybe we should use our miraculous God-given brains to think of something?

So this person bought you a gift you said you didn't want and they probably couldn't afford, and then invited himself along to join you when you use the gift? That's a special sort of special. It's not a gift. At least, it's not a gift to you. It's a gift to themselves. Just keep that in mind "I'm going to help him enjoy his Christmas present!" when you're at the experience.

Ha, no, that is a strange name! CP's current school is Reformed (though we most definitely are not Reformed) but they are not at all crazy about it, so it's not a problem. But for SIL a Reformed school is out of the question, though she is Christian (but not Reformed, like us) her FIL is a crazy-Reformed person (he really is, oh my.....) so that throws another wrench in the "but the boys would love to go to school together" plans. The secondary school I'm thinking of is close to Germany (we're about 40 mins from the border, and that town is about halfway between here and there), but even down there I'm not finding any bilingual German schools, just a few bilingual English. Hmm. We're equidistant from three cities which have the main secondary and vwo schools. So kids here go every which way once they hit secondary. Finding a neighbor friend going the same way you are is a bit lucky. There's not many kids overall, tbh. My understanding of VWO is that it's a basic program with some concentrations, and then you could "add on" specials, like a "+" or gymnasium, atheneum, ICT, TTO, etc. And throw some Cambridge or Anglia exam on top if you want. Or, at least, that's the impression I get from a lot of school websites - "But wait, there's more!" The thing with cousin is that I think if he had an hour or so of reading and writing instruction with me every week, I could bring him up to American grade level ELA in a few months. He really is bright (maybe "gifted"). But SIL is happy to wait until he starts English class at school next year, and I'm just like "he already knows everything they'll do in groep 7, and what he doesn't know from groep 8 I can teach him in an hour." I don't know, are all Dutch people really passive, or is it just my in-laws? Cousin really wants to read CP's BA guide books, so I don't think it's pushy to help him gain the skills to do something he wants to do. But maybe I'm a bit of a weirdo? We are really rural, so there is the issue of bigger fish in a really small pond. I don't think there's the realization that big fish can suffocate in too small of ponds? Or even the realization that we're looking at a super small pond?

Some people give gifts that they themselves want. By making it a gift they get the thrill of purchasing the thing they want, and then they can be so amazingly self-sacrificial to give it away! And since the thing is obviously awesome (because they think it is awesome, so therefore it must be awesome) then everyone else should be amazed and excited to be given it! .....Oh, you aren't amazed and excited? Then you must be an ungrateful weirdo. And selfish! What, did you think Christmas was a time when you pick out your own gifts and get something that you want? You should just be grateful. Say thank you. No, say thank you like you mean it. Yeah, I don't think you're actually grateful. Maybe I should just take this thing back and give it to someone who would appreciate it (wait, that's me, oh dear, I guess I'll just have to content myself with your cast offs). :cursing: :cursing: :cursing: Yeah, I know how you feel. :grouphug:

There was a recent book, which chronicled American exchange students' experiences overseas. One was in Finland, the other in S. Korea. Smartest Kids in the Word, is that it? You might be interested in it. I remember when I read it being struck that the S. Korea system (as the exchange student experienced it) was quite inefficient. The "normal" school the kids attend during the day is mostly a waste of time - most kids sleep during it. So you have to subtract a huge part of the 14-16 hours. Most of the learning for the exams is in the night cram school, and it's not clear if the education received there is of any use to anything except passing the exams.

Yes, for the VWO program there you need the regular VWO advice, but then they do their own testing (though Nijmegen) for intelligence and learning style before admittance. I'm not sure what all is involved in that. Before we went to the info night my DH was all like, "Why are we even going? He's not groep 8!" and right after the presentation he was like "This program is awesome! Let's email the presenter and ask what kiddo would need to do to go there!" and then the next day he was like "We can't email, I don't know what to say, he's not groep 8." Okay, okay. So then we thought to wait until we had a definite "he's ADHD" or something to say (rather than the vague "people have told us that..."), but that is taking so long. After the holidays we're supposed to get the call to schedule the appointment. But yeah, I think the liaison at the secondary school would know what local opportunities might exist, and what level of Dutch they are willing to accept and work with. Complicating this, CP has a cousin the same age who goes to school in a neighboring village. Cousin is in groep 6 (obviously) and probably getting 10's across the board on his report card (or as-good-as-tens) and is totally bored and lazy at school. I'm trying to suggest to SIL that maybe he's not getting appropriate challenge. She also started looking at secondary schools, and is suggesting that both boys go to a bilingual VWO. Since CP is already fluent in English, and it's a basic vwo program (not gymnasium or +ICT) I'm not sure if that's right for him. And cousin's spoken English is also very, very good. I'm not sure bilingual VWO is enough challenge for him either. But SIL seems to think it would be right? Since the boys will need to take the bus to one of the cities, I see the appeal of them going to school together. But I think she's underestimating just how intelligent he is. But she's already doing more enrichment than most others around here (except me, lol) so I feel weird telling her that I actually think he can be pushed a lot harder. Once again I'm the weird one, not going with the easy flow. :blush:

No, the brainstorm is good. I don't know what's possible here, and my DH is outdated, and rather rigid, in his thinking. So it helps to have a variety of "well, what about this?" plan Z possibilities in my back pocket. Sticking around in basisschool is what I'm leaning towards now. Though he is in groep 5 right now (should be groep 6 by age and time from starting groep 1). So that's the thing, I'm looking at 3 1/2 more years of holding pattern if he stays where he is. 2 1/2 if he moves up to his "correct" grade. At some point he will run out of rekentijgers (they started him back in the groep 4 book, I guess they're hoping they'll kill lots of time). Since there's no homework here, we can do quite a bit afterschooling, but that often causes the expected "why do I have to do this? none of my other classmates have to do homework! I have enough school!" complaints. But yes, with more time I have more time to torture educate him with Latin and Greek and English literature before he goes off coding robots or whatever. I've been reading some of the articles linked in the other thread, and ugh, yeah 2e is hard. On the one hand he's all like "theoretical physics! yay!" and on the other...he can't follow a simple written direction and then starts weeping when he can't complete the page in BA. :( I'm trying to tell myself that calculus isn't a race and neither is life. But goodness, I sure hope this long-awaited psych eval is helpful.

Mhen my kid was in K there was a kid in his class with a peanut allergy, and all the parents got a detailed list of safe and not-safe foods. Highlighted was the fact that the local Publix made their birthday cupcakes with peanut oil. I was so glad that information was shared, because I honestly would never have thought of peanut oil in cupcakes. I mean, seriously, who puts peanut oil in cupcakes!? :ack2: My mother was watching some kids once who were allergic to wheat, and she fed them graham crackers as a snack. She was surprised that it was a problem, since they were graham crackers. They're made out of graham. :svengo: I think people in general are really disconnected from their food. And baby boomers in particular seem to have this idea that food today is technologically "advanced" and all that, so no one should have any issue with it. One old aunt once told me that "they" would never sell food that would make someone sick. But if you're allergic?? Nope, if it was under a wrapper, it was totally safe. I think she was a bit confused.....

I expect that at upcoming appointments she'll do additional screenings, and run evaluations on anything that shows up. If she doesn't, I'll ask about it, definitely. The first appointment she mostly just observed while asking me the "Do people in your house talk to him or read to him?" questions.

Good brainstorming. Yeah, those are good ideas. The secondary school I'm thinking of has a vwo+ICT program that seems right up his alley. But it involves super compacting of the years 1-3 material to make space for the ICT component. And while it's still possible to slot in some gymnasium classes, there's not a lot of free time (even if you factor in deleting most of the initial English classes). And on the one hand, yes, a super compact math class would be good for him, since he already doing most of that material right now. But on the other hand, there's pace, and EF, and anxiety issues, and doing multiple compact classes at the same time....pfffffff..... But on the other other hand, in the car on the way home from school he was telling me about his idea of an airplane using magnets to fly - I don't think it's a workable idea, but still, I'm like, he needs to be somewhere he can toy around with ideas like these, kwim? I don't know how open the secondary school would be to taking him into HAVO early and then letting him into their ICT program at the end. I suppose it would really come down to how it would work with their funding. School budgets are getting squeezed more and more and these special programs are extra expensive, I know. It would be possible for him to do their regular HAVO ICT program and then also get VWO certification in math. So that's another idea. But then, yes, that puts him in a weird place if he wants to go straight to WO. I'm confused. It's confusing. I don't know.

Oooh, nice articles. Especially the last two.. :blush:

When I realized Crazypants was being "held back" I also unloaded my angst on a FB group for English speakers with kids in NL schools (PM me if you want the name of it Have Kids, it's a good group) and they said that they also noticed that grade level was rather fluid for schools. Kids coming from overseas normally get put lower, both because of language skills and because of worry over mismatch between curriculum standards (which I find funny, because as far as I can tell the national curriculum here for elementary is really quite gentle). I guess with HAVO being shorter, it doesn't matter for most kids whether they choose their professional certification at 17 or 18. But if you're thinking the longer VWO and then WO.... I didn't realize that about Oct 1/Dec 31. I thought that just impacted A class or B class, not movement to a different groep. Crazypants just had his birthday a few days ago, so maybe that factored into the school's willingness to drop him back? When he started groep 1 we waited until after holiday break to move him so he would have a clear transition (I still find this 4th birthday thing so odd). Perhaps after psych eval we can have some idea of things we can do to bring EQ up. But now that he's 10 I'm starting to realize more and more that the phrase "late bloomer" will describe him, so that makes me hesitant to bump him up and have the consequence be that he ends up in an environment he's just too immature for. But there's still the issue that he learns nothing at school except Dutch. I refer to it as the super-amazing fully-subsidized language-immersion camp. With rekentijgers it's not a complete loss, now (at least, it's not creating frustration). It seems to me like the best thing might be to skip him through elementary, and then have him spend more time at secondary. But I don't think that's possible. Sigh. That groep 9 class seems like it's for kids who have learning gaps? I don't know if there are any around here anyways. Sigh. :willy_nilly:

He definitely points. Dh and I double checked this morning. He points for identification and direction. It's just when he wants to say something like "come to the kitchen with me so we can rummage through the cupboard to find cookies, because I know if I tell you I'm looking for cookies you'll say no" that he does the hand grab. I also realized yesterday that he is also picking up some local dialect words. That's really weird. DH's parents speak the local dialect to each other (it's more like a sub-language, but what it is is controversial) but they are careful to speak standard Dutch to me and the kids. So somehow Babypants picked up the dialect word for "egg" (which is more complicated than the English or normal Dutch word) just from overhearing it from....someone. Also weird. We met a dog today, a big, loud dog. So I was holding him and just talking to him about the dog so he wouldn't be afraid, and I asked "what color is the dog?" and Babypants answered his approximation of "white" and then he smiled and said "li wa-er-melon." I clarified with him that he was connecting that "white" and "watermelon" start with the same sound, and he agreed with his "well, duh" expression. Oh. Okay. He's been doing some other pre-reading things recently (identifying letters, pointing at words in a book and babbling) so he seems to be at age level with phonics and written language.

Yeah, I think he understand quite a bit. I think he understand a lot, tbh. He also understand a lot of Dutch (he'll express emotions in response to communication - like when Oma admonishes "niet op de bank springen" (don't jump on the couch) he'll say "ooohhh!" and then sit down). So is the problem recall? or not being able to form certain sounds to say words? Is timed recall in Dora? I know he does (or tries to do) a lot of direct repetition when he watches Dora. But since I don't really pay attention I haven't noticed if he also offers the word later. (Dora is much more bilingual here in NL than she is in US). I'll keep an eye on short term recall in general, good idea. And bring it up with the therapist.