He hates math. Any advice or encouragement for me? UPDATE

[Tiramisu]

So, question though, can his tracking problem really be that bad when he is ready pretty well at this point?  He reads on a 3rd grade level.  He can read at a higher level than the books he chooses though.  He loves to read non-fiction.  Right now he is reading the science readers from CLE...the name is completely escaping me.  He likes a lot of Nat. Geo readers.  He still prefers early readers though he can read higher stuff.  I wonder if that is because the words are bigger. 

 

 

 

Yes, you can have developmental vision problems and have perfectly fine reading.  The smart ones often do, because their brains compensate.  For instance, your brain can develop it's own form of depth perception to compensate for having no TRUE depth perception.  Crazy, eh?  They may have very complicated workarounds they don't even realize are happening.  

About these...

 

My oldest was born abroad. I always had questions but thought maybe they were cultural differences. She did very well in ps. Over the years, though, she began having difficulty. Fourth grade was the point for her. Not uncommon for bright kids with glitches. There was something there but the teachers couldn't decided if she was gifted or had mild ADHD or both. She had great test scores. When we started to homeschool, she worked very SLOWLY, especially with math. It took until she was 16 for us to find out she had auditory processing disorder. Then, we went to a developmental optometrist, he found her eyes moved slowly despite perfect comprehension of high level texts, it wasn't exactly the normal visual processing glitch but something deeper that couldn't be helped by vision therapy. At 17, we went to a neuropychologist for a full exam, and she determined she had global processing issues which really slowed her down, along the lines of dyspraxia/developmental coordination disorder. She has visual processing issues, visual-motor issues, fine motor issues, auditory processing disorder, but not ADHD. Most people don't see it because she's so bright. The thing to remember is that the difficulties showed up only over time, as the material and the concepts became more more complicated and required more of her so that she couldn't compensate quite as well. Most of it came out in frustration, not poor work, if you know what I mean. She's doing very well in college and has accommodations in place if she needs them. 

 

My experience is why I responded to your thread in the first place. So much of what you said resonated with me. The math issues seemed so inline with my experience, not so much with this child, who didn't have fact memorization problems, but for my other, who also has visual-motor issues and is bright.

 

Lots of love, Mom2TheTeam! If there are issues, it's good that you're figuring it out so you can help them and ensure their success. We don't want these kids to become demoralized through their struggles but give them the therapy and tools they need to have great success wherever their abilities and interests take them. Most of all, we want to preserve our good relationships but not getting mad at them or frustrated over what we think is a discipline issue.

[Mom2TheTeam]

The thing I find most interesting about what you both said is that "the bright ones" seem to hide it best when they are young.  For quite a while, I have noticed a trend in him that I don't think he works to his potential.  It isn't because I don't require it of him.  It's because what he perceives as hard and gets very frustrated with, I know he can do easily.  Meaning, he complained and complained and complained that reading was hard even though he could do it.  It took him much longer than I expected and definitely on the later side of normal to really read because he just hated doing it.  It was a fight every.single.time I asked him to read anything, no matter how easy for him *I* knew it was.  I knew he could do it and he really could.  It wasn't a matter of he needs to get better.  He could actually do it.  Still, he struggled through it constantly telling me how hard it was. Does that make sense?  This is what first started me wondering if there was some unseen issue, like vision in particular.  He took off with reading just as I probably would have had it checked and I figured I'd been paranoid.  Even now, he can read at a higher level than he does.  I know he can, but he perceives it as hard.  When it comes to math, he just gets it, conceptually.  He understood multiplication quite a while before we formally did it.  Same with division and fractions.  Conceptually, he has been able to add and subtract with much higher numbers than the text is requiring since K.  He gets math.  It comes very naturally to him.  And yet, this frustration.  It makes no sense.  I don't think my kids are gifted per say, but I do think this child is not working to his potential because of frustrations issues that don't match his ability.  Rather than exacerbate his frustration, we've just moved more slowly in these areas than I know he could. 

 

The thought that something else is going on makes sense.  It would make sense if his vision or something else was making his work difficult even though the actual content is not.  I've researched some developmental vision centers and I'll be making him an appt.  I hope to call this afternoon.  Hopefully, this will really help him reach his full potential. 

 

Thank you so much for helping me sort through this and for telling me he needs a full eval.  Honestly, I never would have known since our eye dr. didn't tell me.  It just didn't occur to me.  I am very grateful for the advice you all have offered.  I have no clue how long from now the eval will be, but I can update again then, if anyone wants me to.  Just let me know.  :)

[Mom2TheTeam]

He has an appt for this Friday.  It sounds like they don't put much stock in what the optometrist says/did.  She outright told me they would probably replace anything my son got from our optometrist.  I called my optometrist to see if we can stop the order for the glasses.  There is no point in paying for those and using up our insurance allotment if they aren't going to be the right thing for him.   So, if nothing else, we can hold off until we find out what eval finds.  :) 

[Guest DiannaFoster]

Paul Lockhart said it better in his Lament - http://www.maa.org/external_archive/devlin/LockhartsLament.pdf

The core problem is that mathematics is a beautiful way of thinking about the abstract, yet it's taught as a procedural tool and nothing more (generally speaking)

Teach it like music. Instill a love of mathematics as the art that it is. Reconstruct how we present mathematics to children and they will love it. Simple as that.

These micro-problems are just hairline cracks in the broken pieces of a shattered cup. Why patch the cracks if the cup will never hold water? We need to forge a new one.

 

[PeterPan]

Heather, yes, I think it's perfectly reasonable for them to want to recheck everything.  I wish we had done that when my dd started.  I had a scrip filled with one doc and then a month later ended up with the dev. optom. when the other doc's scrip aggravated the tar out of what was already a problem.  (Like she went from headaches with school work to UNABLE to do school work.)  I totally kick myself that I didn't get her vision rechecked, because VT was very hard for her and a few months later she said outright she was certain she needed a scrip.  Sigh.  And also sometimes the dev. optom will have something special he wants to do in the glasses.  Sometimes they put in prisms or do this or that to create an effect, sort of a temporary thing while they do the VT.  So yes, if you've found a good dev. optom, I'd go all the way with him and do what he wants. (Emphasis on the good, obviously.)  At the very least, it's a double check, a 2nd opinion, and I would think any doc would be ok with that.  Hopefully they can get that sorted out with your order and not have it be a problem.

 

Of COURSE we want to hear your saga and how it goes!  :D

 

Btw, sometimes these docs are even better just for basic scrips.  My old eye doc was considered a really good local doc, but he never did as aggressive a treatment on my astigmatism as what the dev. optometrist does.  Her scrips for me kick butt.  (She added cylinders for the astigmatism, is very confident, etc.)  I have her see all of us now (dc and me), because the kids both got my eyes, sigh.  I figured I might as well have the cohesion of one person seeing all of us.  They do some checks where they dilate you (hate, won't let do it again), and even that showed things that were genetic.  She said if she had seen dd's eyes in isolation, she would have ordered more testing, but she had just seen mine and knew it was the same structure, meaning it was genetic.  Apparently they can see symptoms of cancer and other things your eyes.  Wild, eh?  I don't know, I'm just saying I've been really impressed with our doc. To give me a scrip that resolves my vision better and lasts longer, that's pretty awesome.  

 

Our place has a separate children's office, and I love the kid-friendly feel there.  Hopefully your dc will enjoy their visit too.  

 

Ok, now I want to talk about the potential thing.  I'm with you, and I think part of what you're saying, whether you realize it or not, is that even though your dc is performing well you *because you are with him so much* feel he's not performing to his potential.  I TOTALLY believe this.  We are with our kids and notice subtle things that are really hard to explain.  Like when we went in and they asked about reading, I said no, her reading is fine, but something is wrong because I expected her to move into these more mature books I had bought and she rejected them for font size.  And they said oh you mean her reading level is the issue, and I said no it's subtle.  She has NEVER rejected books from me.  It's just that as the level increased, the font size got smaller.  

 

So yes, I totally agree that you're seeing things and should listen to your mama gut.  The thing I also suggest though is that when people start to feel really negative about the kid (he's lazy, he's not willing to work hard, he blah blah), there's usually a reason.  I just have had this happen so many times, where the mom starts into the "my lazy boy won't do such and such" and then it turns out he has vision problems or this or that.  Pudewa has this really fabulous convention speech on boys.  Actually EVERY talk from Pudewa is fabulous, lol.  Like seriously go download them and get pepped up!  But in one of them he gives this mantra to the effect: Kids enjoy doing what they can do WELL.  He had about three different ways to say it, but that was the jist.  That's so incisive, because I think it's true.  If things were going right, they'd be going better.  Kids WANT to please us, want to do well, and generally at a young age (before puberty kicks in and even in that) want to comply.  So when you get this frustration cycle going and mom groaning, I go back to Pudewa's comment and ask why he's not able to do well since he probably WANTS to do well.  

 

Now you know your dc.  Maybe there's ODD (oppositional defiance disorder) or RAD or some other neurological reason why they might be in a place not to be wanting to comply.  But in general I think it's our job to look at the situation and see what's going on.  They have no way to know their vision experience is not normal.  They have no way to know their attention or whatever issues aren't normal.  We have to find those things and take care of them, so they can comply and do the things to please us.  They want to comply and they WANT to do well, and we have to remove the roadblocks so they can.  Frankly, sometimes the roadblock is a curriculum list.  But that's another discussion for another day.  :)

 

Kids enjoy doing what they can do well.  You get the vision taken care of, work through these roadblocks, and you'll probably find a path back to your peace and where you want to be.  For us it took a while.  We did vision, then OT, then a psych eval.  We have awesome peace now.  I encourage you to look for the reasons behind your lack of peace.  See my theology starts off with the presupposition that kids are bad, sinners, wayward from birth, liars, lazy, selfish, etc.  If I apply that to my homeschool, I get sort of oppositional and assume everything they do is because they're BAD.  She won't write neatly because she's LAZY.  She won't sit still because she's BAD.  She won't this or that because she's so bad.  So then the answer to everything is discipline.  I think it's our job as parents to find the physical things that are hindering them and not bear the weight as sin/guilt/badness for something that is a physical, rectifiable problem.  I have NO DOUBT that there will be PLENTY of room to work on character, compliance, self-discipline, etc. etc. even after all the therapy in the world for every problem I can identify. 

 

Well definitely keep us posted!  I hope this dev. optometrist turns out to be awesome for you.  Definitely keep reading about him, ask to talk to people who have used him, etc.  You don't want to get in there, spend all the money for the eval, and then wish you had gone with someone else.  Let us know how it goes!  :)

[vonfirmath]

"They have no way to know their vision experience is not normal."

 

My dad got glasses very late in life -- age 12 or 13.  He can clearly remember thinking that NO ONE could see the ball until it was right in front of their face and the other kids were just better at reaction time in catching it.  He preferred reading and doing stuff inside to being smacked in the face with balls.  He knew the teacher did something up at the board, but didn't realize it had anything to do with TEACHING until after he got his glasses.  He learned entirely from books and what the teacher said.

 

(he grew up very poor.  When their dad was looking for work, they'd take a cooler of food and water to the park and hang out all day with their mom. Then go home at the end of the day. Because it felt better than hanging out at the cabin they were staying in until they found a place. They lived in one and two room places until he was nearly grown.)

 

[Tiramisu]

"They have no way to know their vision experience is not normal."

 

My dad got glasses very late in life -- age 12 or 13.  He can clearly remember thinking that NO ONE could see the ball until it was right in front of their face and the other kids were just better at reaction time in catching it.  He preferred reading and doing stuff inside to being smacked in the face with balls.  He knew the teacher did something up at the board, but didn't realize it had anything to do with TEACHING until after he got his glasses.  He learned entirely from books and what the teacher said.

 

 

I love this story. It's a great example of how unique processing can strongly influence our perception of reality.