The Meeting

I cried myself to sleep last night. The meeting with the other parents was horrible - barely worthy of being called civilized.

The hostility was so overwhelming - just the thought of the meeting makes my stomach turn. To be faced with such aggressive parents who tell the teacher 'I don't believe you" when he is explaining what he saw.

I sat for an hour listening to their pathetic nonsense - and every time the teacher and principal would ask them what grounds they had for saying such things - the response would be "because our daughter is scared and she doesn't lie".

It turns out that their daughter has previously been on the PPT radar (she is known as a quiet and anxious child - an only child). The parents feel that her state of anxiety has nothing to do with the situation. We are assured that there is no way their daughter overreacts to situations. The school doesn't seem to agree.

The more the teachers and principal assured these people that my son was not an aggressive child and that they were doing their best to assist all parties involved - the more frustrated and aggressive the father became.

After an hour of discussing (I did not say a word) he said :"let's not fool ourselves here, lets call a spade a spade! What is it? What is this strange behaviour? This aggression, frustration, inability to play with other children - where does it come from?!! What is going on?!".

The school inspector looked at me and said "We are not at liberty to inform you of the details but maybe his mother would like to?".

I knew it was the moment they had all been waiting for - you could've heard the proverbial pin drop.

Everybody stared at me.

I knew they wanted me to say it - I just wasn't sure that these parents would understand. Who would think that a highly gifted child could have social problems. Intelligent people aren't supposed to have problems. It's supposed to be a dream come true.

Nobody wants to know about the other stuff. The frustrations of a nine year old little boy with the mental intelligence of a sixteen year old. Nobody wants to know about how he plays with lego an bionicles, how he hides his special things under his pillow, how he goes knocking form door to door to find somebody to play with - unsuccessfully. The other children don't understand him - he sees the world in a different way - he plays in a different way. He doesn't follow rules - he creates them. He doesn't answer questions - he asks them.

My mind racing, what do I say, how do I say it, how do I make them understand. Do they want to understand.

I started with :"We aren't quite finished with the observations yet so I don't want to say too much...". The teachers stared at me intensely "but we are coming to the end of it .... soon. He had a test on Tuesday, it's called the WISC test.. (I caught a small glimps of a smile from one of the teachers) he is very intelligent" I stammered ..... "no, actually he is extremely intelligent - PPT have told me that he is a gifted child, a highly gifted child" I finished.

There was stunned silence. The couple in front of me stared at me in total disbelief. I watched as the father's face turned slightly pink and his jaw moved.

"Of course, not forgetting that he is very immature and so is his play" I added in a pathetic attempt at trying to keep in line with the 'Janteloven". Good God - there is nothing ordinary about my son - for better or for worse.

I tried to explain that social problems seem to be the order of the day for 'highly gifted children'. Is it a gift? It's been nothing but a curse for us.

Nothing I said seemed to get through - they were frozen. I assured them that I was trying to get as much information as possible on how to cope with the social side of it. That there was no reason to be concerned about our boy 'coming after their daughter for revenge'. He has forgotten about it already - the father felt that this made my son even more dangerous.

I looked at the teachers - they looked at me. There was no getting through on this one. The meeting ended on a colder note than it started.

Walking to my car I felt overwhelmed and lonely. Maybe as lonely as my boy? No, he is lonelier.

We have now reached the point where he is being accused of things that adults who were present say that he did not do. He has become the key for some little girl to get her parents attention. She is not going to give it up that easily. She doesn't want him in the class and at this rate it looks like she will stop at nothing to get rid of him.

I find myself questioning so many things. How healthy is it for him to be in a school where the girls have formed a clique and getting rid of the new guy is their focus.

He is after all just a little boy. He just wants to be like everybody else.

I was told to read a forum. It's called Lykkelige barn. Maybe I could find some advice there.