As for the question of personality vs. GTness that you're asking, M&M...

I think kimck is right that it comes down to a gut check. If you doubt that he'll ever fit into school--and boy, do I hear you there!--then I'd say trust your gut....at least for the near future. Things can change, especially as they hit puberty, discover girls, and hit high school where there are usually more and better options for advanced study, so check back regularly. But I know we've pretty much written off anything but homeschool until at least age 12-14 for exactly the reasons you're describing.

<shrug> It's the right choice for us. Wouldn't be the right choice for everyone. I REALLY wish we had a viable bricks-and-mortar school option instead. I envy those who have a good school fit and still mourn the school life I thought DS7 would have and will never have.

But this will work.

But that isn't what I am saying! I think they are different and one of our jobs as parents is to try to tell the difference. You make a good point about kids needing to distance themselves when situations are too bad for them to be able to cope in other ways. Kids who do that should have their situation addressed. I just don't want every instance of a child daydreaming to be thought of as a sign of abuse. Perhaps I misread your post.

I am saying that a child who can entertain himself when needed (say a long car trip or while waiting his turn in line) without needing to resort to outside entertainment (like electronic games) is different than a person who is checking out to protect themselves from traumatic situations (physically or emotionally). Kids who are abused in various ways do check out and that is bad. Spending 6-8 hours a day being completely left out and bored is neglect which is a form of abuse. If your kid is doing that, then find out what is going on.

But having a kid who looks out the window and daydreams while driving down the highway or waiting in line for lunch, that just doesn't seem like a problem as long as there are plenty of opportunities for engagement in most of the rest of the day or other signs of a problem.

Agreed, though I'd emphasize the boldface part a lot more heavily. I'd also suggest that I think we're talking about a kid daydreaming in school during class, not in the car or in line for lunch. There's a BIG difference there, in my mind!

I think it's important to ask if harm is being done. As long as we're asking, I'm happy, regardless of what the answer is in individual cases.

People can and do practice disengagement in many situations besides abuseful ones.

It's an avoidance strategy, it can be practiced whenever someone wants to avoid a situation they are not immediately able to change.

Like a child sitting in a classroom listening to the teacher explain something for the fifth time that he mastered long ago.

Daydreaming in the car is not the same thing as disengaging during school to avoid boredom.

And only the parent really knows if its happening and if so to what extent.

Personally, I don't think it's a good measure to ask the child if harm is being done. Unless they are teenagers it may be hard to get an accurate report. I think the responsibility is on us parents to make these decisions.

Obviously gratified had made the decision that it isn't a problem, so that's the final word.

Again, I'm offering a different viewpoint based on what I know personally. Indeed, my sister thinks it's a great way for a gifted kid to survive a non-optimum school fit. I've heard the same from others. I just don't buy into it. I think it's a cop-out when the child is in the position to have to adopt this behavior for long periods of time during the school day because their educational needs are not being met.

Key phrase being long periods throughout the day. I think it's harmful and conditions the child to be ineffective and non-productive. Do any of us know people we care about who seem to be "spinning their wheels" a lot of the time?
That's the issue that concerns me.

So, maybe it's less that I'm wondering about gratified's son; and more that the comments hit a nerve with me about something that is a big pet peeve.

Well-put! This is exactly what I think, too.

Since this seems to have generated much interest, let's be clear that the kid(s) in question are attending an HG specific school next year with completely self-paced learning to deal with serious PG issues of which I'm completely aware.

But to deal with other things, I agree with acs that these are coping mechanisms to deal with the world and the fact that one can amuse oneself playing chess in one's head indicates neither disengagement with the world nor boredom for 6 hours straight. I respect and encourage resilience and optimism and coping with the circumstances my kids encounter. What I got in response to posting that was that his needs must not be met because he knows how to check out. Knowing how to check out is a useful skill I still utilize and in no way implies that the kid is bored all day. I agree that it indicates self-control which I believe is quite important to teach my kids.

I'm quite grateful that my kids can amuse themselves on long car rides and I've actively cultivated that behavior through my parenting. We were not DVD-in-the-car types despite lots of long car rides because I thought they should learn to amuse themselves. They did. I consider the ability to manage at school during down times along the same lines. I doubt anyone would be sending their kids to school if they thought it was torture for 6 hours straight so I'm not quite sure how amusing oneself in school got aligned with PTSD from 9/11 and the torture of boredom for 6 hours straight. Kids in school have lunch lines and down periods and in our experience, there's not much of either during the day, but I'm glad to teach my kids how to cope with it. I had down periods in professional school, graduate school, and professional life, and I'm not bored 6 hours a day, depressed, anxious, nor at risk for PTSD. My kids had a variety of special classes and subject acceleration and lots of age appropriate play time which they loved. When there were worksheets to be done and they finished early, they read while they waited, or worked on higher math, or daydreamed. Getting back to the original poster, one of my kids manages that better than the others, and he happens to be the one who tests highest, which has convinced me this is more about personality than level of G (and the parents and what they value and encourage in their kids!).

Mamaandmore -- if you've already tried schools and you haven't been able to arrange a workable solution for your kiddo, then you need to do what you find best. Living with kids at a variety of LOG and watching the interaction between personality and school issues convinces me this is about personality. If it's not working for your kiddo, then it's only reasonable to find another solution. If you're really lucky, it will last more than a year or two!

I've lost track of who this behavior is about, so this is a generic statement. I heard a gifted educator speak about this type of behavior. She said that what sometimes (!) happens is that kids get so used to "checking out" or "avoiding" or "entertaining themselves" or whatever in school settings that they actually tune out too often and miss important things. Gifted kids usually pick up on these gaps pretty quickly but some of them never even know they missed something. Her point was that educators need to make sure that kids are actively involved most of the time (no kid is going to concentrate 100% all the time), especially gifted kids because it is so easy for them to tune out. Then, the gifted kids end up falling through the cracks because "well, if he's gifted, how come he doesn't know xyz?" or "he doesn't know xyz so we must do remedial work".

Ultimately, it is the teacher's job to engage kids. Does it happen with gifted kids? Unfortunately, not that often. The educator I heard emphasized hard that gifted kids need to go deeper AND faster. Didn't happen for us.

Again, my apologies, gratified. Not what I intended to say.

It was a fast and poorly written post intended to continue the conversation about Ruf, not an attack. Honest.

I blew it. I accept that and take responsibility for my poorly written post. But please listen to me when I tell you that I was intending to defned Ruf, not attack you. I was trying to make a general statement about another possible way to view such a response to school from a child, NOT judging your particular child. I was thinking about it in response to your view of Ruf, NOT intending to talk about YOUR child.

The connection with 9/11 is simply that the resarchers imply a commonality between post traumatic stress disorder and using disengagement as a coping strategy.
I found it interesting and relevent, that's it.

I agree that coping skills are necessary and I also teach coping skills to my children and utilize them myself.

You and I disagree on what we consider healthy coping skills.
I think it's fine to agree to disagree.

Squirt - yes my DS's psych said something very similar....that we need to teach him coping strategies (deep breathing exercises to get him through the day) but if it gets to the point that he's checking out so much that he's missing announcements, homework assignments, instruction, then we'll need to deal with the issue of lack of challenge for him.