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Disruptive Behaviour at School
By Inderbir Kaur Sandhu, Ph.D
Q: Regarding the levels of giftedness I think that my 4 year old son is a type 2 and it worries me. He is bored at school we tried a Montessori school but he was soon labelled as the naughty one and spent most of his time in the thinking chair, when asked he said he was bored didn't like the school and find no meaning in the repetitive jobs. Now in a main stream school he is still bored and doesn't like it. His level of English is excellent ( he's got an Argentinean mum ) and is above the other children of same age and some older.
He is very creative. He loves the animals and knows absolutely all about them but is still being labelled as disruptive. When he gets into this moments of disruptive behaviour, he just doesn't follow the instructions and can be noise and try to be funny making faces or mocking some other children or the teacher. But at the same time, he is caring over sensitive, gets scare very easily and thinks a lot and expresses his sadness of this rejection from parents, teacher, children and it really breaks my heart.
Don't know what to do and I can see he doesn't like the school at all as he is not having a good time and is always in the bad spot.
Could you please guide me? I'm desperate. Many thanks and kind regards.
A: The type of giftedness is simply a gauge on which type of a gifted child you may have and the kind of support needed. It is usually easier to categorise them when they are older. Gifted children are very diverse and every one is unique in her or his own way. I can understand your concerns about his behaviour. Not wanting to go to school at 4 years of age does indicate that something is happening at school that he is not happy about and bothering him so much that the only way he copes is by misbehaving.
Firstly you need to find out what the problem is at. Why is he being disruptive? What happens before he misbehaves? Is he misbehaving for attention? Or is he being bullied or bullying someone? Is he angry? Or is he just bored? For every one of these, you would need examples of what happens prior to his behaviour. If you see him as very caring and sensitive, then something may be troubling him at school and his misbehaviour is a mere manifestation of his feelings. He is too young to know how to express himself therefore misbehaving probably gets him the attention he needs.
Find out what he means when he says he is bored in school. Ask him what is boring. He is actually too young to understand boredom. Unless of course he is being taught stuff that he has already mastered. You really need to do a lot of probing in determining what is happening in school. Speak to his teachers and principal to get some answers. He is too young to express his needs so you need to help him by finding out the reason for his misbehaviour. I wish you all the best in your journey.
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