Writing Struggles and the Gifted Child

When my child was 6 years old he wrote much like he did other things...with joy and enthusiasm. That was until his second grade teacher repeatedly told him that he was horrible at writing and punished him for writing comic books. He was constantly creating a series of comic books that he branded and marketed to kids at his school.  Something that I found creative and entrepreneurial. Of course this was heavily frowned upon and punished and he lost his love of writing and creating with pencil and paper. It suddenly became a laborious contentious subject and even one that got pathologized because what else can you do after punishing a child but give him a disorder label for the very issue that the school system and teacher created.

I started to teach him cursive in second grade as an alternative which was a nice distraction and a way to satisfy the unnecessary demands of worksheet laden school days.  In third grade, which was his last year in B&M school, he still held onto the disdain of writing despite a lovely, compassionate teacher who empathized with his struggle and he made it through with less stress; however, he still had sloppy, lackluster writing.  As we embarked on our deschooling - unschooling adventure I knew that I would take all emphasis OFF of writing and let him choose a delight driven self education.  I was alone in this decision to completely abandon all requirements of writing which usually amps up in the later elementary years.  I was not going to torture my child and create unnecessary friction and hostility. He would keyboard as was necessary during his computer usage and via minimal digital correspondence on his YouTube channel but there would be no emphasis on pencil to paper writing.  He spoke quite eloquently since he was a baby and if I was willing to transcribe or audio record his ideas then written expression was accomplished without the need for him to actually write anything.

Fast forward a year and a half with absolutely no writing requirements and last night L wrote me a letter that was thoughtful and eloquent.  The style, format, penmanship, spelling, punctuation, grammar and spacing which were all an issue in second grade completely disappeared. This kid actually has beautiful writing!  Not that I care much about penmanship as it is a dying art and virtually obsolete in the modern world but this was still a pleasant surprise and yet another example that my kid has the miraculous ability to improve through osmosis. Lucky kid!  That osmosis concept doesn't really apply to me or anyone else I know but then again this kid defies the natural order of things so why wouldn't he just suddenly write well too?

The point of this blog post for all of you parents and educators who worry about children who struggle with writing is that not all of them have written expression disorder or dysgraphia.  I am not trying to undermine those whose kids truly struggle with writing based disorders as I know there are those that really do have a writing disability which presents real challenges and requires remediation.  Writing is a taxing exercise that requires focus, concentration, coordination, short term memory and organization. These are skills that are also challenging for kids with attentional issues. I also know many parents of gifted children, (boys in particular) who worry that their kids are dysgraphic because they don't like to write and it creates a power struggle in school and at home.  What some kids need is time. Time to mature physically and emotionally.

These kids are only going to write if they see a point in it...namely, as an effective means of communication.  My kid wanted to tell me something while I was out of the house so he wrote a letter to convey that which he wanted to say to me at the time. If I were home we would likely have just had a conversation instead.  I cherish these letters which I haven't seen in awhile. He used to write them when he wanted something like more movie time and he would slip them under my door.  Sometimes they had cute drawings and were filled with politeness and they were effective.   Making a writing phobic young child write for writing sake will likely backfire but if it serves a real purpose and is meaningful, your child just might surprise you.  Then again, they may also just need a little more time to develop the necessary muscles and skills to do so.  As long as they are exposed to the written word in any form then eventually they may be able to see the point of writing. We use a similar approach to grammar, punctuation and spelling in that we actually don't address those areas at all.  My kid reads a lot both online and off and sees numerous amount of words, sentences and paragraphs on a daily basis.  Through time and exposure he will in fact learn writing mechanics through maturation, spell check and osmosis.

For coaching and guidance on educating gifted children visit:

http://atypicalminds.com