“I’ve been hoping for some ‘click’ with a teacher who gets his profile, sees the extraordinary kid beneath the resistance and puts it into perspective.”
As with mathmom, I was fortunate to find just such a teacher in kindergarten for my oldest son. We never had another teacher or administrator until private middle school that responded to who he was and what he gave; how he came into the classroom, and what he contributed. I, too, wish such a teacher as our kindergarten teacher for you, @Aspieration.
Watching one’s child stand back from a ball and count its revolutions during organized play can cause disillusionment and confusion, and yet I remember so well how my child’s classmates learned to recognize that that is who he was and what he would do. I can still feel the other parents looking at me as their kids ran in to fill a void my son thought a natural phenomenon, s p a c e inside of the field of play where there had, just seconds before, been a body- his - poised for play, or so we had all thought.
We made it through that, and we role played, and he felt the same things other kids did, particularly times of loneliness. But he did alright. (Still working at culling out a life, but aren’t we all?)
@Lizardly makes a strong point in this: “There may be a trade off between indulging his exciting intellectual gifts and working on his social weaknesses, at least in the short term.” And I do understand reframing your expectations of what school can be, or should be, for him.
You are doing the remarkable work of following his lead, and trying to see if things can work themselves out. Your path is going to be different from each of our’s, as you know and have been told here. You have these wonderful, hybrid ideas of meeting both your son’s emotional and educational needs.
You’re probably tired, but know that whatever you end up doing is going to call on your son’s greatest resource, you.