Just yesterday, I was talking with a mother who told me of what is coming to be a more common situation: I moved my child to a different school because he "didn't fit in" with teachers or with faculty.
In our rush to quantify everything about education (judging students' value almost exclusively by their test scores), we sometimes forget the quality of a child's life. I had this experience as a parent myself since I have what some might call an outside the box son (now a 19 year old junior in college).
You know your child better than anyone else. That doesn't mean you allow them to act any way they want or disrupt the everyday routines of school. However, it does mean that you take time to regularly communicate so you know their struggles and their triumphs and you work hardest to help that person think logically through decisions and feel "comfortable in their skin".
Support them, feed their passion so they know what they are good at and send the message that everyone, even very bright people, need others' assistance in certain areas. I remember that, although our child was reading at about a 3rd or 4th grade level in K, he was the worst cutter in the class. I told him that he gets to be the helper when he's really good at something and he should seek out the helpers who can assist him when he has struggles. This, I believe, is one of the reasons that, as a young man, he interacts and respects individuals of many sorts.
How can you support your outside the box student?
1) get off the correcting and directing channel. Our job as parents is really to guide that wonderful, beautiful life to be a thoughtful, productive, independent, contributing part of society. It is not to make them "fit our mold" or the mold of the school. Sure, we must do a little correcting and directing but it should not be our primary focus.
2) really listen to your child. Stop giving advice first and let them talk to you about their perspectives, their feelings, their ideas. Especially as they get older (into the middle elementary and up to teen years), be the "helper who assists in thinking through" rather than dictating what that person will do. Especially when you are talking about teens, restrictions are rarely effective or they create a more compliant person (and we certainly don't need more compliance in our world).
3) read with your child and nurture the reader, even after he or she is independently able to do that task. Share what you are reading, teach your son or daughter that reading and writing are tools for life - not some academic exercise -- and that learning is not the teachers' responsibility, but theirs. The more self-confidence (not empty but rich) they have, the more they will be able to be comfortable, well-rounded and respected by those around them.
4) support them through their struggles so they can see past the struggle and not be defeated by it.
Celebrate what your child is great at and help him or her learn to cope with the eventuality of disappointments and differences in people, just as part of being a human being. You'll find they are a unique person, one who has much to contribute, when they take their "outside the box" approach and make it their strength. We need creative, thinking people today because those will be the ones who solve our worlds most complex issues in tomorrow's world.
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