Support for parents of gifted children

[Britishmum]

Well, Cynthia encouraged me to come and post here, so here I am. :)

Edited to remove post.

[eclipse]

:wave

my son is definitely what i would call "gifted" - and we have a lot of similar issues. some of these things seem to coincide with what people call around here his spirt. have you read "raising your spirited child" ? its a great book that deals with a lot of the issues that you have brought up here.

anyhow, i'm dealing right now with a three year old who throws tantrums because he can't read yet. honestly, if i hadn't had another child, i'm convinced he'd be reading by now - not out of me pressuring him, but out of him pressuring me to teach him.

[thoesly]

I'd say you're definitely in the right place. Giftedness is a special need -- when I was teaching, I made just as many provisions/adaptations for gifted students (often in the form of extension activities or alternative assessment opportunites) as I did for my students who received special ed services. This was typical of many of the teachers I worked with, and it was the way we were taught when I earned my MA in Education.

Additionally, some of the issues you describe can be addressed by many people here. The need for special items is common among autistic kids, so many of us have been there, done that. I think I remember reading a post of yours about getting your daughter dressed, and it sounded just like my daughter -- laying down rules for her and being strict on this issue would just result in a 40 minute temper tantrum with vomiting. This is an issue tied to her special needs, but it is a special need in and of itself for many kids. So again, many people can offer insight on a variety of issues, regardless of their child's label.

Another great thing about this forum is that labels are never used as stereotypes here because our children are individuals. And just as a child can be autistic and also be gifted, we understand that a child can be gifted and have other needs that make life a little more difficult for him/her. This is a forum where people truly do understand that you're not exaggerating or bragging when you talk about challenges.

So be welcome here. I wish I had advice to give you on the issues your child is struggling with, but really, we're struggling with the same things, so all I can offer you is support.

Tara

[Irishmommy]

Well, dd has not been labeled yet, but she sure as heck shows all the traits, so I'm in!!

[pugmadmama]

I'm so glad to see this thread here! I'm on my way out the door, but I"ll check back in later.

[thoesly]

I hear you about little things setting her off! Today we had a 10 minute melt-down because the bread on her cheeseburger tore a little! A shoe coming off can be major. And one time when her speech therapist was reading a story with her, she said, "Careful, ovens can be hot." That set her off. It's like walking on eggshells around here -- and no matter how careful we are, it doesn't guarantee a smooth day.

I haven't read the Spirited Child book, either, but I have heard good things about it. I agree that "spirited" is tossed around pretty carelessly. So is "high-needs." I've gotten a bit of help from Stanley Greenspan's works, especially The Challenging Child. The Difficult Child by Stanley Turecki had some good parts, too.

Follow your instincts on the school thing. If she's not ready, she's not ready. Other people really don't "get it," and they never will. That's not meant as a criticism, just an observation that there are some things you have to live with to understand.

I'm not surprised your brilliant husband has been told he has autistic tendencies. That's true of a lot of really smart people. I've heard autism called the Silicon Valley syndrome because so many computer people exhibit traits and their children have autism. I know I've heard of other famous, rich, supersmart people who exhibit some of the traits. And Temple Grandin (an adult autistic, professor, author, inventor, etc) titled one of her books Thinking in Pictures.

One thing that might get you a wide range of responses here is if you give your threads titles that target the problem you want input on (like "clothing struggles" or something). I know a lot of moms are really busy what with therapies, doctors' appointments, consultations, research, etc, and if a thread specifically says "autism" or "Down's Syndrome" or "giftedness," they might not take the time to check it out if that doesn't apply to their child. But everyone wants to help, and if they've had clothing struggles, they will give input no matter what their child's diagnosis. Because of my 3 kids, I know about autism, dyspraxia, sensory issues, anxiety issues, speech delays, and motor delays. But I also know about the clothing issues, rigid schedules, emotional instability, and a lot of other stuff, too, and if I can help even a little, I will do so, even if my child's main problem isn't at all similar to the other child's main problem. Does that make sense?

Anyway, glad you're here,

Tara

[darlindeliasmom]

Britishmum, thanks so much for posting this query...I have often lurked around this board, getting ideas and info to help me help friends and family with special needs kids...and have sometimes wondered if I could join in.

I can so relate to the "look ", the "patient" counseling by others about how I just need to be FIRM...Del was not so locked into specific toys--she was locked into ME. So of course I must have been SPOILING her.

Instead, I think she knew that I was a safe base, a safe base to handle the anxieties that her supersensitivity awoke in her...the absolute fear of change, the perfectionistic streak, the NEED to do things her way, to figure it out on her own.

When she's pushed, she just falls apart. It's lovely to have some other parent or teacher or whoever tell me she's just manipulating me, that it can't POSSIBLY be that big a deal. Well, guess what, to a sane person, it's not. But in the throes of the panic that sets off her meltdowns, it is!!

I do like the Spirited Child, mostly because it helps me by providing me with language I'm comfortable using to describe my girl...at the end of the book, Kurcinka makes the observation that parents of truly spirited children can feel as isolated as parents of special needs kids--it's hard for someone not in the same situation to truly understand.

Anyway, here I am, the parent of a bright, creative 7-yr-old who wears me out daily.

[pugmadmama]

Originally posted by Britishmum
...Can anyone else identify with this? And would you say that this is the right forum for support, which entails first accepting 'giftedness' as a label, and second, accepting that it is a special need.

Thoughts?

I can identify!

We put off having our son (who will turn 12 this month) tested until the beginning of third grade. The tests confirmed what we had suspected from age 3, that he is gifted.

My SO is in the military and we've had wonderful experiences with schools in the past but are now stuck in a not-so-wonderful school district. I homeschooled him for fifth grade (he finished the math ciriculumn in a month and spent the rest of the year teaching himself Algebra...I tried to 'teach' him but he wouldn't go for it! :LOL )

But he really wanted to go back to school for sixth grade (his current grade). His school has a gifted program in theory. The group met once in October and have yet to meet again. I've talked to his teacher, the Lead Teacher and have sent several emails to the Principal, all with no luck. His teacher actually said to me, "Well, he gets straight 'A's, so I'm not really understanding why you think he needs to be in a special program." :splat

Anyone else have their child in school? How is it going?

[darlindeliasmom]

pugmadmama: Delia is in first grade, and I AM allowing her to be tested, perhaps under the misguided notion that the gifted support teachers will provide just that, SUPPORT. I tend to be quite timid in person until I know you, then watch out!! But I have been steeling myself to be her advocate.

I really believe her first grade teacher GETS it...she talks with me often, and she sees the value in dealing with the difficulties Delia has along with celebrating her successes...but I don't delude myself that this will be the norm.

I always hold the idea of homeschooling full time at some time in the back of my mind...but I have been at a loss to handle the perfectionism and the strong will as it relates to academic work. Well, not totally at a loss, but definitely challenged.

Still, I can see that in some areas, the culture of school encourages little performing monkeys, and that is something I so do NOT want to see happen with my child...

[monkey's mom]

Hi, I'll be listening and learning..........

Not sure where we fit into this (my son is not quite 2.5), but most of this sounds awfully familiar!

[pugmadmama]

Originally posted by darlindeliasmom
pugmadmama: Delia is in first grade, and I AM allowing her to be tested, perhaps under the misguided notion that the gifted support teachers will provide just that, SUPPORT. I tend to be quite timid in person until I know you, then watch out!! But I have been steeling myself to be her advocate. ...but I have been at a loss to handle the perfectionism and the strong will as it relates to academic work. Well, not totally at a loss, but definitely challenged. ...

I don't think you're misguided, at all. When my DS was in first and second grade, his teachers were great and his school allowed him to particiate in the gifted program based solely on his teacher's recommendations. We moved after his second grade year and his third grade school required formal testing before participation in their program, so we did it. In a way, I wish we had done it earlier, because by third grade, DS had more test anxiety than he did in first grade (he's a perfectionist also)

When we did homeschool, my role consisted mainly of helping DS work through his frustration at not being able to be "perfect". It's getting better as he gets older but, oh, it's been a long road.

[darlindeliasmom]

thanks pugmadmama, for your insights...in the past week, she actually cheated on a test because she just CANNOT be wrong...teacher caught her (she had stashed a cheat sheet in her desk with a spelling word she can't get) and handled it well, privately and firmly, and I got to pull out my "it's ok to make mistakes, that's how we learn. blah blah blah" chat, which she's heard before...

I mean, she's 7. I think she has to forgive herself for not knowing EVERYTHING!!!

Anyone have ways to deal with the risk aversion aspect of perfectionism? That one stumps me...

[magemom]

Wow. So nice to 'meet' other moms of gifted kids. I HATE that term as my 12 yo ds has used it as a crutch (well, I'm gifted) or as a slam (how can they think I am gifted?) he tested off the charts in about everything, but day to day stuff interfers. His teacher is now telling me his problems are all his own, his refusal to be organized is causing all his problems. We have never had him formally tested outside of the normal stuff they test all kids here for. Now that we are pressing for it, the delays are kicking in. i hate the 'systems'
He does not care. DD is the 'perfect' child in that she fits the molds the school wants her in and she conforms well. DS does not. DS is more apt to notice details she misses but he ignores them or doens't react to them. He knows he has a strict schedule and still doesn't get stuff done in a timely manner. However, the structure has really helped. If I rode him 24/7 for everything it might get done, but I can't and won't do that.
His head doc says depression and ADHD and he has responded well to the meds this past year. I am looking for a more talk centered therapy for him as well as the full battery of tests by Sylvan if the school doesn't respond soon. I think he is learning disabled along with the gifted part.
Dealing with him this past year has me sad that I can't spend 100% of my day trying to find answers for him. Maybe he is just lazy since he knows mom will do whatever she can??

[grnbn76]

I don't normally post here, but in looking to see if a friend had posted recently, I saw this thread. I just had to put in my .02 regarding schooling a gifted child.
I was a gifted, public schooled child. I was pulled out for special "gifted and talented" or "accelerated" classes every year from K to 8th grade, and then in honors/AP classes in high school. The problem (as it was for me) is that gifted children do not only need accelerated work. We don't only require "more to do", and we need more than to be allowed to work at a quicker pace. We need more than an advanced reading and math group...because all accelerated students are not necessarily gifted in the clinical way. Some children are smarter than average...they can read faster and earlier, or they can move ahead a chapter in the social studies book. These children are great for any teacher to have...they usually get straight A's and rarely cause problems. That is not, however, to say that they are necessarily "gifted" (which is a clinical term having to do with IQ, not with school grades).
Truly gifted children learn differently than the accelerated student, and differently still than the average one. (A very basic example is that when given a photographic test and asked "Where is the tree?", an average student will find it on the paper after looking around for a while, an accelerated student will find it on the paper immediately, and a gifted student will point (or climb) out the window)
I would advise you to look very deeply into any gifted and talented education programs at your school, simply because they are *usually* geared towards accelerated students, not necessarily gifted ones. When I looked into the schooling of my own clinically profoundly gifted child, I learned that for us and the school district we were living in, she was FAR better off learning at home at her own pace (you know how gifted kids latch on to an area of knowledge and run with it for about 6 months and then drop it like it never interested them in the first place...yeah...my dd does that ALL the time, and this would be a nuisance in a public school).
Gifted children can be such a classroom problem...they don't sit still, they talk, they aren't organized, they don't care to study the material, they may even fail every single class sinply because of boredom. Unfortunately, teachers are trained mostly to teach average students, and have a little extra training in accelerated learning, but get very little training in teaching truly gifted children.

[darlindeliasmom]

grnbn76: You speak to my fears for the future...dd is NOT way off the charts in acceleration of her learning...it's more the depth to which she pursues any of her idiosyncratic interests...one reason why homeschooling works so well with gifted kids...

I guess I'll be that lonely mom harping away in IEP meetings about depth and letting her find her own pace against the acceleration tide...I think the teacher knows very well already that this child is COMPLETELY bored by what they called "seatwork" when I was a child...

[FreeRangeMama]

Thanks Britishmum for staring this thread!! I so need this right now. We had a HUGE meltdown today over a slipper that fell off, he just couldn't deal with it and I foolishly stated that we could just put it back on. Not a good response from a tired mama.

We are dealing with a lot of anxiety right now :( It was ds' 3rd birthday last week and he was so upset by it all. His amazing imagination! He was "nervous about that" and refused to call it a birthday. We had to refer to it as his "special day" and break it into 2 small events, one for just us and one for grandparents and aunt and uncles. Nothing big, just a cake and a few gifts. No mention of birthdays or being older. He is still recovering from the anxiety. He woke up screaming the other night and was just inconsolable and he has been so irritable since the weekend. Poor guy. I wish I knew how to help him :(

[darlindeliasmom]

well, here I am again...can't stay away. Can you say, here's a mama who needs a parents of gifted children support group?!!!

akirasmama: what a frustrating birthday for you...good for you for recognizing his anxieties. what is that? Do all kids have such an awareness of what a new age means? Last year, I spent lots of nights with dd curled in my lap saying she most definitely did NOT want to be 6; she thought oh, about 3 would be just fine, thank you very much...

With her, a long-term nurser, I think it was partly an attempt to process that she really was weaned , but I guess there's more to it than that...

What do you guys think? Is intensely feeling everything the price of admission with our children?

I struggle sometimes with talking with others about dd partly because of what Britishmum said in the OP, and partly because I learn (after the fact) that I have been assuming ALL kids do something (dd is an only, and reminds me a lot of myself). The second can be really isolating, 'cause when I do share, that's when I get the unwanted parenting advice, like mom telling me a few weeks ago, "well, sometimes, you just HAVE to give them a swat!"

[grnbn76]

Originally posted by darlindeliasmom

What do you guys think? Is intensely feeling everything the price of admission with our children?



Well, in our house, we call it "DQD"..."Drama Queen Disorder". It's slightly inherited, and I will even claim the genes that caused it.
But it also comes with the territory. The best description I've ever heard is that a gifted child's brain is already on overload...so many things to see, hear, learn, talk about, know, feel. When you add in something "drastic", whether good (like a birthday) or bad (a stubbed toe), it is just more overload in an already overloaded brain....there is no choice but explosion. The birthday turns into a torturous event, created only to mortify the celebrated child. The child with a stubbed toe is certain that the toe (and about 35 other bones...most of which the child can name and locate for you) is broken, the muscles and ligaments have ruptured, and death is practically immediate.

So in our house, we call it "DQD". We just consider it one of the things that we either have to laugh about or it will send us into a padded room. We choose to laugh.

[eclipse]

Originally posted by akirasmama
It was ds' 3rd birthday last week and he was so upset by it all. His amazing imagination! He was "nervous about that" and refused to call it a birthday. We had to refer to it as his "special day" and break it into 2 small events, one for just us and one for grandparents and aunt and uncles. Nothing big, just a cake and a few gifts. No mention of birthdays or being older.

wow, that sounds familiar. ds was fine with the 3rd bday party, but refused to acknowledge getting older. if we dared refer to him as being 3, we would have a meltdown. his birthday was 2 1/2 months ago, and he still says he is "2 + 1, which equals 3", but refuses to admit that he is *actually* three.

[Sofiamomma]

Hmmmm, I was going to post here, because I was under the impression my dd is "gifted", but after reading the descriptions of the other children I am not so sure. She is a year ahead in school and is in the gifted program in our school district, but I would say she sounds more like accelerated. I don't know, she is certainly a drama queen, and fits the description of spirited, as well as Indigo. She presents some unique challenges to me. But maybe my mother is right, maybe it is all my fault. :rolleyes:

[Summertime Mommy]

I was a gifted kid, and I am beginning to believe that ds is gifted as well. I was in our school's gifted program until 8th grade, when they no longer offered gifted. Honestly, for me, the gifted program was enough to keep me motivated. We met one day a week, and did projects and things, but it wasn't really structured like a regular classroom, and I really enjoyed it. It was also fun because it was really the only time I could spend time with people who were thinking on the same level I was, people I would have never thought to talk to outside that classroom. I felt that high school was severely lacking though, even being in advanced classes was not enough to keep me interested. I ended up skipping school and partying alot. DH is labelled gifted as well, and ended up the exact same way. You honestly wouldn't believe how many gited kids turn to drugs and such to make life more interesting, I can think of at least 4 people I partied with in HS that were labeled gifted. That to me is rather scary. I am really worried about what ds's future will bring, right now we are at the same point as alot of the other people that posted here. DS has certain toys he has to sleep with at night. He has to be able to bring at least one toy wherever we go, he has to have options about everything, and basically everything in his little world has to be just right, or he has a meltdown. He is so incredibly smart that it is scary, it is amazing to see the things he picks up on. I mean this kid potty trained himself the week of his second birthday. It is so hard for me to try not to compare him and my oldest, who is more average (can't think of a better word) I always think, why can he get it, and she doesn't? Then I have to remind myself that things come easier for Koeby. I just realized that I have written a book, so I am going to go. Sorry for any typos, I am typing one handed because the baby is sleeping in my other arm.

[darlindeliasmom]

Sofiamomma: :hug
Of course you belong here...
I was using the term "accelerated" education to describe one method of gifted programs--NOT the kids themselves!!! At this point, I see Delia as being rather more immature than her peers (who, frankly scare me!!), and don't think she would do well socially to be mixed in with older kids. That's mainly why I would buck against , for example, putting her in 3rd grade math...

I just envision meltdowns, and regression, etc.


Summetime Mommy: I was NOT in gifted programs---Philadelphia's Catholic school system in the early 1960s was not conducive to that...there were 60 kids in my first grade class!! The way I coped with school was by being an underachiever--that meant I got As, but didn't do extra work, and HATED challenges...got a full scholarship to university, pursued an advanced degree, but NEVER challenged myself. Delia has such great ideas, and is so creative; I don't want her to rein it in like I did out of boredom...

[Sofiamomma]

:D Thanks! I sometimes feel a little nuts, as I am in such a unique situation. I don't really fit in anywhere or have any one that can totally relate. That is especially difficult if I need to bounce ideas around or analyze things! Dd1 is just soooo. . . unique, challenging, enigmatic. . . I have so very many doubts. . .

Yesterday she was crying at the restaurant where we go every Friday. The waitress wanted to know what was wrong. . . she was crying real tears! She was sad because she can not have a real job and work in public and get paid. She thinks child labor laws are unfair, because children should have the right to work if they want to! sigh I mean really, how do I handle that kind of stuff? Especially when it comes alongside reprimanding her for climbing on stuff, running around, talking too loud, and not knowing when to end conversations?

[Profmom]

Hi -- I'd like to introduce myself too... I have two gifted children. The older turned 11 yesterday, the younger is 8.

My biggest challenge is dealing with my 11yo's emotional sensitivity, and the area in which he is most scarred at school (teasing and ostracism). He loves classical music, he would sleep WITH his violin if I let him... He cries when he hears music that moves him -- not a helpful social trait among boys at school. He is also compulsivey irritating (the latest annoyance is singing the "Queen of the Night" bit from the Magic Flute in falsetto... ugh) -- he can't seem to stop, and even enjoys the annoyance it causes.

My daughter is calm and cooperative. She skipped Kindergarten and would be happy to skip another, if we let her (which we won't).

My pet peeve is people who tell me my children are "scary" because they are so bright -- or -- "too smart for their own good" -- right in front of them sometimes!!

Thanks for starting the thread!

[sunnmama]

Originally posted by akirasmama
It was ds' 3rd birthday last week and he was so upset by it all. His amazing imagination! He was "nervous about that" and refused to call it a birthday.

Just scanning the thread....my dd is definitely spirited, and incredibly intense, and full of strange anxieties.....but I've never actually thought of her as gifted. Hmmm.....another set of issues to research? :LOL

But the above quote made my jaw drop! We had such issues about the 3rd b-day, too. Tears...huge violent meltdowns out of nowhere and over nothing....and finally dissolving into "But I want to be TWWWOOOOO-O!" I couldn't believe it when I finally understood what those weeks of tension and tantruming were about.....

Right now our biggest issues are her anxieties. She will be walking along happily beside me, and we turn a corner and I don't know WHAT happens--but suddenly she loses the ability to walk and just freezes in fear and won't move until I come get her. This only happens in indoor areas (shopping areas, schools, etc). She is also the ONLY child in our MOMS group of any age who can not take 5 steps in the auditorium we use (with maybe 20 moms and kids in it that she knows VERY well) without screaming for me to hold her hand. Anyone relate to this :confused:

[FreeRangeMama]

I can TOTALLY relate. Ds is very sensitive to noise, bright lights, strong scents, and too many people. I need 2 slings so that I can carry him AND ds2 in certain situations, especially in and out of stores. At story time we had to watch from outside the group for several weeks so that he could get used to the surroundings (we do this after every session break). He needs to observe, categorize, and assimilate every sensation in his surroundings before he can feel at ease. We always take extra time for outings so he doesn't feel rushed in new situations. Once he has processed everything he is generally okay, he will run and explore. If there is too much sensory stimulation he cannot cope and will need to be held the whole time. He doesn't like to be around lots of other kids. He doesn't "get" them and prefers groups of adults instead. He also goes through sudden fears. He is currently afraid of SIL's dog even though he has loved this dog since he was born. He freaked out last time he saw the dog. Just out of the blue too, he was playing with him earlier. I think his imagination gets the better of him sometimes.

[sunnmama]

Akirasmama--that is so validating. I really thought my dc was the only one with these anxieties and no one (including us) understands! Everyone thinks she does it for the attention :rolleyes:

So here is my big question: She has LOTS in common with the dc described on this thread, and she is very bright, but even us (her parents) wouldn't describe her as "brilliant". She just seems to be (developmentally) in the high end of normal. I mean, just sitting here, I can't think of one story that would convince strangers that she is "gifted" (although I was in the gifted program throughout my school years, and dh was apparently labelled gifted as well....). How would I identify giftedness in a 3 yo? And, if she is not gifted, what else would explain these traits? (high anxieties, big imagination, intensity, persistence, sensory issues, high needs). What is the relationship between spirited and gifted?

If she is not gifted, and I can't hang out here, where do I find my support group? :LOL

[Profmom]

My son was just this way when he was much younger! He used to chew his shirt in grade 1 out of anxiety. It turned out that he was afraid that the fire alarm might go off and it totally freaked him out. He also used to sit on the school bus with his hands over his ears to block out all of the noise. Birthday parties were out by age 4 -- too stressful for him.

He still (at age 11) has issues with noise and will quite literally become hysterical if we play the radio too loud in the car! He thinks we are going to be pulled over by the police for disturbing the peace...

So maybe I can be of some help/support with regard to how these things have played out for him/us in the preteen years.

[sunnmama]

Originally posted by Profmom
He also used to sit on the school bus with his hands over his ears to block out all of the noise.

OMG, she does this in playgroups all the time :crying
I'm so glad I found this thread. Honestly, I thought my kid was the ONLY KID, and I had no idea why she did these things.....

[Profmom]

Sunmamma -- you and your ds are definitely NOT alone! We've totally been there too. It has gotten a bit better. We are finally able to go to fireworks displays, be these were TOTALLY OUT for years... The biggest problems come now when he is anticipating the noises (for example, when his sister is threatening to pop a balloon...). He still really freaks out. AND he "feels sorry" for the balloon. Life is not so easy sometimes for him.

About the term gifted: I don't really love it either, but the "label" in school helped my son to know that there was a positive reason for his very obvious differences -- he noticed and had concluded that he was weird... in a bad way.

Not to be a prophet of doom, but our real troubles and challenges began when he started public school. Not only was the content unexciting for him, but he was totally ostracised by his peers. The poor little guy sat alone every day at lunch for two years. When we spoke to the school, their solution was to have the principal pull him out of class and tell him to stop using big words so that kids would like him... He is going to a new school now, and things are gentler and more interesting. Just in time for puberty...

[Profmom]

oops, Sunmamma -- I mean your DD!

[Unreal]

Originally posted by Profmom


He still (at age 11) has issues with noise and will quite literally become hysterical if we play the radio too loud in the car! He thinks we are going to be pulled over by the police for disturbing the peace...


How about the kiddo who won't flush the toilet because it is too loud. Especially those REALLY loud ones in public restrooms.
Of course now, ds is 8 and too old to come into the women's bathroomwith me--so he is on his own to flush (or not, as the case may be.....)


Another problem we have is his lying about silly little things--id you brush your teeth, wash your hands, change your underwear....
Rather than admit he forgot, he'll lie about these things.
Very frustrating for us..

But you know, I'd rather have him lie about litle things like that than over bigger issues

[grnbn76]

Count my kiddos (at least my two older ones...7 and 3) under the "You aren't alone" column.
My 3yo is VERY bad with sensory issues. He, too, has a heart attack if the radio in the car is too loud, if the people are too loud, if breathing is too loud. He thinks literally everything...from monsters to purple kangaroos (?) to the rug in the living room is "too scary".
The other day, I stubbed my toe...hard...and yelled (with some nice choice words added in...really, you'd think I'd remember where I put that table, eh?). You should have seen the nervous breakdowns those two kids had. Not so much because I hurt myself (that was left to the 18mo who said "Mama ow!") but because I was yelling in pain. It took me five minutes to get over my pain, and about an hour and a half to calm the kiddos down.
But, in my house anyway, those things are pretty much normal. Sometimes, the way they react to people is a wonderful thing...my kids can point out injustices in a flash. Sometimes, it's not so wonderful...my oldest has a problem with height vs. knowledge. She really thinks that if you are as tall as or taller than she is, you should at least know the things she knows. That REALLY drives her crazy when she sees bigger kids who don't know how to read, add, multiply, etc. She's an educational snob sometimes.
I'll never forget last year when she found out the little girl across the street (who was in 1st grade, my dd would have been in kindergarten) didn't know how to read. The little girl told my dd she was going to school everyday so she could learn how. My dd came running into the house crying, and asked me "Mom, what on earth would I have done in school? It would have been a total waste of time!".
She was right...one of the reasons we decided to homeschool her was because the kindergarten in the school district we lived in taught the following for the year...counting to 20, the colors in a box of 8 crayons, the ABC's by sight, writing the ABC's, and 6 basic shapes. When my dd was 5, she was already reading chapter books, adding, subtracting, multiplying, and teaching herself about the solar system. I couldn't find a single reason to dampen her love of learning by sending her to learn to count to 20. Now, at 7, she's doing 3rd grade work pretty much across the board, and still reading chapter books (she just finished the fifth Harry Potter).
I look to the rest of my children, and it is fairly obvious that the 3yo and the 18mo are pretty much on the same track she was (though the 18mo doesn't have quite the vocab she did). I'm pregnant and due in July...and there are times when I'm a horrible mother and sometimes I even hope that this time, I'll have a "normal" kid.

[darlindeliasmom]

sunmama: I was so where you are when Delia was 3. With me, because this seems to be my learned behavior:confused: , I kept trying to blame ME for her difficulties...

It was my fault she was so sensitive; I should have tried harder to have another child or adopted, because I just obviously couldn't cope with an only...(I've gotten over that one )

Another was, I've spoiled her with taking AP too far...she still doesn't consider herself weaned (I try not to go there; talk about emotional meltdowns), tho' in reality her need seemed to go away sometime between 5 and 6. I held her constantly; she was small enough to sling well into her 4th year. I TALK to my verbal child and offer explanations, choices, etc. rather than leaping to punishment (just brings out the lawyer in her anyway).

She was so mommy-attached that it was very stressful for me. She still can't go upstairs to go to the bathroom alone. Worries about death, and is terrified some man will break into the house and kill us...
I see now that the strong mommy attachment was her way of coping with the sensory overload...she had a wise preschool teacher, herself the mother of a gifted boy and another with Asperger's, still struggling to hope to reach his considerable potential. She helped me see that the difficulties Delia had were a part of her divergent way of looking at the world, and helped me see that part of the reason I have always felt on the outside looking in is that those same qualities in me were suppressed...

Anyway, glad to meet all of you and your wonderful dc's.

[monkey's mom]

Originally posted by sunnmama
So here is my big question: She has LOTS in common with the dc described on this thread, and she is very bright, but even us (her parents) wouldn't describe her as "brilliant". She just seems to be (developmentally) in the high end of normal. I mean, just sitting here, I can't think of one story that would convince strangers that she is "gifted" (although I was in the gifted program throughout my school years, and dh was apparently labelled gifted as well....). How would I identify giftedness in a 3 yo? And, if she is not gifted, what else would explain these traits? (high anxieties, big imagination, intensity, persistence, sensory issues, high needs). What is the relationship between spirited and gifted?

If she is not gifted, and I can't hang out here, where do I find my support group? :LOL

Dear god, you took the words right out of my mouth!

My son is almost 2.5 and he is also very bright, but gifted? I dunno....But he is like yours--so perceptive, so intense, so rigid, so so so! It is really hard sometimes (well, all the time, really!) especially when people just think I should "get control of him."

[FreeRangeMama]

I just love this thread!! Britishmum, I can completely relate to the potty issues. We did EC with ds1 and he was pretty much "graduated" by 18 mo. He had an occasional pee accident and stiil wore a diaper at night. One day he decided he didn't want to pee in the potty/toilet anymore (thankfully he still poops there ;) ) and he hasn't since then on any consistant basis. Its been 1.5 years! If he is naked he will go in the potty, but never clothed. It's not that he CAN'T, its that he WON'T. At this point he is in pull-ups even though I hate them. He refuses to acknowledge the Blue's Clues underware he got for his birthday even though he is obsessed with Blue.

That brings me to another topic......obsessions. We don't have cable, so we don't even get Blue's Clues. He has a few DVD's that he rarely watches, and he went through a big game phase and finished all the PC games, but is over that. Just the same, he is obsessed! He has this whole fantasy world involving all the characters. We have to take Blue everywhere and I need to direct my conversations toward her. He wears one of his *6* BC t-shirts EVERY DAY and refuses to take them off even at night! He cannot sleep unless he is wearing his BC slippers and he remembers almost every episode he has seen in the past year and acts them all out daily. Everything in our house is a "clue" or a "wreath" (since xmas, he finds circle shaped things and draws them in his "handy dandy notebook). It seems far beyond a normal childhood interest, but at least its harmless and educational :rolleyes:

Anyone else have an obsessive dc?

[Profmom]

Obsessions, yes! DS has had a series of "interest" obsessions from about 2yo. First it was Richard Scarry books. He would sit and look at those for hours and hours. Then it was space, then Egypt, then ancient Sumeria (!), then Greek Myths, then Judaism. Now it is violins. My mom gave him an Encyclopedia of Violin for his 11th birthday and he wants to sleep with it next to his pillow.

I find these obsessive interests much easier to cope with than the emotional overload, esp. since now, in grade 5, his "knowledge" is really beginning to be a positive thing in school. His class recently did a "unit of inquiry" -- it is an International Baccalaureate Primary Years Program he attends -- on religion, and his research topic was religion and the Crusades. He was so excited about it and got tons of positive feedback from the class and his teacher. A far cry from being teased for being "weird" at his old school.

Another plus: we were at the British Museum in London a few weeks ago and we went to the Egyptian section. DS gave us a "tour" -- explaining all of the different Egyptian gods, burial rites, obscure facts about the culture, etc. He was so proud that he could teach US stuff we didn't know.

So I guess what I am trying to say is that the knowledge he has gathered reading about these things is becoming, more and more, a source of pride and a boost to his self-esteem.

[darlindeliasmom]

Britishmum: Just wanted to come in and thank you for starting this thread. It totally validates my own feelings that moms of these kids NEED the support of others...and where better to get support than at MDC:love :love
Thanks again. Mary

[CaliMommie]

I hope you all don't mind a post by a one who was a gifted child. I was tested in 1st grade & started attending pull-out G.A.T.E. (Gifted And Talented Education) classes when I was in 2nd grade. This is where they take you from your "regular" classroom & you attend a different class (often at a different school) once a week. (I will refer to gifted children as GATE kids in my post.)

It was good for me b/c as I got older I would get so bored in my classes that I stopped doing so well in school (around 6th grade). I did full-time GATE in 4th grade & hated it! Too many gifted kids in a small room w/a teacher who had a hard time controlling all of us spirited kids! Poor teacher.

In Jr. High & high school I took Honors classes for English, History & Science. All the other classes were mainstream classes. I got so bored in the mainstream classes that by 10th grade I was ditching school with other GATE kids b/c it felt pointless to sit in the classes when we'd already finished the work (and were ahead of the rest of the class anyway). I ended up ihn a program called College Connection for my Senior year (seniors attend the local community college instead of highschool).

I think the main drawback for me as a GATE student was the overwhelming need to be *perfect* ALL the time. I didn't give myself room for error, and if I got a B rather than an A I felt I had let everyone down. My friends who I was in GATE with have since told me they felt the same way. I would caution parents to not expect perfection from their gifted kids, even when they know the child is capable of things beyond the norm for their age. I often wouldn't do work if I didn't think I could do it perfectly! There is SO much self-inflicted competition between fellow GATE kids!

As for the child who wanted 3 of everything-not four, three- I can totally relate to that b/c even as an adult I have odd preferences like that (in fact, 3 is my "special" number, too :) ). I have obsessive-compulsive tendencies, & I am a major perfectionist & if I can't do it perfectly I won't do it all!

I hope that this post can help you in some way. I just wanted to give you a picture of what it can be like growing up "gifted". If there are any questions I might be able to answer from the child's POV I am more than willing. I hope non of my post offended anyone, and if it did, please know that it wasn't intentional. :)

AmiBeth

[Unreal]

Originally posted by Britishmum
Dh is the same, and now frustrates me as he wont try anything new in public if he's not sure he'll be good at it


No Kidding!

We are tryig to teach ds (8) to ride a bike

He give up as soon as he gets on it, because he wants to do it right the very first time.
He has a horrible case of failure avoidance ( I have *no* idea where he gets that from :innocent :W )

[Profmom]

My question is: what can we as parents DO to make the perfectionism thing less of a problem?

For us, it seems like a "can't win" situation. An example (and sorry always to use violin examples, but that's our world...speaking of obsessive interests...): Last night ds was practising. He played the very challenging song he has been working on so beautifully that my husband and I were exchanging glances, amazed. Ds's eyes were closed so he couldn't see this reaction. It was so great, that we applauded when he finished and we complimented specific aspects of it. He refused to accept the praise, and pointed out (correctly) that there were a few wrong notes in the middle, etc. etc. I know from reading "How to Talk so Your Kids Will Listen" that we should avoid praise, but how do you do this? If WE had said that he had a few wrong notes, he would have been upset. We can't win either way! HE knows what he does isn't perfect, and this really bugs him. And then he gets worked up.

Has anyone got a good strategy for dealing with this type of issue? I'd love to hear it.

CaliMommie -- thanks for the words of wisdom. I was also a gifted child, but I was so bored and tuned out that I was NOT selected for the gifted and talented program. This was really damaging to my self-esteem, and rather than serving as a "wake up call" to get me moving, it only made me more withdrawn and depressed. And boy did I resent those kids who were in the gifted programs... I managed to turn myself around in high school, but those were hard years, from grade 3 to 8. I didn't think anyone (besides Mom & Dad) believed in me.

[AlohaDeb]

Wow, thank you so much for starting this thread! It's so nice to know that it really is hard to parent a gifted child, and it's not just all in my head. I've been thinking to myself, "Why is this so hard? Am I not doing something right?" and I've also felt like I couldn't share things with other moms.

Thanks again!
--Deb

[darlindeliasmom]

for perfectionism? I know the books say to model acceptance of your own failings, and to point out that when you fail you learn something new, etc., etc.

But can i repair the times I have broken a dish and unguardedly called myself stupid? I have had to face up to my own perfectionism too, which has immobilized me at times. All choices seem good to me, and I fear making the wrong one, and so I make none...which is why dd is in public school -sigh-

So, with that in mind, how do you keep them loving learning, loving the process as much as the product, how to get them to tune down that internal judge who says they are not good enough? I think it's a tightrope between that and the method I feel the schools use, which is pointless and excessive praise.

ok, rambling here, but just wanted to tell profmom that a lot of us feel that difficulty, but I for one have not found an answer.

[Profmom]

Darlindeliasmom -- I totally agree about the senseless praise thing in the public schools. I think it even makes it worse, at least in our house, because our children (and I think most children...) KNOW it is empty praise. They don't respect it and they don't believe it. So they learn not to trust positive things that are said about them. I know that we are supposed to encourage our children to assess for themselves and not rely on external praise, but is this how it works in the real world? Don't we all look for external praise/affirmation? Our problem here is that our ds thinks almost all praise is senseless/wrong, because nothing he does is ever perfect enough for him. Or almost nothing. He holds himself to such a high standard.

[Suzannah]

Just a few things to add...

I am an endorsed gifted teacher; I teach gifted 6th graders.

1. Statistically, only 3% of the population is gifted. Period. Bright does not necessarily mean gifted.

2. Gifted students are not always high achievers (as previously noted by other posters) and high achievers are not always gifted.

3. Gifted students do not have to have other "issues" (sensitivity, emotional stuff, etc.), but they sometimes do.

4. The fastest growing section of gifted children is dual-diagnosed gifted; they are gifted with ADD, gifted with OCD, etc.

5. Acceleration for gifted students should only be a small part of a "gifted" education; I work with teachers that throw tons of work at students and offer no guidance whaysoever. That's not just bad gifted ed, it's bad ed, period.

6. There are six types of gifted students, high achievers at one end and dropouts at the other, with 4 other types in between.

7. Giftedness is not always academic; giftedness is based on the functions of the brain, basically how many steps the brain takes to solve a problem. People with "normal" IQ may take four or five steps to solve a problem (five sets of neurological firings), mentally retarded (sorry for the non-PC term; don't be offended) people fire all over their brains and don't solve the problem, and gifted people fire twice. That's it. This has been proven by various universities who have upside-down colander looking things that light up when the brain is active (and where it's active).

8. The vast majority of INDENTIFIED gifted are white girls. The tools for measuring giftedness are not helpful to diagnose boys or minority students.

PM me if you have any questions; I could ramble on forever...

[AlohaDeb]

Suzannah, what would be your recommendation? I've just started researching all this and so I know some of the basics. I also wonder if assessments jive with certain styles of parenting, and do not jive with others...? e.g., one of my friends said that children are given "points" (IQ points?!?) for being able to separate easily from their parents in the testing situation. I find that hard to believe, but like I said, I am just beginning to research this.

It's almost like AP kids could be given minority status, in a way...

[Sofiamomma]

Britishmum,
My dd is in school. She has a *very* good teacher, plus our school district's gifted program is pretty good. So she seems to be doing pretty well. I do get frustrated with some things, though. Just a tiny example: She came home with a paper that had several answers marked wrong because she did not answer word for word. It was reading comprehension. The answer was "library lady" because that was what the child in the story called her, but my dd answered "librarian." Stuff like that. But I can remember stuff like that bugging me even as a kid and I figured out how to deal with it. I can remember going round and round with a first grade teacher at a Christian school about whether Sunday is the first or last day of the week. On the calendar it comes at the beginning of the week, but is the last day of the "weekend", as well as being biblically the last day of the week. It doesn't seem to phase dd, so maybe it is just my thing! :LOL

Anyway, I think there will be good and bad in any situation. I just try to spice up dd's life with reading materials, outings/field trips, and conversation. As long as someone teaches her how to learn, she'll be fine.

I'm studying teaching strategies for my master's degree and it is a total crack up for me that there is such a huge differentiation between adult learning and children's learning. All things espoused as better for adults, i.e. self-directed learning, participation in learning goals, instrinsic motivation, etc. is good for kids, too! Pedagogy has a place, for kids and adults, but kids can move past that stage just as easily as adults, if not more easily. And of course, there is always Maslow's heirarchy of needs. Anyone, adults or children alike who are not getting basic needs met are not going to be able to learn.

[Suzannah]

AlohaDeb- there is a lot of variance in how different states/school districts assess giftedness; unfortunately, the assessment instruments definitely learn toward more traditional styles of learning than the 8 (9) intelligences identified by Howard Gardner, et. al. In my school district, students need to qualify in 3 out of 4 areas: mental ability, achievement, creativity and motivation (or they can score 99% on a mental ability test and be automatically eligible). Once your student is identified as gifted, they will ALWAYS BE GIFTED, REGARDLESS OF PERFORMANCE. This is a consoling thought, if a frustrating one, because your gifted child may do miserably in school (frustrating) but still be very, very intelligent and intuitive.

That was an interesting question about whether or not parenting style plays a role in giftedness; I was actually thinking that that question would be an excellent Ph.D project!! However, there is a ton of evidence that suggests that giftedness is mostly genetic, which is definitely encouraging because even if a child grows up in a house where no one reads to them or there is not encouragement of academics or learning, they are still gifted. The problem is that most tests measure traditional academics, not intuition, physical intelligence, social intelligence, etc, so identified gifted students generally come from households with a high level of education and income; there is a large portion of our society that does not get the services they need for gifted because they do not show traditional intelligence.

[AlohaDeb]

Suzannah, I have also read a little about the genetic component of giftedness and although it might not be a popular idea, it certainly is in congruence with the data you mentioned about gifted children's neuronal firing patterns being different.

The interesting thing I read about giftedness suggests that siblings of a gifted child are quite likely to be gifted as well... is there anyone out there dealing with *two* gifted children, and trying to AP as well? My little 8 month old says three words ["Dada," "Kitty," and "Ah-ton" (his big brother Ashton)] and I personally believe he understands quite a bit more than that. It's a little bit crazy and I feel somewhat overwhelmed. I don't think I can do it with two kids and no family around for support!

Also, does anyone have a child with light sensitivity? Ashton is okay with noise, but absolutely goes into hysterics when the sun or anything too bright is in his eyes.

[LunaMom]

I hestitate to label my daughter as "gifted," although I hesitate with most labels anyway.

I do know that my child is exceptionally bright and verbally precocious, and that she is a very fast learner and seems to understand things that the majority of kids her age do not. She also asks incredibly insightful questions about everything from science to interpersonal relationships. The only "academic" giftedness she has displayed is in her reading ability, which at age five is probably two to three years ahead, and is progressing at surprising speed with no help from me or anyone else. I did teach her a bit of phonics at age four when she asked, but we quit after a few weeks when she lost interest. We hadn't progressed much past words like "cat" or "bus," anyway.

She'll be starting kindergarten in September at our local public school and I am curious and a bit apprehensive to see how it goes. Fortunately, she does not fit the "spirited child" description. She isn't highly sensitive and adapts to new situations remarkably well, so I imagine she'll do fine. I'm more concerned with how the school will handle reading instruction. I would imagine there might be some kids who can read as well as she can but I haven't met any yet. None of her friends at this point can read anything other than their names and perhaps a few sight words (like "toys" ha ha). But that doesn't mean that the really bright ones might not catch up to her quickly with some instruction, KWIM?

I like the idea of this thread - in fact, a forum might even be a good idea. One thing I find challenging is the social aspects of having a child who is gifted or accelerated or whatever. And not just the social aspects for the child, but for the parents as well. I have found it difficult already to advocate for my child without other parents giving me the, "Ugh, shut up already, how can you be worried about your kid if she's so damn smart?" The idea that gifted children and their parents have it easy is such a common fallacy...

[Unreal]

Has anyone had trouble settling their perfectionist, supremely attached, gifted child into school? Is it better to just wait for them to be in K and deal with it at that age? (whcih gives me two years, as we are choosing to hold back not accelerate). Or to work at it now for two years to try to make it easier when we come to K? At the moment she won't even leave the house with dh unless I come, and is with me 24/7. LIterally.....

I found that ds was okay as soon as he bonded with someone at school. He would always have one really close friend, usually a friendship encouraged by me, that he felt comfortable playing with, talking to, etc.
On days when his friend would be gone, he would be kind of lost and wander around alone. This was when he was 2 and 3, not now that he is 8. Now he is more likely to find someone else to play with (during free time at the homeschool co-op, so I don't know if that really counts, since he does know all the kids there anyhow, kwim?)

[darlindeliasmom]

Britishmum, that's Delia...she started preschool at 3.5. It was run by an ap mom, and was a small school (only 12 kids total). The first year, I spent at least half of every class there..sometimes the whole class, as she just was not ready to separate. The teacher was totally cool with it, and her accepting attitude toward me really helped us.

The second year, she did better. DH would take her, and generally stay for a time; I would pick her up and spend time at school at the end, socializing with the other kids and moms. We sent dh because by 4.5 she could go places with him and separate, but still couldn't see me leave...

Kindergarten, the 1st day she happily jumped on the bus...by the second week, tho', she was refusing to go. We worked with the counselor, my very verbal child basically said it was the school bus and some rude behavior on it she objected to, and so she never rode the bus again, but went to school with DH, after a VERY long ritual of The Kissing Hand at home. Still could not handle ME dropping her off; if I tried, she would weep and cling and me miserable. But she didn't do it to dh.

The school was less patient with my ap ways than the preschool had been, but I just have been working on "appearing" confident. This year, in 1st grade, she loves the school, loves her teacher, and flies down the hallway after kissing me goodbye at the school door. The only thing that worked for her was TIME...and infinite amounts of patience on my part.

the same thing has happened with other activities...I should just not have tried before she was 7; she just COULD not let strangers be in authority over her, and only wanted me. Now she still wants to evaluate them with me present the first few times, but then she wants me gone.

Ok, long story to say BTDT. Do what feels right to you...I wouldn't have left Del in any preschool but the one where she was, and we had sooo much fun exploring the world together at that time too...

[FreeRangeMama]

I just cannot imagine ds going to school. We have been going to all the same weekly events for nearly 2 years and he still is attached to me like glue the entire time. If I am out of view for even a second he is panic-stricken. He is with me 24/7 and even hates to go to bed because he knows I will leave the bedroom after he goes to sleep (even though I will be back in a few hours to sleep for the rest of the night). I figure I am his "buffer" to the outside world. It is a good thing that I was leaning toward homeschooling anyway, but even my anti-homeschool dh agrees that it is our only option with ds. He is starting to gain confidence now, he will acknowledge other people when they speak to them, and sometimes even have a conversation with a stranger (he usually has them in stitches with his off-beat sense of humor :LOL), but only if he is physically touching me (for confidence I guess). I would hate to change ANYTHING for fear of setting him back in these areas. I sometimes think pre-school or an unparented activity for an hour or two a week would be so great because I really need the time for myself. I get so burnt out dealing with his constant intensity and need some time to recharge. It just isn't a possibility for us, nor will it be for a long time to come.

[AlohaDeb]

I must've called a dozen schools, and personally visited four or five before I found one that worked for us. A lot of them gave me that line too. But it paid off -- we're at a school that we LOVE. I actually went into the Parents' Library (a little collection of books they have available as a resource) and they had all the right books -- Womanly Art of Breastfeeding, Raising Your Spirited Child, Siblings without Rivalry, Dr. Sears stuff. I was so happy! :bgbounce

Have you investigated more "alternative" schools? (e.g., Waldorf, Montessori, etc.?)

[karen ann]

I don't usually read this board but saw the title on the Parenting Issues main page. I never particularly thought about my DS (nearly 3.5) being "gifted" or anything. I knew he was intelligent; he could spell 5 or 6 words, knew all the letters and numbers up to 30, do basic addition & subtraction in his head, count to 20 in Spanish, and write his name and 2 other words when he entered preschool at 2 years 9 months. (I started him then because 1/ there aren't any other kids his age around here and I thought he could use the socialization, which is the main focus of this nursery program he's in and 2/ since I just divorced, I needed to increase my hours at my part time job and had no other child care options.) I just figured it was because we (my parents and I) encouraged him in his interest and nothing "different" or "special" about him. But then his teachers started telling me they (and the behavior specialist observing as part of the advanced accredidation they're getting) think he's gifted. He's a perfectionist -- refuses to color in pictures because he can't stay in the lines, etc. He can put together 30 piece jigsaw puzzles in minutes. Every art project at school he puts his own twist on and always has a story behind it; when they were gluing little penguins on a letter P, he did half his penguins "backwards" (i.e. the printed picture glued down onto the paper) because, in his words "They were hiding" (he'd just learned to play hide and seek). He can be hyper-sensitive and emotionally intense. He latches onto pieces of clothing (for the last 6 months a purple Jeff Wiggle shirt I made him) and refuses to wear anything else. He hates tags -- in his clothing, on his toys, price stickers on his cereal box, on *my* clothes, etc. He's very intuitive about others' feelings, even if his empathy is haphazard.

I have been struggling so much to keep his life stable. I'd LOVE to homeschool but I *need* to get a full time job in the near future (next year or two) so I can save up to move out of my parents' house (my ex doesn't have a decent job & no prospects, so I have to support DS), and the only "gifted" school in the area is 1.5 hours away. There's no way I could afford Montessori or anything like that (can barely afford this school, and that's just because I'm mooching of mum & dad).

After reading this, I still haven't a clue what to do for him but I feel a little less alone about it.

[Sofiamomma]

Britishmum, Your dd2 sounds a lot like my dd1 at that age, so she may not be just copying her sister!

My second may be gifted as well. It is still hard to tell as she is not quite 14 months. Her sense of humor is my best clue at this point. Very sophisticated at one!

P.S. My mom wants you all to know she raised *four* gifted children!! :LOL She thinks you will do just fine! :D

[Suzannah]

I hope you don't find my posting obnoxious, but I just wanted to point something out (and I am familiar with this because of my training as a gifted teacher).

As attachment parents, you guys are able to expose your children to more things; you read to them, you talk to them, you take them places and listen to what they have to say. Your homes are probably rich in creative play toys, and there seems to be very little TV watching going on (except for the occasional sanity- or I-need-to-fold-the-laundry-inspired video or PBS!!). Your children will DEFINITELY be ahead of thier peers because of this.

It is difficult, however, to truly "label" a child gifted prior to 2nd grade; I don't know why 2nd grade and not 1st or 3rd or whatever, but it could be because they are truly begininning to read in 2nd and not just memorizing or repeating sight words. Children raised in homes w/o attachment parenting, or with parents who are less involved, don't read to their kids, or simply have to work many, many jobs to make ends meet, will enter school "behind" because of limited exposure to rich learning experiences (going to the zoo, the library, story times, etc.). Children in those homes are also more likely to watch more television (there is ZERO JUDGEMENT here; I'm just stating facts!!). These children, upon entering school, will "catch up" a bit with their peers as they are exposed to more things.

2nd grade seems to be when kids can be truly, recognizably (read: "testable") gifted. Your children seem to display already some of the gifted characteristics (including but not limited to advanced language learning, intuitive questions, and a dissonance with the world around them in the sense that what they know doesn't match with what everyone else expects them to know/be able to do), but it because of your home environments you have already given them a "jump start."

This is not to say your kids aren't gifted; I am not qualified to make that judgement based on the present information. I guess I am advocating for doing exactly what you're already doing: choosing great schools, enriching their lives with play and activities, and generally supporting them. I see a lot of parents at my level (6th grade), though, that really push their kids, and the kids just dig their heels in. I am really enjoying reading your posts; it gives me new insights into my own students and where they're coming from. Keep going!!!

[Suzannah]

Please don't misunderstand me; I am not, not, not saying you are pushing your dc's!! It was just a general comment. I had hoped that everyone would be more encouraged by the fact that you have such wonderful homes that your children can truly shine and be who they are.

[grnbn76]

I actually do the opposite to pushing, I know I slow things down. We take whole days where I avoid the formal stuff (that she would like to do) . We go ot the park and hang around with other AP families, we play in the garden. I can't help but talk to her at her level, but I certainly don't push. But when she starts questioning me about the names of the moons of Mars, what do I do? ;)

.

I do the very same thing. We homeschool, and I have taken weeks and months "off school" for this very reason. We finally came to an agreement with our dd that we would only "do school" three days a week. The other days are for play and family time.
I have gotten into fights...yes, fights. Like with yelling and arguing that lasts for hours. I'm not proud of it, but I'm adult enough to admit it. Fights with my dd about how it is not necessary to learn ALL of multiplication AND division in ONE DAY!!! Who cares if bedtime comes and goes (and the sun is rising) as long as I still missed ONE problem on the sheet of 100 random multiplication and division facts???!!! Missing one problem is the reason to keep going!!! (Or at least that's what she was yelling at me...I was too exhausted at that point to create a rational thought.)
My dd's birthday is in a couple of weeks, and she just created her gift wish list. I had to keep sending her back to work on it, because that list doesn't contain one single plaything. Yes, it contains a PDR and Gray's Anatomy, and those might be interesting reading for an almost-7yo, but they aren't TOYS. The other day she asked me "Mom, have you ever had rubella?". I nearly banned her from anything and everything even remotely medical. Unfortunately, that is where her current interests lie, and medical books are light reading before bedtime.

I try and try (and have for about 4 years now) to slow her down. I don't push...she pulls. And she pulls HARD. I read to her daily when she was a toddler, one day she got mad because I wasn't reading the newspaper to her, and she started reading the other side of what I was reading. (Yes, I was shocked...she got pretty much every word right, I had no clue she could read, and she was barely over 3.)

Unfortunately, her brothers (currently at 3 and 18mos) are showing signs of being exactly like their big sister. It is actually hard for me sometimes to be around "average" kids...Why on earth wouldn't a 2yo know his/her colors and how to count to 20??? I get stuck in "how my kids are doing" and think it's normal. There are times when I hope that this baby is "average", just so I will get to experience an "average" child.
I recently got into a "discussion" with my 3yo about the brontosaurus (did you all know that the brontosaurus never existed? It's really the bones of two dinosaurs accidentally put together) I never knew that. I learned about the brontosaurus and that was that. He set me straight. Let's face it...it is NEVER a fun time when your 3yo tells you (in more words) that you are hopelessly ignorant.
Yep...I want a normal, average kid next!

[grnbn76]

Britishmum,
We are in the same situation with my oldest.
She can't exactly play with children on her intelect-appropriate level, because she doesn't share the social skills or interests.
She has a hard time playing with children on her age-appropriate level, because they definately don't share the same interests. If she does play with kids her own age, she either gets terribly upset and frustrated by the whole thing, or she will even "dumb herself down" in order to make herself more approachable, or to get them to like her.
She loves to be around adults, because they are usually talking about things she finds interesting, yet many adults think she is being a "nuisance" or (my favorite) "too big for her britches" trying to participate in "adult conversations".
She hasn't found her niche, and I'm sadly not doing very well helping her find it. She does very well with younger children (she expects children her age or older to have her set of basic skills, but she does not expect the same thing of children younger than she is.), but she certainly needs more stimulation than will come from only being around toddlers.

I really don't know how to make this one better, except the knowing that at least in our family, she's accepted.

[AlohaDeb]

We've been having the same problems here. Although we LOVE our preschool, and ds enjoys going there, he isn't really playing with the other kids and mostly interacts with the teachers or by himself. He seems to like all the different toys and things to do in the classroom, but he has tried to engage the other children but it doesn't work. After trying to engage them, he starts to get annoyed, bored and frustrated. He desperately wants to have a friend. :(

He enjoys playing with kids either a couple years older or younger. But his chronological age-mates aren't doing it for him. Opinions on this? Is this something that is a problem, do you think? We've been thinking of advancing him a little, maybe to a 4yr old class.

[Sofiamomma]

Just a quick to note to say I sympathize with the social stuff and adult attitudes. My dd really loves theatre and just shines where she can interact with kids that range in age from 5 -18. The older girls really dote on her and she them. I'll bet there are homeschool groups that would have similar benefits.

[eilonwy]

I had no idea this was here! Very cool. I have one very bright 18 month old son and a NewBean on the way. I'm gonna go read the thread before I post anymore. :LOL

[FreeRangeMama]

We have had major socialization problems with ds. He just doesn't "get" other kids. He watches them playing and doesn't understand why they are ramming cars together (he would rather park them with the bumpers match up perfectly) or why they are screaming and yelling (he would rather sit quietly and organize the toys into categories). Often he just seems lost. He does well with older kids. A couple of 8 yo boys have taken him under their wings at Dharma school (kinda like Buddhist sunday school) and he enjoys watching them.

OTOH he had his first REAL conversation with another 3 yo yesterday. I was so proud of him!! To most people this wouldn't be a big deal, but FOR HIM it was amazing. He walked up to the boy and started asking him questions about the book he was looking at. At first the other boy was taken aback by the questions he was being asked, but eventually they had a whole conversation! I was just so darn proud of him because he seemed really confident in the situation and it was so unlike how he usually is in those scenarios :)

[eilonwy]

This is a really cool thread. :LOL

I (and two of my siblings) would fall into the category of 'profoundly gifted' (my other two siblings would just be "gifted":LOL); my son is just shy of 18 months old and while he's not quite where we were at that age, he's obviously very, very bright, and not just precocious. I agree that it's difficult to determine giftedness in very young children, but that's because much less research has been done on giftedness than on mental retardation. 30 years ago, they said that you couldn't tell if a child was autistic before they were, what, six or seven? Now they're diagnosing children as young as two. If you look at the 'bell curve' for intelligence, you'll see a bubble at the low end; that's because testing is more sophisticated at the low end than the high end. But I digress! My point is, long before there was any "proof" that children could exhibit signs of autism before they were a certain age, parents could tell; the same is true for gifted and profoundly gifted children today.

The perfectionism is a hard thing to deal with, and very very common in gifted children. They feel a need to be perfect because they're capable of more than other kids and they're aware of it, so they want to compensate for what their age-peers can't do. My brother would get absolutely hysterical about the injustices of the world from a very young age. He is, to this day, a paranoid worrying kind of person. I joke that it's because he's a virgo (every virgo I've ever met has worried like this, regardless of their intelligence). Anything unjust seemed to just jump out at him and make him miserable, like the fact that other people had so much and we had so little, or when he found out that hamburgers (his favorite food at the time) came from cows, or the children who were starving in Ethiopia, or any number of other things.

I felt a little differently about things; I worried about them, but always felt like I'd change the world once I got old enough that people would take me seriously. Eventually, I figured out what I would change, and what I was going to do about it and now I'm working on it. :LOL I'm much more relaxed about things like that than my brother was.

Making mistakes is a huge crime to a gifted child; we're not allowed to make mistakes. The farther from the average a child is, the more aware they are of it. Teachers (and parents too, sometimes) seem surprised or disappointed when a gifted child does not perform optimally, and no matter what you do to hide it, the child knows that they've disappointed you with their performance. They feel like they should never even attempt something that they're not already certain of doing well at, because they don't want to risk that disappointment. I think that the best way to deal with this is to emphasize positive aspects of things they didn't do well at (You tried something new! That's so cool!) and to let them see *you* making mistakes, and how you deal with them. It's also important to commend your child when they do well. This was very irritating to me as a child, and still is today: my mother seemed to expect me to get perfect scores on achievment tests and such, and never commented on them unless my scores were less than the maximum. I never heard "hey, you did a great job on those tests" or even "thanks for going to school that day and staying awake for the test", but when one of my scores was a 12.7 instead of a 12.9, she asked me why. :splat

Make mistakes, let your children know that you're not perfect. Let them know that you're willing to risk not being the best at something, and that it's really not the end of the world. My mother, whenever she failed at something (and oh, it happened all the time!!) would blame someone else for her problems. (Often me; it was, after all, my fault that her life sucked so much in the first place.) She never, ever, ever took responsibility for her failings, and as a result none of us could ever see failure as a normal part of being human. It was obviously better to lie about it or blame someone else than to fall short in any respect.

Because we were so bright, we picked up on these attitudes *very* early... I can remember having these thoughts as young as 3 years old. Incidentally, the first time I attempted suicide I was three; I felt like a failure, couldn't find someone else to blame, so I internalized that and figured that the only way to correct the mistake and keep it from happening again was to take myself out of the picture. Since there was no place for me to run away too (I knew that walking would make me tired long before anyone looking for me) I thought it would be best to kill myself. Sounds strange, but this was seriously my thought process; it was right around my third birthday.

About school: I never in my wildest dreams associated school with learning. I had no idea that most people did until I was in second or third grade and someone asked me what I'd learned in school. I told them that you didn't learn things in school, you learn things at home or at the library. They asked me why kids go to school and I told them that it was so their parents would have time to clean the house and have time to themselves without kids around. "Then why do you do those books and worksheets and things at school?" "Well, how else is one person supposed to entertain a dozen kids for 8 hours?" They had nothing to say to that. :LOL My mother thought that I wasn't interested in learning after third grade, because I had lost interest in school by then. She wasn't really aware that I had never linked the two in my mind. The first time I learned something in school, it was my junior year of high school in AP Chemistry. :LOL

My children, needless to say, will not be attending school. I went to private and public schools (so did Mike, who is bright and probably above average but not gifted) and feel that niether would suit my children as well as I would. Private schools tend to foster an unhealthy sense of elitism and entitlement which does not serve children well later in life, and public schools cannot cater to individuals, despite their best efforts. Slightly to moderately gifted children can thrive in the public school system; exceptionally and profoundly gifted children are just as lost as profoundly retarded children.

About being three: I missed this, because my big awakening happend at 18 months, but I have a niece who flipped out about being three years old, and later about being four. This was because other things were associated with the birthday that she wasn't ready to deal with; for example, for her third birthday she was told she'd have to give up drinking from a bottle. She wasn't ready to let go, so she decided she wasn't turning three. She also had to give up using her pacifier in public; this was very difficult for her, and made her want to stay in the house and be two for the rest of her life. At four, she had to give up the pacifier for good and would ask "Can I be three for ten minutes?" meaning "Could I have my pacifier for ten minutes?" :crying

Many children, especially those who can think about it, feel pressure to perform differently once they hit a certain age. For example, I remember thinking that I should behave differently once I turned two because my age would no longer be mentioned in months. It wasn't an issue for me, because I was already doing most of the things that would have been asked of me (drinking from a cup, using the potty by myself, etc) but for most gifted children, it is. They feel a pressure to grow up in a hurry because people (adults) don't take them seriously as children, and they feel a need to be taken seriously so they can get on with the business of changing the world for the better and compensating for their age-peers and such. So don't press them to grow up first, just take them seriously now. My mother always talked to me like a person (she too was a profoundly gifted child, as well as someone who remembered being 18 months old and being irritated with grownups not treating her like a person... as her mother before her was). She asked my opinions, she gave me choices, she listened to my ideas and honestly considered them. This is one of the things she definately did right, and this is what I do with Eli even now.

I never fit in with my age mates, and I never understood them. The very first time this happened, I was about 25 months old and was at a friend of my mom's house. She had a little girl (who I later found out was actually older than I was) whom I was expected to play with, but she couldn't talk. :scratch I tried to engage her, but she didn't understand me so I walked away and picked up a book (Green Eggs and Ham by Dr. Seuss) and sat down to read it. The little girl picked up a green crayon and started to write in the book! :eek I told her that books are for reading, not for drawing and I tried to take the crayon away from her, and she totally freaked out. Her mother came and asked me what she had done and I told her. She said "Oh, she's allowed to color in her books." I made a face ( :irked: ) and said "Books are for reading, not coloring," but I handed the little girl a book. She said "Don't you have any coloring books? She thinks all her books are coloring books." I had no idea what she was talking about, and my mother told her "No, my kids don't have coloring books. They color on paper, they read books." I was so confused by it, but the next time we went to the grocery store, mom showed me the coloring books. I brought one home and was very disappointed, and decided I liked paper better. My brother liked the coloring book, though; he liked the lines clearly delineating where to color and where not to. I found it irritating. :LOL

Some children are not emotionally prepared to deal with older children, while others are not really equipped to deal with children their own age. I don't think this really has to do with giftedness per se, but it is much easier to see the discrepencies when a child is gifted, kwim? And then there's the physical aspect: I was smaller than all of my classmates, as well as younger (late birthday; I didn't technically start early). A small-for-age not quite five year old in a classroom full of average to large kids who *all* turned six before my fifth birthday. I was physically lost, even though I was much more mature emotionally as well as intellectually. When they played house, they always wanted me to be the mother even though I was the smallest. (I hated playing house, because I was the oldest of four children in a single parent family. Why would I want to pretend to change diapers when I had to really change diapers all the time? :rolleyes: ) When they played school, they always wanted me to play the teacher (this was more acceptable to me, as it usually just meant that I had to read a book to the group and that was easy enough. :LOL) I had a class full of kids who were larger than I am who looked up to me... but I couldn't push myself on the swings, because my legs didn't reach the ground when I sat on them. I could win every game that involved skill, but physical size is a huge advantage in many games that kids that age play and I always lost those. As far as I'm concerned, this is one more reason to keep my kids out of school. Eli is very small for his age (just yesterday I noticed that for the first time when he sits down in his 6-9 month sized pants, his ankles show; he's finally getting too tall for them!) and if he follows in my (and his father's) footsteps, he'll stay that way until he's at least 12 or 13.

Back to my own son: Eli wants to get out of diapers, learn to read, and do all sorts of other things which I simply can't deal with right now beacuse I am hugely pregnant. :LOL If I wasn't in my third trimester, I'm fairly certian that Eli would be dry all day by now, and I know that he'd know all his letters and numbers (right now, I'd say he knows about a third of his letters and recognizes & counts 0 through 11 with no prompting; at least, that's all he knew last time I asked him :LOL). I also know that he'd still be getting most of his nourishment from breastmilk, that he'd still need to be snuggled to fall asleep comfortably, that playing in a puddle of water would still be terribly amusing.. in other words, that he's still a baby, despite his intellect. He does lots of amazing things, and it fascinates me, but I'm still aware that he is a baby and needs to be treated as such. He still needs a hug and a kiss when he gets a boo-boo, even though he knows the kiss doesn't really make the boo-boo go away.

After NewBean is born and my post-partum brain fog and TBP have resolved themselves, I will help Eli do the things he wants so desperately to do. I too feel like I'm holding my child back, and it's a really disturbing feeling to me as I promised never to do it. It's a physical limitation, but still it :irked: irks me something fierce! How many parents can say that their child was ready to potty learn before they were? Or really want to cry because their child is harassing them to learn how to read or count or spell and they just can't summon the energy to deal with it? *sigh*

Wow, this is a really long post!! :LOL :LOL I hope someone's made it to the end of all that rambling. I'll try to keep it more concise in the future. :wink

[AlohaDeb]

How many parents can say that their child was ready to potty learn before they were? Or really want to cry because their child is harassing them to learn how to read or count or spell and they just can't summon the energy to deal with it?

This is so exactly how I feel!! I'm angry with myself because ds was ready for the potty at around 18 months, and I stupidly listened to "experts" who said that was too early and there's no way they could really understand it. And it's kinda scary when your child holds up a pretzel that he's bitten into the letter B shape and says "B!" at 14 months. My stomach flip-flopped.

But I keep on reminding myself that it's a good thing, too. His life is going to be amazing in a lot of ways, too :)

[grnbn76]

This is so exactly how I feel!! I'm angry with myself because ds was ready for the potty at around 18 months, and I stupidly listened to "experts" who said that was too early and there's no way they could really understand it. And it's kinda scary when your child holds up a pretzel that he's bitten into the letter B shape and says "B!" at 14 months. My stomach flip-flopped.

But I keep on reminding myself that it's a good thing, too. His life is going to be amazing in a lot of ways, too :)

I just have to nod and say "uh huh".

My 3yo started using the potty way earlier than I ever wanted him to! I actually had to stop and remind myself that it was okay for him to go if he wanted to! My 18mo is already pottying during the day. It's hard for me to believe, it's hard for anyone to believe, so I have to rationalize it away by saying that he sees db go potty, so it's normal. But still, it's not.
And making it all the more difficult for me is the fact that my dd potty trained SO late!!! She knew how to use the potty. She could use the potty. She just didn't have time in the day to do it. She didn't want to take the time away from the fabulous things she was doing to waste time just sitting in a boring room for no reason. Still to this day I often have to remind her to wipe...it adds too much time to the toileting process to wipe, too! She can literally do her business in 15 seconds flat.

[eilonwy]

For me, it's slightly aggravated by the fact that my mother doesn't see anything strange about it. By the time I was 18 months old, I'd been putting myself on the potty & cleaning up for three months, so *that's* what she sees as normal. My brother trained at 14 months because I wouldn't let him flush my poop (flushing was the best part of using the potty!). He started to cry and I told him that if he wanted to flush the toilet, he had to flush his own. He sat down and pooped, and three days later he was out of diapers too.

I still think she should be impressed by EliBean; it's really cool that he wants to be a big boy and use the potty. *sigh* Anyway, I was beginning to think I was losing my mind.. every time I mention the fact that Eli is trying to potty learn on another thread, without the benefit of EC, I feel like I'm getting 'funny looks' through cyberspace. :LOL It's good to know that other kids train before their parents are ready for it! I'm glad I'm not the only one who feels like my child is pulling me along for the ride, instead of vice-versa. :LOL

[AlohaDeb]

Britishmum, we are right there witcha. I totally messed up and now, although ds#1 knows exactly what to do and can do, he won't. It's a complete power struggle! :( I feel like if I had done it when he was younger, it would have gone much more smoothly.

I have pretty much given up on reading any parenting books or listening to those same "experts" now with ds#2. Most of it just doesn't apply, or else I'm like, "Huh? They were doing that 6 months ago..."

[eilonwy]

I have pretty much given up on reading any parenting books or listening to those same "experts" now with ds#2. Most of it just doesn't apply, or else I'm like, "Huh? They were doing that 6 months ago..."


:LOL My sister laughed at me when i read those books during my first pregnancy. "Books lie," she said. She was so right. :LOL She was so right. My labor wasn't anywhere near those books, and nothing since has been either. Well, that's not true: Eli hit most of his physical milestones only about 6 weeks ahead of the average, as I recall. Some were closer than that, I think. It was the social and mental milestones that he just zipped past. He said his first sentance at about 7.5 weeks; even I thought it was a fluke until he started doing it all the time. I went looking and haven't been able to find anything like that anywhere. :shake

It's not too bad right now, but I'm expecting to get a lot of flack for "pushing" Eli in the near future. :rolleyes: Right now, thankfully, he looks older than he is. Tiny, but old.. like a really really small 2.5 year old. So people think his behavior is very normal. :LOL In six more months, though, when he's totally out of diapers (assuming I can find underpants for a tiny boy with no hips) and talking like a person all the time... :shrug I figure it'll start in earnest around then.

And of course, I wonder about NewBean. I'm sure she'll be very bright, but will she be like Eli? What will people say if Eli stays on his current track, but NewBean never really gets there... that I'm a horrible sexist who thinks that only boys should be taught these things? I'm not terribly worried that she'll be average, but I wonder what she'll be like in comparison to Eli, if we'll have to deal with competition and such... *shudder* And what if she's way ahead of EliBean? What then?! :nut It makes my head spin!

[eclipse]

well, my ds has been harassing me for a year to learn to read, and i'm finally helping him with it (although TBH, he's doing a lot of it on his own). if i hadn't been so bogged down with having another child, i'm sure he'd be reading totally by now. he was recognizing words long before two, but now is getting into the nitty gritty of phonics. btw, what do you tell a three year old who thinks its really silly that a p and an h together makes an f sound? :LOL

today he was walking around in a laundry bag flapping his arms and told me he was trunign into a butterfly. i asked if the bag was his cacoon and he said "no mommy, its my chrysalis" sigh. and a week or two ago, he had a total meltdown due to the fact that i said the sun was setting - but he knows the sun doesn't really set, but that the earth turns away from the sun. did i mention that he is three? apparently my brother was just like this, and he is gifted in the "too smart to exist well in society" sort of way. i really worry about that for my son. i was a gifted child as well, but much less of a perfectionist.

[AlohaDeb]

[QUOTE=eilonwypast. He said his first sentance at about 7.5 weeks;[/QUOTE]

7.5 WEEKS?!? Wow, that is amazing!!!

[AlohaDeb]

I've been throwing myself into learning more about giftedness, since we are schooling outside the home and I want to be prepared to advocate for my son if I need to. Anyway, here's a few links and books that I've liked so far:

http://www.geniusdenied.com
http://www.hoagiesgifted.com

_Bringing Out the Best: A Resource Guide for Parents of Young Gifted Children_ by Jacqulyn Saunders

(Haven't finished this book, but I like is because it is especially aimed at pretty young kids, 3 - 8 yrs.)

Anyone else have some good resources?

[eilonwy]

btw, what do you tell a three year old who thinks its really silly that a p and an h together makes an f sound? :LOL

The same thing you'd tell a 6 or 9 or 12 year old: You're right, it is really silly. :LOL :wink Depending on his interests, you might explain about languages of origin (how American English has words from different languages around the world, and we use different letters to represent those sounds/letters that we don't have). I found that most interesting when I was three, but not every kid does. I'm a language geek. :LOL :laugh:


7.5 WEEKS?!? Wow, that is amazing!!!

Amazing, or scary, depending on how you look at things. :LOL His first sentance was "Eli nurse!" The "nurse" came out more like "nurzh" becuase he didn't have any teeth, but it was definately distinguishable, and meaningful, and not just to me. Everyone heard him say it (because he wanted to nurse all the time. :LOL). People outside of the family would scratch their heads and rub their eyes and look at me in a whole different light. Whenever I mentioned memories/things from my early childhood, they'd kind of roll their eyes and say "Yeah, right, whatever" but after hearing Eli ask to nurse before he was two months old, they started to pay more attention and I gained a lot of credibility. :LOL My mother never blinked; I may have spoken at 7 weeks, but she wouldn't know because she was in the throes of morning sickness with my brother. :rolleyes: What she does know is that by the time my brother came home I was a walking talking person.

[GreenHippieMama]

Finding this thread has been a blessing for me,it's getting too late for me to read all the posts but I'll be back asap. I've been so frustrated with dd (she just turned 10) and have been so busy focusing on the baby (15 months and climbing up everything in sight now).I forgot how often her overly-emotional behavior and also her obnoxiousness (forgive me but it's true sometimes!) are parts of her giftedness!And she is in public school and the school year ends in 2 weeks here.Any kind of schedule change can just send her into a really edgy state,birthday meltdowns are an annual event for us and reading other's posts about the same phenomenon just made me feel so much better. Thank you all for being here!

[girlzmommy00]

Just spotted this thread as well.

I was considered profoundly gifted while in school and would consider all 3 of my girls gifted as well. My oldest, she's 10, was recently tested. She has a learning disability as well as being gifted, which is why it took so long to be diagnosed. Luckily her school has completely adjusted their typical special ed program for her since they realized that putting her in resource room classes with others in her grade (4th grade) probably wouldn't benefit her. So she's in 4th grade for some classes and 6th grade for the rest. Though I worry since her school only goes up to 6th grade, so we're meeting in a couple weeks to try and figure out next year's plan.

I went to public schools in New Jersey but the district was really big on their gifted program. I had reports in kindergarten, started college in 3rd grade, while still going to elementary school as well, and by high school, they were nice enough to just give me a shortened day, since I finshed my requirements in 10th grade. My senior year, I just came in for 2 hours. They were originally going to let me graduate after 10th grade, but I ran into the down side of being gifted and the perfectionist issues, and developed a serious eating disorder. So instead of going to college full time at 16, I was hospitalized.

Given all that, I try to offer the girls different things to stimulate their interested but won't push. My oldest is so much like I was at her age. She gets stressed so easily if everything isn't "just so". She recently started counseling to deal with her LD diagnosis as well as other family issues we have going on now (DH walked out last fall). I really feel the counseling is quite helpful for her. I can also relate to her relationships with her friends and adults. All of her friends are 2-3 years older and I constantly hear from other adults, how mature she is in coversations with them.

My 4 year old is definately spirited as well as gifted. She has her own mind about everything and then some. I often joke that I can see her as the CEO of her own company as an adult since she's so strong minded. Interestingly, she's also really tall, so it at least helps her with friendships, since she fits in better intellectually with older children and they usually just assume she's their age due to her height (she's 4 and 49 inches tall). My 4 year old also goes to counseling, which I really see benefits her as well. I can relate to the sensory issues (we took her to fireworks once and she was so upset, she threw up), and do see that the counseling is really making a difference on her tolerance level of noises, situations, etc.

And Lily, my youngest, she's the one who I often say is so smart it's scary since she's more advanced at her age than her sisters were and I see how smart my oldest is. I think she also benefits from the interaction with her older sisters since she's not the typical 19 month old. I think the funniest is her understanding of the correct use of the English language. She will correct you if you aren't using the correct tense of verbs and is big on making sure she's using the correct pronouns in her sentences. Though I must admit, I'm a sucker for making sure I'm doing the same, so I know where she gets that from LOL. At least I'm old enough to know not to correct others, but luckily it's still cute when you are 1. I also love that I can call her if she's at my mom's and we can have real phone conversation.

[eilonwy]

So what are your biggest issues right now in dealing with gifted children? I don't get accused of pushing Eli (yet :rolleyes: ) but I already have to worry about bragging. I feel like I can't discuss what Eli's doing from a developmental standpoint because a)I don't want other people to feel worried that their kids aren't doing what is and b)I hate the implication that I'm somehow judging other people's parenting.

It's so difficult! I want to shout it from the rooftops whenever he does something new, I think that every parent does... but I feel so conflicted about it all. :crying It doesn't help that Eli's absolutely beautiful, either. I can feel the burning looks like "Not only is your child gorgeous, and sweet, and loving, he's a genius too? Geez, rub salt in my wounds, why don't you!" It's not like I made him the way he is, really. I didn't sit down and draw a picture of the kid I wanted, this was just what happened. Why do I always feel like I have to defend myself against people with normal kids, or kids who are "just cute" or "just bright" or anything else? Argh!

Hm. Maybe this is pregnancy hormones.. I'm just really bummed about this right now. :crying

[fourgrtkidos]

Glad I found this thread. It would never occur to me to ask other mamas for a support for "gifted " children beacause it seems so arrogant. But these kids do need stuff others don't, just like a handicapped person needs some special treatment, opportunities. Hope you guys know what I mean. All my kids are bright, but my first born just blows me away!!! SO, Unbelievably Smart! It took me awhile to get over the idea that "everybody thinks their kid is smart."
And realize it was ok to really KNOW he was GIFTED!

[fourgrtkidos]

The problem I'm facing now is he is too social and is refusing homeschooling. There aren't alot of middle or highschool homeschool groups- that I can find. So, our local middle school has an @$$ of a principle that took all gifted classes away when he took the school over three yrs ago. He (the principle)looked me in the eye at orientation night and said " I don't believe in special treatment. I'm not going to spend money on your kid because you think he's better than everyone else." It was hard for me to answer him- because this is exactly what I try to fight. I in no way think my kid is better than anyone else. Why do people have to go there? If a kid has a talent they should be supported and encouraged to use it. I believe in multiple intelligences. My kid happens to be book smart. Another might be artistically or musically gifted. I even have a friend who's 10 yr old can not read beyond a 2nd grade level, but he fixes all the neighbors lawnmowers, changes tires and can build a radio from spare parts. Is he stupid? The public school people might say so, but I think he's gifted in a different way. Can you, an adult, take your neighbors 3 broken lawnmowers and build him one perfect new one from the bottom up?!
So, now that I've rambled, we moved to a diff school district with a gifted middle school.

[AlohaDeb]

I feel like I can't discuss what Eli's doing from a developmental standpoint because a)I don't want other people to feel worried that their kids aren't doing what is and b)I hate the implication that I'm somehow judging other people's parenting.


Oh eilonwy, I know how you feel! :hug I've had so many instances where I unwittingly mentioned something ds is doing, and the other parent is so surprised and often visibly dismayed. I guess this sounds selfish but it takes away some of the joy of sharing for me. I've actually gotten to the point that I don't often share much except with family. But then that kinda pisses me off, too, because why should I feel ashamed to share these things?

It's really really nice to be able to share these things with people here. Three cheers again for Britishmum, for starting this thread! :twothumbs

[Suzannah]

Is he stupid? The public school people might say so, but I think he's gifted in a different way. Can you, an adult, take your neighbors 3 broken lawnmowers and build him one perfect new one from the bottom up?!


This is what Howard Gardner's work on multiple intelligences is all about. This, to me, is a child who is intelligent in a different way; unfortunately, school systems generally only recognize verbal and mathematical intelligence.

[eilonwy]

This is what Howard Gardner's work on multiple intelligences is all about. This, to me, is a child who is intelligent in a different way; unfortunately, school systems generally only recognize verbal and mathematical intelligence.

And that only to a certain point, beyond which you are SOL. :rolleyes:

Even if I thought that Eli was perfectly average, I'd keep him home from school so that I wouldn't have to deal with principals like the one mentioned above. I've seen so much of that! I had an IEP when I went to school, mostly because my mother threw fits at the administration and because my test scores were so ludicrously high that they felt obliged to do what they could to keep me. :rolleyes: Even so, I spent a lot of time bored and miserable at school. They can only do so much, you know? A gifted program with somewhat excited but not terribly bright teachers wasn't all that helpful to me. Sure, it got me out of class a lot, but so did in school suspension! :LOL I loved ISS, especially in high school; I just couldn't get over it! It was like "Okay, I'm late for school every single day because I don't want to be in class, so to 'punish' me, you're sending me to a room where I can sit and read any book I want and do logic problems all day? And I'm not expected to talk to anyone or answer stupid questions after attendance is taken? Brilliant!" I used to just grab something off the shelf that I hadn't read yet (or something that I had and loved) and a new book of logic problems and I was all set for a lovely day of doing nothing. It was better than staying home, because noone was hassling me to clean my room. It was perfectly quiet, and well lit.. if there had been a window, I'd have been happier than a pig in slop. :LOL

EliBean is doing very well, though I can't say the same thing for myself.. I'm tired, and huge, and hot and achey all the time. My sweet Bean has been very patient with me, but I'm just not doing a great job on the mommy front these days. :shake :crying Someone please tell me that he won't be scarred for life by this! I love him so much, but I can't seem to get over the feeling that he's missing out on more than nursie-milk and extra love-loves. I feel so guilty and wonder if I'll be able to get pregnant again before NewBean is 10 without feeling so guilty...:guilty

[FreeRangeMama]

"Okay, I'm late for school every single day because I don't want to be in class, so to 'punish' me, you're sending me to a room where I can sit and read any book I want and do logic problems all day? And I'm not expected to talk to anyone or answer stupid questions after attendance is taken? Brilliant!" I used to just grab something off the shelf that I hadn't read yet (or something that I had and loved) and a new book of logic problems and I was all set for a lovely day of doing nothing. It was better than staying home, because noone was hassling me to clean my room. It was perfectly quiet, and well lit.. if there had been a window, I'd have been happier than a pig in slop. :LOL


That is how I felt in high school. I would pretend to go to school, but instead I would head to the public library and spend the day learning about things that actually interested me. I would find a stack of books about religions from around the world, different periods of history, modern theater, nutrition, etc. and just read for 7 or 8 hours. :LOL After I met dh we would meet up at the library (he was SUPPOSED to be in college and I was SUPPOSED to be in high school) and read scripts from old tv shows, rent classic comedies to watch later, or swap info about the books we had found. We always thought it was funny that most people would head to the arcade but we couldn't wait to go to the library :LOL

[FreeRangeMama]

EliBean is doing very well, though I can't say the same thing for myself.. I'm tired, and huge, and hot and achey all the time. My sweet Bean has been very patient with me, but I'm just not doing a great job on the mommy front these days. :shake :crying Someone please tell me that he won't be scarred for life by this! I love him so much, but I can't seem to get over the feeling that he's missing out on more than nursie-milk and extra love-loves. I feel so guilty and wonder if I'll be able to get pregnant again before NewBean is 10 without feeling so guilty...:guilty

During the rough parts of my pregnancy I let Akira play (educational) video games. He loved the educational aspects and learned a lot from them. He learned problem solving, math, spelling, info on the planets, telling time, etc. It helped for the early days when I was so exhausted because he NEVER slept. He picks up things very quickly that way. He could turn it on and load the games and programs without my help so I could just rest on the couch :thumb He was around 20 mo then. He also loved puzzles. He did maps of Canada and learned all the provinces and who we knew in each one. He did animals, planets, scenery, whatever caught his attention. He started with the 24 peice ones, but can now do up to 100 peices. We bought too many of the small ones because we didn't think he would go through them so fast (just to warn ya :)). Math with marbles and such ws a nice easy project too. Just some ideas :)

[TiredX2]

Wow, that was a lot of posts to wade through.

I've checked this forum on occasion hoping that *eventually* this topic would come up... and here it is!

Though "spirited" by definition, DD has gotten easier with age (or I have gotten more accepting, :LOL). I can't imagine the problems we would have if we did things "normally" (we unschool, don't seperate, etc...) but it is working well for us.

today he was walking around in a laundry bag flapping his arms and told me he was trunign into a butterfly. i asked if the bag was his cacoon and he said "no mommy, its my chrysalis" sigh.

Hmmm.... I've had the same conversation. Well, it was actually an employee at the science center using the wrong word, thankfully!

Esp when DD was younger, people would assume she could do virtually nothing because she was so offended by what they would ask her she would not respond (like to spell her name, or count, etc... when she considered those baby things). She is still taken aback by what skills her age mates lack, but it has gotten much easier now that she understands not everyone does everything at the same pace. And luckily our pediatrician understands the issue and doesn't ask her age appropirate questions, but developmentally appropriate questions at this point!

I look forward to hearing more from all of you,
Kay

[eilonwy]

During the rough parts of my pregnancy I let Akira play (educational) video games. He loved the educational aspects and learned a lot from them. He learned problem solving, math, spelling, info on the planets, telling time, etc. It helped for the early days when I was so exhausted because he NEVER slept. He picks up things very quickly that way. He could turn it on and load the games and programs without my help so I could just rest on the couch :thumb He