Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy Just curious... siblings

I've been lurking for a few days now... Very helpful group and nice to talk with other parents. For a long time I was in pretty much a state of denial with DS5 (aw, he just catches on quickly) but going to Kindergarten orientation: what an eye opener! Of course DW didn't mind saying "I told you so"

As any rate, it's clear to us that DS5 is gifted and we're education ourselves on what to expect as he gets ready to enter K in the fall. I'm also starting to suspect that DS2 might be gifted. DS2 adores his older brother so I attribute some of it to being interested in everything his brother is doing. It's very hard to explain as we see a lot of similarities between the two children, but DS2 seems to be gifted in overlapping, but different areas. Very hard to tell at this age, but now that I know what to look for, I'm keeping my eye on him! We already have our "he-didn't-say-what-I-think-he-said" stories....

Wondering about other's experiences. Sounds like it's pretty common to have multiple gifted children in the family, no?

JB

Welcome JBDad!


If I remember it correctly 60% of siblings test within 10 point range, that leaves 40% who don't.

Watch and see. It's really hard not to look for exactly the same things. There are things DS3 does much better that his older brother, but there are lots of things where he is clearly behind and for some reason I tend to look at those where he is not as good as his older brother.

When my younger son was a baby he would do most of the things earlier and better than his older brother. When people commented on our older one, I used to think, "Wait for the younger, than you will be surprised." Then our younger son didn't show the same interest in alphabet like our older one and other things as well and I decided that perhaps he was just smart or perhaps MG.

When our younger one started reading at 2, I finally had to face the fact that he too was gt. I had another wake up call last week. DS3 asked me to teach him read in his other language (he is bilingual). Well, I tried. I wrote a word and asked him to read it. He did, then another and another. It turned out that he was already reading in the other language without ever being taught to do so!

I still think that there is no way he would get anywhere close to DS5 math knowledge when he is older and it may very well be true, but he is most likely HG+.

It's really really common for sibs to be 'gifted together' - the usual senario is that the second one is overlooked because they don't show it in exactly the same way.

Dottie says: 'Test one, test them all!" and I think she is right!

So what are you reading to get 'caught up' with the world of Gifted? ((wink))

I did invent ND, because I didn't want to call normal children 'average' which sounds mean, or imply that our children aren't normal. I really do see giftedness as a 'different than expected' developmental path, with it's own challenges and joys.

Someday all children will go to schools which teach them at their readiness level, and then we won't need the word 'gifted' at all.

JB - did you get 'identified' or 'accomidated' as a kid? Did DW?

Smiles and Glad you found us,
Grinity

Thanks!

In 5th grade I was evaluated for our school's "Challenge" program (that's what they called it; typical pull out program) but wasn't admitted until 6th grade. This was in the late 70s, early 80s. From then on, I was in advanced track for Math + Science. I was one of those nerds who self-taught themselves how to program computers at age 11 After reading some of the books now as a parent, I look back on those days and I can see that a lot of times I wasn't challenged enough. I was probably on the lower end of the gifted spectrum, but I was still able to coast through a lot.

DW OTOH... was admitted to a special private school for a while. I believe she was on partial scholarship. She's one of those "went-to-college-dual-major-4-point-oh" students we all love to hate

DS5 seems to be a real good mix of the both of us. He absolutely loves math, and is constantly asking to learn new math concepts. (I try to be very conscientious and not push but even still we get the "more, please tell me more" daily.) In fact, I love to talk with other parents to find out what type of math concepts/games they play with their kids. He just loves making up intricate math games... And DS5 haves a huge vocab and loves to read and do research (Space is the current obsession).

At any rate, both DS2 and DS5 have nearly photographic memory (well as compared to mine anyways)! There's a whole other story in here, but basically DS5 made a "booklet" of photos from wikipedia of something like 13 solar system objects. He has been showing his DS2 brother this and then the other day as DS5 quietly paged through the booklet, DS2 was identifying each object "meekery", "veenus", "eadth", "moon", "mars", "dupiter", etc. Very cute.

As any rate, it will be interesting to see what happens with DS2.

JB

I have a few books that I got from Amazon (don't have them handy right here), but basically a mix. We're taking a long trip next week so I plan to read some of them on the plane. I've also been reading up here and hoagies. And since we live in the Philly suburbs, PAGE and the PA related sites.

When we return, we're going to approach the school and request testing. Our local GT program doesn't officially start until 1st grade, but DS5 has mastered a lot of what's going to be covered in K and probably most of 1st (at least in some topics). We've gone through the K-school pre-screen and that just further validated what my DW had been saying all along (I am thick!) But those don't do a great job testing at the ends of the spectrum...

So any rate, I've been focusing on getting educated on the process here and what to expect. From what I hear from neighbors, we've got a very good kindergarten.

Thanks.

JB

I've heard the percentages of IQ within 10 pts go up with same sex siblings, but haven't seen a source for it. The gifted dept here also touts that intelligence is from moms for sons and from dads for daughters, though I've never seen a source for that either.

My son did not get his intelligence from me. He is too much like his dad. For instance, I once complained to my husband that our son wouldn't do a certain math problem the way I showed him how to do it--the way I was taught and the only way I thought there was to do it--only to discover that my husband does it the same way, and he was good enough in math in middle school that he was one of the youngest to be selected to compete in math competitions. I think this must be hereditary but my son didn't inherit it from me. My husband and son have the same kind of sense of humor and everything. My husband says our son is also very similar to his adult highly gifted son from a previous marriage. My husband's side of the family had college professors and lawyers and these people just love verbal sparring via email if they can't get together in person. There are gifted people in my family, a few engineers and an artist and I think my mother was probably gifted, but my son seems almost like of a clone of his dad in everything except physically. My son has a motor coordination disorder that nobody else in the family has.

My son is not at all like his half-sister. She is very pretty and creative and very into fashion and beauty and physical fitness. She used to be a cheerleader and she had no trouble learning dances. When I first heard of the show "Beauty and the Geek" my first thought was those are my children. My son wants to do this verbal sparring thing with his sister and says it is his right as her little brother to tease her and even though she is a bright adult she loses to him in these verbal sparring matches every time and this sometimes bothers her.

What an appealingly symmetrical notion! In my family, both my parents are gifted (probably HG) but in different ways/domains. My mom is an artist and very verbal, very visual, she has a "perfect" colorsense the way some people have perfect pitch. She claims to have some kind of math disability that makes her unable to understand algebra. My dad is a physicist, a man of few words and sarcastic wit. He's the guy who would say things to us kids like, "Don't put lateral thrust on the coffee table!"

The result: 1 math gifted daughter (who can't fathom not understanding algebra), 1 artistic, verbal, athletic son with sarcastic wit, 1 PG son with multiple gifts--music, math, science, and more.

Well, this is definitely the start of a great adventure! Since posting this, we got a call from DS5's nursery school teacher asking about what DS was trying to tell here at school. (He's loved math and patterns since a very young age and was telling his teacher about a particular number sequence he likes -- Fibonacci numbers). I took it as a positive sign that the teacher contacted us. After a family trip were going to contact the school to see about next steps. We checked the curriculum this weekend and I think DS would be a candidate to skip kindergarten. A guess would be that he's ~ 2 grades ahead of his agemates in most subjects. Most of what he's learned has been though dinner chats about numbers, playing math games, and reading. The math is almost to the point where I'm running out of ideas on what to teach him about!

JB

I agree with CFK. DS6 loved preschool and then loved his half-day, mostly play-based K, but was MISERABLE in his all-day, academic, "learn to read" 1st grade class.

Much depends upon the K program and the child, of course, but our K year went swimmingly. OTOH, we yanked him out of 1st grade for "emergency homeschooling," the educational situation was so glaringly problematic. He'd never been a behavior problem in his life, and he acted up BIG TIME, he was so unhappy and felt so disappointed in school. (And BTW, I had always been one of those people who said, "Oh, I could never homeschool...," so this wasn't a philosophical choice for us.)

Half-day, play-based K classes can be really great for GT kids, since it gives them time to play and be social and learn how to stand in line and all that sort of thing, but they still have the time and energy to pursue learning on their own.

A full-day, highly academic K class is probably something to skip, unless the academics will be tailored to your child's specific needs.