Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy This article ...

http://www.cnn.com/2008/HEALTH/family/08/27/gifted.kids/index.html?imw=Y&iref=mpstoryemail

Discuss.

DH found this today and emailed it to me ... clearly we've been duped! KG's on his way back to public school as we speak ...

Well, most of the advice about parenting is good, basic advice. The premise is just dumb. The article seems like it's geared to those "stage parents" that are supposedly out there but that I've personally never seen.

I just wish that people who write articles like that had actually met an HG+ child before they sat down at the computer...

While we are being picky this morning:

"Of those, only one in 100 is considered highly gifted."
Awesome, where are all those little HG buggers, hidden away somewhere......

The article is well meaning though........

I think she meant 1 in 100 of 2-5% are HG. That would put it to 1:2,000 - 1:5,000 for HG way beyond 99.9%. And there are many more kids reading at 2 and academically capable going to college at 10 than 1-2 out of 1,000,000

The parenting advice is good though.

I think the article has a lot to offer. The one thing it tends to downplay is getting an official label as 'gifted', but that's what is needed to get advanced education at the school. I'd say the majority of the people here are doing what that article advises, for instance can you fault any of this:

Unfortunately I know some people who don't do those things but who will try to drill their child with alphabet flash cards.

I agree with Dottie that 2-5 kids out of 100 are advanced and 2-5 out of 10,000 are highly gifted is not insignificant. And she didn't say kids capable of going to college at 10, she said going to college at 10. I think those that really half to, because they are that far ahead and want to continue is smaller than just saying PG could go.

First, it is very valid that IQ can change before ten, but she never makes a case for why IQ testing at 4 or 5 isn't accurate.

On the contrary, there needs a case made for why special education is necessary. The Special Music School identifies "gifted" students in the musical sense in order to train great musicians and give kids that lean in that direction a real chance at a career in the arts.

Providing an education towards high achievement and opportunity allows kids of high IQs a chance to build their talents and contribute. Unfortunately, that is a hard idea to float to John Q. Public. Allowing a child that has a gift for violin a chance to solo professionally is far different than giving gifted kids a leg up so they take most of the spots at Harvard.

Ren

Ohhhhhhh, I see now.

I guess my biggest problem is that it makes it sound like the parents of that 2-5% are nutty -- this article says, basically, "since most children aren't gifted, you can just forget the possibility that *yours* is."

This, for example:


That's just not true. They just said a few paragraphs above that true giftedness occurs in 2-5% of the population. So that's really not all that rare -- 1 in 20 kids, 1 in 50 kids, whatever. Not all *that* unusual. I think it's very possible that a parent of a gifted kid could read that article and say, "Oh, I guess I am that doting mother" and discount the idea that his child may need sometime extra educationally.

There is also this quote, which doesn't make much sense to me:


Erm, that's why you don't just get FSIQ. It's perfectly possible to identify a gifted child before 5 who is gifted in just one area.

And then there's this:


Herein lies our problem. Many of our kids *did* enter K reading Dr. Seuss, writing their names, counting to 100. And they're right -- these kids do have a problem in K, but not because they necessarily can't take turns or follow directions! This article makes it sound like all kids entering K with these skills were hot-housed. And if I were newer to the gifted scene and I read this article, I'd be much more reluctant to approach my child's school asking for accommodation -- I'd feel like my kid were destined to be a weirdo.

Of course, the parenting advice there is perfectly sound. But I think that it underscores the prevailing attitude we saw from posters in that other article -- that giftedness is either all in our heads, or it's far rarer than it really is, or that our kids don't have the right to an appropriate education and stimulation too -- even if it's not the norm for agemates.

I'd love to see a flip article about the emotional needs of gifted kids. *That* would be good journalism -- investigating both sides of the issue.

Maybe my school district's administration wrote the article.

You have a very valid concern there. Why not write a 'flip article about the emotional needs of gifted kids' and submit to the site that published this article? You understand the issues, you write well, and you got right to the point of what concerned you about this article.

Agreed, Mia. Completely. Lousy premise. Lousy! I detest articles like this. Particularly because the parenting advice IS sound and sensible. If it were all craziness, then people might tend to discount the premise. But because most of it makes good sense, people might be more likely to accept the premise as true, too. And it just isn't.

Anytime I see something about GTness that sees it only/mainly in terms of "Einsteins and Mozarts," I roll my eyes. I know I'm not going to like what I read. It's someone who doesn't know anything about GTness.

Crosspost edit: I love that idea, OHG! Yes! Write back, Mia!

Well, hmm ... maybe I will.

Right ... but how many of those parents are actually *asking* for extreme measures? And are so sure they're needed that they make that push?

I think most are happy with "just" the GT program because it fits their kids' needs. But when parents see that the standard program *doesn't* fit their needs, hopefully they push -- like you did, Dottie.

In our case -- they didn't give a whit about the test scores. 99.9 percentile or higher across the board (IQ, reading, math), and they didn't bat an eye. It honestly blew my mind.

I know she didn't say that I did. You see to me PG kid who doesn't go to college at 10 doesn't have to be any less gifted than PG kid who does so. I think it's an enormous decision to send you kid f/t to college at such young age and I do believe lots of parents try to look at other options such as mentors, p/t college classes.

Here's what caught my eye:


So everyone is fascinated by giftedness, huh? Hmm. From what I've seen, the fascination ends where the real giftedness begins.

I guess that sounds pretty cynical, but from what I've seen most parents of truly GT kids don't talk about it outside family and very close friends, keep quiet when others brag about how brilliant their kids are, etc. And of course, we all know how school employees can react.

V.

Not to go off on a tangent, but I want to agree with LMom. Even among the DYS crowd, I've seen few kids going full-time to college before 13, though many are doing college-level work (and beyond!) years before that in various different fashions. So much depends on the personality of the kid and the options available to the family. I know we have enough colleges around our area that I doubt we'd have to go the full-time route more than a year early, even if DS7 is ready long before that. We have access to a wide variety of resources that make me think full-time early college isn't ever going to be necessary for us.

There are many ways to meet the needs of a PG child; college is just one of them, and not choosing that particular option doesn't necessarily mean the child is any less GT.

And this brings us back to the article, which boils all giftedness down to whether a child is the next Einstein or not. My child is IDd HG+. Do I think he's the next Einstein? No. He's certainly not the next Mozart, either.

But he *does* have needs that are different than the average child, and the author seems to have decided that this is not valid with her statement "Forget about the g-word." We can't forget about it -- that's the term that's in use! Change it, if you will, to asynchonously developing, or intellectually advanced, or whatever ... but let's not brush it under the rug to make parents of ND children feel better about not having a "gifted" child.

You go, girl!

Here is what I think the article was trying to do:

1) Reassure families that kids don't have to be gifted to be special

2) Tell parents (who can be quite competitive) that the best way to raise their children is with good parenting not flashcards. They are not making a mistake if they don't buy every education product available!

3) Review specifics of good parenting

4) Enjoy the child they have, not try to mold the child into something or someone he/she is not.

I just wish it had done that and still given accurate information about giftedness. This is a magazine that has huge circulation so there will be thousands of parents of gifted kids who are reading this article. And I think it does them a serious disservice.

Agreed, acs. I understand that they were trying to reassure the average parent, but still -- it's frustrates me for the parents of gifted children out there. There are ways to do that without negating the very valid concerns of parents wondering if their kid *is* gifted. 1 in 20 (or 1 in 50 or however you want to define it) is still quite a few.

Thanks, Kriston. And thanks for helping me figure out what was getting to me about that article!

I agree completely. With the circulation of this magazine of over 2 million, there are around 100,000 gifted kids whose families get the magazine! That seems like a lot of your market to ignore!

It's a good point to make in the rebuttal article, too!

Ok, ok! We're going out to dinner, but maybe I'll do it tonight.

I am following you, here. There is an intensity and a drive to learn that the 5's have that I think does mean that college is an appropriate place for some of them. But not every subject is best learned in college.

I know level 5 people who didn't go to college early. They were interested in subjects that they were able to self-teach so they read voraciously, or they followed their parents or friends in their labs or field work or they built amazing things in their dad's shop. They went on foreign exchange programs and became fluent in other languages. I think what I have trouble with is the suggestion that college is the only place where level 5 kids can learn at the level they crave. The whole world can a great place to learn and only some things are best learned at college.

Me, too!

College is one source, but it's not the only source for the education that level 5s crave. Especially for the younger kids, one-on-ones with mentors in their area of speciality/greatest interest may actually allow them to advance *further* and do it more appropriately for them than full-on college. Individualized study comes in many other forms, too, and I think all those avenues should/will probably be explored my most families of PG kids, within the constraints of time and budget.

Frankly, I personally think of full-time college at a very young age as the option of last resort for our DS. It's a scary thought for me to even consider sending a pre-pubescent kid to college, and I wouldn't go that route unless it was the only thing we hadn't tried. Granted, not everyone thinks like I do...but a lot of people do! And people often find other ways to give their kids the intellectual stimulation they need without full-time college.

The higher the LOG, the MORE flexible I think parents have to be in their thinking. Limiting the solutions available to full-time college alone for level 5s (or else you must not be a level 5...) seems very narrow to me.

One of my worries about sending a young kid to full time college is the tendency for a kid to get locked into a field or career too soon. Colleges have requirements and limited selections of majors so a child might not be able to explore a variety of options. It seems to me like taking classes at college would be freeing but full-time degree-seeking enrollment might put a kid too soon on a career path. Certainly fine for some kids, but maybe too limiting for others.

I hadn't even considered that problem. Good point!

I was mostly thinking about the many potential safety and social issues that a child might have problems with on campus. Narrowing career options is another concern to add to the list...It's certainly an option that would require some serious risk vs. reward thinking.

Like you, though, acs, I'm glad it's an option. More options are better than fewer!

Kriston and acs,
I like your take on early college. There a plenty of other options available (dual enrollment, working in a lab, mentorships, self-study...) that don't lock a kid into a career so early. Self-study and working with those in fields of interest helped me to settle on a field without worrying about switching majors. However, college earlier (maybe 14 or 15) may work for some kids who already know what they want to do, especially as graduate or medical school after college adds several extra years to one's education... Options are a good thing!

A concentration in Math and Humanities for Early College is another option, then advanced degrees are easily obtained from this base.

Our eldest will probably be done with high school-level work before he'll be mature enough to go off to college. We envision encouraging him to explore many different fields of study by taking courses at a local community college. We'll also encourage internships, part-time jobs, etc. etc. (But not all at once!) Actually, we'll do this with all our kids....

I see this between-time as a type of gift (for lack of a better word) that will let them explore themselves and the world without the pressure of having to make big decisions before the optimal time comes. Obviously, if someone is totally devoted to some field, we wouldn't stand in the way.

Val