Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy Ruf article

I just got my Parenting magazine, that I think is part of my AGATE membership and there is an article by Ruf. I think she is writing about her own son, Charles and his education and where he ended up. I skimmed the article, so maybe it was someone else's kid.

But it was very interesting. Also, she put him in acting, to get tutors and accelerate his learning. I thought about doing that with DD, since we live in NYC, but I feel very negative about putting her to work.

Ren

I got the impression that acting was an interest of his.

She wrote that tutors was something out of budget and if he acted, they would be paid for.

DD isn't in elementary school yest, so it isn't a question. It was more of the acting thing, because it is accessible here. But you have to go to a lot of auditions.

I just found it an interesting article. It sounded like his life just flowed, no heartaches. Very magical.

Ren

Dr. Ruf told me once (and this is very loosely paraphrased) that she was at the "don't know what to do with this kid" point and they stumbled upon professional acting and those free tutors. She really seemed to be promoting the idea of having a child act in order to get access to specialized tutors and high level work.

I like the stumbled upon part.

I read his bio on Wikipedia and there were slight interpretation differences in his life between his bio and her article. I am not faulting Ruf, she is his mother. I would be worse.

It sounds like he did want to act and in her article he complained about the socialization part he felt he missed out on.

Ren

I've read a couple different versions of the story. No matter which I read, what strikes me is the flexibility and the willingness to change plans, adjust expectations, and use available resources to be able to meet the needs in any given year. This is not a situation where the parents looked at a 4 year old and mapped out his education. The solutions were there for him and I think they are there for us, but frequently you have to be creative.

I agree acs that you have to be creative. But I don't think there are equal solutions for everyone here, since that is why we discuss HS, and other solutions that are not always on the desirable list, but what you can do when there isn't anything else.

Does anyone know how his siblings mapped out, as he was the middle son?

Ren

From our conversation with Dr. Ruf, she briefly mentioned her son and the acting. She did comment that his participation in acting allowed for the flexible schooling and free tutoring he needed. Her point during our conversation was that the individualized education he needed in terms of learning at his own pace and focusing on his interests was available because of that experience. She did seem to indicate that it was a factor in having him involved in that activity. She was trying to impress upon us the possibilities that exist for providing education and how some kids don't need traditional schooling at all. At least that's what I got out of the conversation.

If I recall correctly from her book, the other two kids are both GT and pretty GT at that but the middle kiddo is the profoundly gifted one. I believe she writes in the book that she knew he was "different" when his skills and/or knowledge surpassed that of his older brother. But don't quote me on that one. She just had that realization that he was over the top early on.