I have seen a distinction made in the literature between a child who teaches him or herself to read early and a child who is taught to read early. I have also heard that it is possible to teach a "normal" child to "read" at a very basic level through the use of drilling (or through regular video viewing) but that these kids typically do not stay ahead. Whether that is true or not, I have no way of knowing.

I definitely think that it is possible to push children too hard in one direction, and I think kids respond to it in one way or another. MY DD would respond by pushing back, but that is probably because I have taught her that she gets to make her own decisions and that I will love her no matter what. Other kids might respond by working as hard as they can to learn something they're not ready for to please parents they think will otherwise be disappointed. I don't think these kids are being "made gifted," but they are probably traumatized. And it is also somewhat traumatic for me to know that others think I've done that sort of thing to my kid.

Hothousing and red-shirting isn't new. Red-shirting only prolongs the agony of grade school for a gifted child. I see parents blogging on this site who were probably hothoused as kids, and they appear to be hothousing kids that aren't particularly gifted. The gifted ones are autodidactic, and will show up on standardized abstract reasoning tests in the top 5%.

I'll share my story with you. My parents had a grade-school education and we lived in poverty in a shack with no indoor plumbing. I still scored in the 99-100% bracket on grade school Iowa testing. I was self-taught with puzzle books and an adult dictionary and adult encyclopedia set that I'd read cover to cover in second grade. I spent grade school sitting in the principal's office because the teachers didn't know what to do with me, and I was profoundly lonely most of the time. The Iowa tests targeted me into a gifted "enrichment program" along with the son of the school district supervisor and some hothoused kids of prominent local merchants. Honestly, the gifted program didn't make a difference, and I learned about socioeconomic bias in our educational system. I heard "we could do something for her if she were a boy". " she won't fit in our program". "she can't go because she doesn't have the right clothes". "she's not college material [no money]". It didn't matter. As soon as I turned 16, the local community college took me. I aced logic, college physics, math and chemistry, transferred into a university physics program, aced it, and landed a great job that took me out of poverty forever.

The moral of this story is to stop worrying about how well your kid is doing relative to other kids, or whether you're buying the right stuff for them. Get them a computer and internet connection, puzzles, and point them in the right direction. Get them into early college or a program like the Davidson school. I strongly recommend puzzle books that contain the same types of problems that show up on a standardized abstract reasoning test. If they are gifted and they can learn how to solve the puzzles, they'll float to the top.

I found it very interesting that your school uses only achievement testing as a means for giftedness. I think that is very unfair. My school uses acievement testing to place the "high achieving kids" and full scale IQ to place the gifted. Thanks for reminding me to be thankful.

stronglight
can you give me an idea of a puzzle book like that. We don't have any.

Also i really appreciated your story and saw a lot of "me" in it. I went to school smelling like cigarette smoke, wasn't very pretty mostly because my hair was cut close to my head to be "easier" on my mother, did my homework in a hovel of a big mess with fights raging, etc. But somehow i got through it and will never forget when they called my name in fifth grade to participate in a gifted program. I remember seeing my fifth grade teacher peering at the list and then calling my name and was just shocked. I knew just what it wss all about, though i was only a little better than average with achievement at that point. My parents were so determined to get me out of the house that they started me in kindergarden early so i was the youngest by far in my grade.. We were in the middle of moving so they let me start school for one day in the district that had a later cutoff, then moved me to the new district which had to allow it since i had started already..So it must have been an aptitude test since i was so young don't think it could have been achivement test. . And with some bumps in the road i did rise above it all (though my family thinks I'm "uppity").. I dont' remember feeling that the other kids were in there were not deserving, but looking back they were all the rich , right-side-of-the-tracks types. And at least one was almost 2 years older due to red-shirting.

irene

Inspiring post, stronglight. Thank you.

Welcome!! Good post!!

Encyclopedias are to GT kids what Teddy Bears are to others!

Your story parallels mine (and many on this forum) in key respects. School was agony for me as well.

My husband, who is in his late 50's, did well on tests even though he never studied in high school. He didn't have time to study because he was working so he could have enough to eat. He was one of eight kids in the family who had to take care of themselves after their mother died. Hid dad wasn't around much. There was no one to encourage him to do well in school, not even his teachers, because he was from the wrong side of the tracks. Nobody was making sure he wore clean clothes to school or cared if he had clothes that fit or if he had enough to eat or was getting the proper nutrition.

He made it on his own because he had that innate ability to learn quickly, had good people skills, and his survival instincts were good. He made high scores on tests in the military even though he hadn't had the best education, high enough that they put him in the Army Security Agency, which Wikipedia says was comprised primarily of soldiers with the very highest scores on army intelligence tests.

My husband told me a few days ago that he never felt like he needed to have everything planned out like I do so he doesn't have anxiety over the possibility of things going wrong and needing to have a contingency plan in place. He always knew he could "muddle through" whatever he needed to get through. I can see that there were some good things that came from his difficult childhood.

But I still worry about my twice exceptional son. I think it is harder for a twice exceptional child to muddle through, especially when it seems like so many people don't understand that a child can be gifted and also have a disability.

I loved school when I was a child. Not because I learned new stuff, academics were usually boring. I loved the daily chllenge of debating with my teachers and finding ways to prove the wrong answers right.
My teachers either loved or hated me there was no in between.

We were also at the bottom of the financial scale.
~NE one remember having to turn in the pink lunch tickets instead of the green ones everyone else had.
I begged my parents every day to pack my lunch. I had to refuse to eat school lunches for almost week before they finally gave in.
If you did not eat your lunch at our school you had to sit in the lunch room until you decided to eat. I sat in the lunchroom all day, for 4 days in a row and refused to eat one bite. My parents finally got tired of the phone calls! hehe
Be glad you did'nt have to raise me, I was only in 1st grade at the time.

I congratulate you who had to struggle, scrap, and manage and came through it despite the hurdles that lay before you. To be able to not only survive but also to excel despite the odds shows great strength.

I hope that our society does not require that level from everyone as many just don't have it. Some are held back rather than strengthened by poverty, abuse, violence, lack of food, lack of social standing, and poor schooling. In fact many are unable to rise. I hope that your stories not only remind us of the strength that you have, but also of the need to improve the state of things all over the world so that many more children can succeed.

I am glad our family struggled. Hurdles build character. I was a prideful manipulative child and would have become spoiled brat if my parents would have had money. Instead I had to use patience and hard work to get what I wanted.
Not having it all also taught me to appreciate nonmaterial things, which is a rare ability these days.