Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment Sharing IQ score with extended family

How do you guys handle extended family? Part of me feels that ds's IQ score is his own personal business. The other part realizes that our families (his grandparents in particular) know we were doing testing and will want to know the results. They are well-meaning and fairly discrete, but I'm not sure how discrete. Is this something that you share with them? If not, how do you avoid offense?

The more discrete the better.
It helps if you address the basic motivations to be tested, for example:
"We got testing because we suspected that he had special educational advanced learning needs that weren't being met by his current school, and the tester confirmed this."

Seems like a mouthful, but better than saying the G word, especially if other grandchildren exist or might exist someday.

You might also consider -
"His 'readiness to learn' level was found to be well beyond what is offered to 6 year olds at his current school."

It's always good in these situations to do a 'and how was YOUR day?' quick turn the tables. You might want to ask - did any of your children face similar issues?
And - So how did you handle it"?
And- What do you wish you had know then that you know now about it?

Odd are pretty good that the grandparents have experience with this, and that they had to do it on their own, and that they feel quite defensive about the compromises that they had to make. So don't be surprised if you feel like you've stepped on a hot button! OTOH, what a great thing if this experience can help them be more self accepting after all these years.

Good luck!
Grinity

Well Said!

Thank you! My gut feeling was that this shouldn't be shared, but it's a tricky situation when grandparents know we're doing the testing. I appreciate your wording suggestions.

We did tell my parents (also let them read the report regarding D's learning disability when we figured that out, too). But my parents are extremely private -- no way would they tell anyone, so I was not worried about that. As I have mentioned on another thread, our big issue was the Kindergarten teacher who spread the info all over D's K-12 school. But my parents were very interested, supportive, and close-mouthed. We did not, however, share it with ex-H's parents. He wasn't sure they would keep it to themselves, and they didn't seem curious anyway.