the theme running through most of these posts is that the board is different, it was better before, what made the board special seems to be changing. Interesting that it coincides with Dottie's departure. Not to say Dottie's wonderful participation was soley responsible for the quality of the board, but is possible that her farewell indicates the problems highlighted here. The board was started awhile ago and this dedicated group of supportive people welcomed newbies and performed an invaluable service, Tex mentioned the iq evals which almost always serve as a welcome to the forum. Who will do that now? But participation here is likely linked to the stage of parenting the individual is in. Some like Grinity continue to do it, even though they are past a lot of the critical stages of gifted parenting, but I would guess that as your parenting roles change you drift away from the earlier issues. So in a sense is the board changing because the core group is not being replaced with the same types of people performing the same types of roles. It's rather like comparisons between Europe and America in terms of new immigrants, the US is often given credit for socializing new people such that they become fervent defenders of the American way of life. So the board is different because the people who have come and stayed are different and are creating a different social norm, one with more conflict, although as someone noted, there are always challenging threads, so how much is just rose colored glasses for the smaller, more banded together board.

From this perspective, the need is for more participation from the "elders" to maintain that voice. But it's probably unrealistic since they aren't in the same place. So then it's a new generation core group stepping up and actively working to maintain the board - and maybe that's what this thread is meant to be? wink

DeHe

Last edited by DeHe; 07/31/11 01:29 PM.