CFK - Although we haven't yet encountered problems related to the school setting, I wonder all the time if my child's behavior's are related to his age (4) versus his giftedness. My instincts tell me right now that most of his bad behavior is related to his age, but perhaps he's a little more creative about how he goes about it due to his giftedness. We'll just have to wait and see what happens when he gets to real school (not just 2 days of preschool).
Re: Kriston/OHGrandma - raising future adults. I have a concern that come from my parents' support of me. They always told me I could be whatever I wanted to be. I always thought this was very cool of them. But this caused problems when it turned out I was pretty good at everything, and I couldn't decide on what I really wanted to do for work. I still don't know. How do you prepare your kids for this possibility or avoid it?
Who says you have to do just 1 thing? When I married I was working as a clerk/typist in a small library, which meant I did a lot of other things besides typing. Then I quit to farm full time with my husband, I grew up on a farm and that's what I wanted to do. The kids came along and I did some part-time work for another farmer who raised strawberries. I also started a farm market at our farm to sell produce during the summer. When they started school I worked the school hours at a greenhouse, and still did the farm market in the summer. When they were 8 & 10, I went to college, got associate degrees in Accounting and in Computer Science(in 1 year!) and got my job writing computer programs. I've been doing that for 18 years along with picking up more college classes, we switched our farm operation to raising cattle, I show cattle for fun & advertising our stock. After my day job, I dabble in writing programs for recording the cattle information. I've worked on an advisory board for the county mental health association. I'm the treasurer at our church. I've done other volunteer positions.
I earn enough money to be comfortable, and do enough different things to be happy. There's always something else that interests me and while I realize I can't do everything -- I don't have to do just one thing for the rest of my life. And the beauty of being a multi-tasker is learning things in one of my interests that benefit me in other interests.
Enjoy the journey, when you get to the destination, you're dead!
