Children who are gifted routinely maintain consistent efforts and high grades in classes when they like the teacher and are intellectually challenged, although they may resist some aspects of the work, particularly repetition of tasks perceived as dull.
Indeed-- THOUGH... with a kid like this, be very wary of efforts to "improve" performance since your child has "time" to "do a better job" on the work.
This happened to me as a child, and it also happened to my DD somewhat. "Slow down! Do a GOOD JOB. You're making mistakes that we KNOW that you can avoid if you just pay attention and slow down."
Well, okay, insisting on 100% accuracy is unrealistic for anyone. That's not even an acceptable thing in most adult occupations (obviously air traffic controllers, hostage negotiators, and neurosurgeons are excused now
).
While it may be true that "error-free" is within the grasp of someone who has a fast processing speed (because they can afford do the assigned task two or even four times over?) that kind of encourages an unhealthy set of OCD-like behaviors, first of all. How many times SHOULD one check over that written paragraph for grammatical errors? How many times is enough reworking of that physics problem?
Secondly, that is a doorway that you don't want to step through because it leads to the depths of task-avoidant perfectionism, or can. If the ONLY authentic challenge becomes finishing "error-free" then that can easily turn into a situation in which-- particularly with more subjective tasks like open-ended written work-- the child sees it as a no-win situation. Either they make no mistakes (whew! I didn't fail!) or they make mistakes (Oh no! I failed to meet my goal!). If they see earning 100% as improbable or impossible, they may simply refuse to do the task at all. There is certainly no REWARD for doing good work at a natural pace.
Thank you for posting this. I had an ah ha moment. I can be a little OCD and perfectionist. So this was good for me to read.
My DS does often make silly mistakes because he doesn't read carefully. So it can be frustrating for me as a "perfectionist" because I know he could miss zero if he slowed down. Part of his issue though is trying focused on the longer tests. (ADHD). I agree though the goal should not always be 100 percent. I am going to remember this!!!!! I only find myself thinking 100 is the goal on my DS that is gifted. I don't expect it from my other DS who isn't. What I have always said is I expect them to try there best. I guess when I see the silly errors I wonder if he is "trying" his best. If he slowed down it would help. I can usually tell what he would miss because he didn't know it and what he missed because he went to fast. However I like how you said we should be ok with them learning from mistakes and not expect no errors. Errors make you human!!!
Go forward I'm going to try and remember this. I will add that even if I find myself setting a goal of 100 for him i NEVER say that to him. When he brings home something and he misses 1 and he asks if it is good I always say yes you did great. I do though point out the silly errors to him but not every time!
