Gifted kids fill gaps FAST - we all know this. We have all seen that when our kids are intrinsically motivated - self invested in something they learn it accurately and lightning fast. This methodology works to that ability. So when they see their own gap, they will want to and they do then fill it - whatever it takes!I'm glad that this is so clearly working well for you. Honest.
But I disagree with the latter statement-- it is directly counter to our experience with our DD. I have to disagree with the idea that completely
ignoring some aspects of basic education is a good idea for anyone, too. Sure, not everyone is motivated to learn about economics at the college level, but
everyone ought to possess basic competence at understanding
personal finance. Whether they want to or not. Every person ought to understand what factors in a national psyche lead to things like genocides, and how their own national political system operates. That's part of basic civics. Everyone ought to be able to construct a professional cover letter by the time they are 16 to 20 years of age.
We first noted the problem when DD was about five years old-- but it started following an exponential curve, frankly, and by the time she was 6.5, we HAD to do something else-- and honestly, because we had done a child-led model of homeschooling, even switching to more parent-determined modes of eclectic homeschooling couldn't work at that point.
She
knew that she was supposed to be driving the bus, and that I wasn't
allowed to ask or tell her what to do. At all.
So she was completely okay with not picking up a writing implement. Ever.
Completely okay with using keyboarding ergonomics SO dreadful that they were interfering with her ability to play the piano (via repetitive stress on musculature and joints)...
At six, I wasn't "wily" enough, I guess, to
get her to do things the right way-- or to tackle those challenges at all. She was completely okay with just writing them off as "I'm just not good at that."
Hint: I'm pretty devious and wily, so honestly-- if
I couldn't manage it, nobody else could. I've got DD's number and always have... most people don't have a clue how she has outmaneuvered them, and wind up scratching their heads in puzzled bewilderment while she happily waves and goes around. LOL.
I guess what I'm saying is that for MY kid, child-led homeschooling created a many-headed hydra, and opened the door to a fixed mindset. SHE chose that mindset-- over our gentle admonitions and objections. But we've all been paying for it for the past decade since. It was a disaster.
I don't dislike child-led learning, and I
do think that it works for some children. I do. But it is a bad, bad idea for some of them, as well. SOME kids really do need to learn that doing what others want is a good idea sometimes, because the world just plain works that way-- there is a tradeoff involved in defying/ignoring authority that way.
I mostly think that child-led learning is a great thing for
young HG children. In regular small doses, also a good thing for older ones. We basically still encourage our DD14 to spend her free time this way. BUT-- only after her "must do" list is complete. She has to meet the obligations before she gets to do as she pleases. There are things to learn from others-- and sometimes you don't KNOW what you don't know until you're learning it.
Those are important lessons for her.
When my DD was five or six, though...
I'd have had many of the same things to say that Madoosa does. It wasn't until later that it became apparent to us just WHY this was such a bad idea for the long term. Stubborn and autonomous kids can become far, far more oppositional to
any outside direction whatsoever using unschooling methods. It escalates.
This is a good snapshot of different long-term perspectives re: what I'd term "radical unschooling" and regrets therein. It gets particularly interesting when you look at posts made by parents with kids 15+yo.
RegretsWhile that particular conversation is re: math, in my own experience it can be about nearly any fundamental skill set that such a child decides is their hill to die on with a gently guiding parent. It gets even more tangled with HG+ learners because of their sometimes radical asynchronous developmental arcs. There IS no developmental roadmap to follow in the first place, and frequently the common meshing of developmental milestones that are used as readiness indicators with NT children are completely skewed with our kids.
Bottom line-- no, not all kids KNOW what they need to learn, and when. That's what they have adults in their lives for. IMO, of course.
