I am in a district where everyone preps and pushes. A little girl in DD's ballet class does 2 ballet classes a week, 2 language classes, plus a bunch of other things, does her "homework" with her older brothers and she is only 4.5.
She even tells her mother she doesn't want the ballet classes, she wants to go to a fun creative movement.
I think it is horrible, but there are mothers who probably think I am horrible with DD's schedule. There are times I feel like if she just got into the gifted school...
There are 200 kids scoring over 99th percentile for 50 spots. It is tough, you want your kid to go there instead of the general education program where they already know how to read and do simple math. What are they going to do for a year or two?
So part of me thinks it is terrible and part of me just wants the opportunity for DD.
I had drinks with a mother of a child in DD's preschool two nights ago. It turns out she went to the gifted school herself. She is mid to late 30s. She went to Tufts and was talking about Ivys and someone in her class and I asked why she didn't apply. She said she was in the middle of the pack. In a a gen ed program she would have been a top student. In the gifted school, she was in the middle of the pack and didn't think she should even apply to Harvard because she clearly wasn't the smartest. Gave pause to consider that.
How do you balance the chance to motivate and challenge your gifted child and yet maintain good self esteem when in a class with all uber bright kids?
Like DH says, he was clearly the smartest, probably in PA at the time, winning all kinds of state awards. Goes to Harvard and finds out there are so many people smarter than him.
Ren
