My daughter turned 3 on July 1st. I know she is advanced, but I often wonder if she is gifted.
Hi mygirlsmommy,
(great name, BTW)
I think the heart of your question is about "what is the nature of giftedness? How is it different from advanced? What should I do about any of it?
One of the things I love about Dr. Ruf's book, is that is fans out all the different levels of gifteness, so that we can recognise ourselves and our kids. To some, a child isn't gifted unless they are doing algebra at age 3. To others, every child has gifts that need to be noted and developed. I think both of these positons miss the point, which is: children who follow a different developmental path than the norm, can be damaged by unthoughfully trying to push them into the same expectations and activities that are appropriate for the norm. Kids who are academically gifted need to be taught at their readiness level, in ways that work for that child's learning needs. Giftedness, in a school environment, is a special education issue.
One of the most obvious example is to send a child to kindergarten when she has already mastered most of the academic curriculum, on the claims that she will be well served using that time to "learn to obey" and "learn to get along with others." One of the most obvious ways around this potential problem is early enterance to kindergarden. This works well for children who are well enough "advanced" across their abilities. That may be all your daughter will need to have a "clean shot" at a happy and productive life, so getting the testing done early enough to take this chance is a good thing. I reccomend, after Ruf's book, the Iowa Acceleration Scale Manual, do help you decide if early enterance is right for your family. Another alternative is to keep her home until age 5, and then start 1st grade directly.
The other benifit of going through Ruf's book is that it tells you what level of tester you are going to need. You your daughter is a Level II or I, a caring local tester should be able to give an accurate result, and perhaps some good advice as well. If you child is Level III or up, you really really want to avoid the local folks unless you are living in Denver or Pheonix or Kentucky, (humor alert) and seek out one of the "top 20 in the country" specialist for educational assesments of unusually gifted kids. These kids are somewhat rare, and you want an advisior who has seen 100's of them, which isn't easy to do. Otherwise you will end up like me, seeing a well meaning person who genuinly believes that they know what they are doing, because afterall, it works 99/100 times.
ok, we've talked about early enterance, because thats the "elephant in the living room" for these situations. What else needs to be thought about?
1) Mom and Dad's own, possibly unfaced, experiences with being "different." Now is a wonderful time to ask yourself the question. Given my own experience, if I could have choosen, would I have wanted DD to be different from the Norm? Which experiences in my life have given me this attitude. Journal, share with a friend, or professional, but the more you and other involved adults can do this the better things will go.
2) Preschool. If you child is going to be in preschool or daycare, can you set it up so that she attends a multiage classroom. I think that having my son in daycare with strict agemates from 7 weeks affected him. For the first year we lucked out, because the place was small, and he was with a wider age range. Afterall, a one year old is 50% older than a 6 month old. But by the age of two, he was in groups that had less than a 6 month spread. We started getting comments like - he's a nice, polite boy, but -
"he picks one friend, and gloms on to them." and
"he's very immature, sticks close to the teacher, and tries to engage her attention more than his "share" of time."
At the time, we thought - 'one friend' that's weird, hope he doesn't grow up to be a stalker, and
'immature' - well he sure seems less motor ready than the other kids
'wants more than his share of attention' - It's good that he learns to get along, because he's an only child this will simulate having siblings.
Now I see things differently -
'one friend' - sure - he wants to hang out with the only kid he can talk too.
'immature' - OverExcitabilites in action. He could have benifited from OT for SID even back then.
'wants more than his share of attention' - sure - he wants to hand out with someone he can relate to, and the teacher is probably the best approximation in the single age room!
I am also realizing that he was probably successful at getting more than his share of attention, which may have contributed to his "life is a battlefield and I had better win" approach, which hasn't been so good for him in school, but seems to be easing up with his recent grade skip and "strict" private school environment. He is definitly a boy who needs the experience of "working his way up from the bottom."
BTW - their version of "polite" meant that he would scream "excuse me" at the top of his lungs before interrupting his 3 year old classmates as though they weren't even talking to the teacher. From his perspective, it may indeed have been difficult to recognise that the sounds the other children were making was the normal way of "talking" at that age. I was very upset that the teacher was so non plused about what I was as clear rudeness, but I was a first time mom, and they calmly reassured me that this was normal for this age. So, that's my reason for suggesting that Level III kids and up shouldn't be kept with their age mates daily for hours and hours a day. Personality, of course, plays a large role in how to handle gifted kids. Each one is different, and preschool or daycare may work wonderfully for your kid. But if there are difficulties, giftedness+personality are probably playing a role.
Good luck and good reading,
Trinity
