Does anyone want to tell their "Crash and Burn" stories? What can happen to gifted, highly gifted and profoundly gifted kids who's are unidentified and unaccomidated in the classroom? What helped?
My hat is off to you who are aware and alert from earlier ages that your children have special educational needs. I - OTOH - was in severe "gifted denial" that took months and months of "you-know-what" hitting the fan before I understood that being gifted isn't somekind of taint of the blood that one tries to hide so they can have some level of postive social interactions, and hopes to avoid passing down to their children. I really bought the whole pack of lies about my own educational needs - that I was lucky, that I could take care of myself, that if I waited long enough that I would eventually be challenged, in college or beyond, and that that was "to be expected."
I also think that because of this "gifted denial" some parents are reluctant to channel a child's obvious interest in academics into afterschool work. I was so afraid that I would "make matters worse" that I consiously avoided any afterschooling, and encouraged his interests in as broad a variety of learning as possible, so he knew all the lyrics of the Simon and Garfunkle Box Set, and about plants and art and politics. I didn't want to "cause" him to be bored in school. I didn't want him to be disliked for already knowing everything. HA. It's not my fault that he was bored! It wasn't his fault that he was bored! He was different. He needed different things than what he was getting. I wanted him to be able to fit in as well as possible. I figured that learning was going to be 'no problem' so why worry about it? I had no idea that being gifted means that you NEED to learn, like air and water. The "I'm not hothouse parent" approach later backfired when the teachers didn't see "that he was so different, after all, he can't do his times tables better than our best students." Also, this tradition of not asking more from him than the school asked contributed to him being firmly in the "enforced underachiever" camp. He didn't want to learn extra at home, and I hadn't thought to establish the habit from the begining.
So we got "behavior complaints" in first grade, that improved with a "checklist" and reward system. Then came 2nd grade - "crash and burn" time....to be continued....
Trinity.
