This might well be nothing new, but here goes.... The most important advice I have about parenting is that parents need to earn their authority - being older doesn't cut it, and neither does owning the house - and this is important with every kid, but with gifted kids it becomes ten times as important five years earlier. Earning authority as a parent means respecting the child, being willing to engage in discussions about rules, and never exercising power just for the hell of it (which, unfortunately, a LOT of parents do). If I were you, I'd skip the parenting books and go read Locke and Jefferson - it's all about "just powers derived from the consent of the governed".
Zhain....this is exactly how I felt in my 20s and 30s and I tried my darndest to raise DS14 exactly this way. I'm not at all impressed with how that went. I think that each child needs slightly different emphasis and each parent needs to face slightly different challenges.
shrugs
grinity
This reminds me of something I thought about the other day. I used to hate it when my Mom wouldn't let me finish what I was saying (or in reality *my argument*) and I always said that I wouldn't be that way with my kid. Fast forward all these years later and I am now painfully aware that my Mom did let me 'state my case' once or twice, but when it reached the point where I was saying the same darn thing over and over again trying to get things the way *I* wanted them...it was then that she cut me off, ended the discussion, put a stop to it all. Now, as I parent my own child and he frequently tells me that "you never let me finish what I want to say", I feel my Mom's pain.
"...respecting the child, being willing to engage in discussions about rules, and never exercising power just for the hell of it..." is great in theory and in many practical applications. However, it's been my (anecdotal) experience that it can also get away from you and before you know it, the child thinks everything is debatable, arguable, and up for discussion and that just simply isn't the case (in my house, anyway). For example, I do believe in offering explanations/reasons for some things, if and when I can or feel inclined, but it's not something that I'm required to do. I think grinity hit the nail on the head with different emphasis and different challenges. JMHO.
