Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion habits and schedule

Starting school yesterday and people comparing schedules etc.

New boy in DD's 2nd grade class that we knew when they were 2s together in a playgroup. The father is a brilliant physicist, who went to Wall Street and the mother is an astrophysicist at Columbia.

Anyway, we were talking about CTY and other ways to enrich and accelerate the learning. Language, since he was in dual language program before this. And then I was talking to a mother who opted for the competitive gymnastics track, which we opted out of this year and putting the emphasis on ballet and doing some Nutcracker performances, not with NYCB, but another troop that only commits to 4 performances a season.

And it seems that if you do have extracurriculars, and a child gets really into something, competitively, then super acceleration may not be necessary. Because there isn't a lot of time. If you are doing competitive gymnastics and you have be there 5 days a week, by the time you are 9, there is little time for school and you have to learn quickly. Thinking of my own experience as a competitive figure skater and being on the ice 6 days a week and missing a lot of school and skipping 2 grades. For me, the math and sciences worked to accelerate. Literature being skipped a grade was fine. Understanding art was more of maturity thing. I wasn't going to appreciate the Guernica at 10.

Anyway, my hypothesis is, that even the PG can work within a couple of acceleration years in math, if they have a strong extracurriculars to occupy them.

I don't think a PG child would be actually harmed by a lack of acceleration, necessarily, but could be greatly frustrated and academic development in areas of interest delayed. Over-scheduling could represent a failure to address a child's academic need and ability to focus more usefully on something else. (ETA: I'm ashamed of the poor construction of that sentence. What I mean is that over-scheduling in an area not of interest to a highly self-motivated person can have bad effects, including curbing passion and stunting growth in major talent areas.) I think it would be worst if the extracurricular focus were chosen by the parent.

So I think it'd be failing one's PG child talented in math to make them attend a sport or dance activity for so many hours a week that they were effectively shorted in the math area, or didn't have enough time to develop their own interests in math-related subjects. PG children are often self-motivated to a large degree, and I think one should give full rein to that if possible. I think it's more likely that something like dance or an instrument will be initially chosen by the parent and will essentially be a chore that the child works at because the parent thinks it will be good for the child in the long run. The child may develop somewhat of a liking for such a thing, but unless the talent and inner drive for the subjec is present within the child at some point, it'll just be a form of hothousing that shorts academic development. But if the desire for heavy scheduling of a particular activity comes from genuine interest by the child, and the activity is healthy (gotta put the crack-'n'-video-game disclaimer in), it's not bad as long as enough balance is maintained.

With HG+ children that can learn at a faster pace, I could never agree that 1, 2, or any specific number of grade skips would be enough. That would just level-set 1, 2, or X times without addressing long-term the need for a change in pace and/or how the material is learned. A certain number of skips might work fine in a particular case, but not (clearly) in all cases. The likelihood that 1, 2, or any particular number of skips is plenty of acceleration goes down the further up the ability+drive scale you go.

Let's say I had a HG+ child with a math talent, who could learn 2-3 grades' worth of math concepts per year without stress, and also had an interest in math and STEM subjects (computer programming and robotics, say). Would I think it was a good move to insist that such a child spend all their free time on dance or a sport, or anything in specific that I chose? No. Now with my older son, he does have such interests, along with a range of other things he's interested in. Yesterday he decided to start building a model of the Eiffel tower out of toothpicks and Kix cereal nuggets (turns out they work better than marshmallows, performing much like tiny styrofoam balls). My belief is that he chooses things like this to do because he's interested, and also because some part of him recognizes that it needs practice at certain types of problem-solving, which I'd hate to deny. I also think that creativity needs free time to develop properly. Dance can certainly be creative, but hours per week of practicing plies, in order to hopefully perform an original work created by someone else, seems more like skills practice than (direct) creative talent development.

I'm just presenting a different point of view that I honestly hold, not arguing for the sake of argument. I don't think you're doing wrong by your daughter, though, because I don't know you or her, what prompted the specific choice of dance, or how much she's deeply interested in it. I also realize that if your daughter turns out to have world-class dance talent, including choreographic ability, she's going to need to develop basic skills in order to support her talent. And you are certainly providing valuable life experiences for your daughter, with trips etc., that a lot of people can't provide for their children. Parents all lie on a spectrum with their beliefs about things like how much to control their children, including how much to schedule their time, etc. I don't think anyone could say that a highly self-motivated PG child would be harmed by a mere two skips, either-- she would probably find some way to learn what she needed to know, even if that meant staying up at night reading and thinking.

And there are plenty of children out there that don't need or couldn't handle radical acceleration, of course-- sort of like the way one doesn't need to pour jet fuel into one's Ford Escort. Most of these children could probably get some value from a range of extracurricular activities, too. As has been discussed before in other threads, though, I don't see a lot of value in scheduling any child's time to the hilt, for many reasons. My feelings would change in a particular case if the interest came from the child, and the child was asking for a particular set of activities.

Somewhat off topic, but dance-related-- I saw "Black Swan" recently. Great movie!

I agree with Iucounu. I don't think it's a good idea to do this with parent-directed intentionality as a way to "fix it," but if it happens organically at the child's behest, it probably can be a good workaround.

Do schools where you are [have to?] allow children to do outside activities that take them regularly out of many lessons? Here that would never be allowed. Maybe I'm misunderstanding, but that's the only way I can make sense of it, as filling DS7's outside school time but leaving him doing near-age-appropriate work in all or even a significant number of school maths lessons would definitely not solve the problem for him. He'd be bored in school lessons, but now would not even have the time to scratch the maths itch outside school. Maybe if he were only in one maths lesson per fortnight, and if that had been the case all through his school career... but that's hard to imagine!

I am not sure how schools would handle it these days. When I was skating, I had already skipped, and was still top of the class. I was 13 in grade 9, so as long as I maintained a top grade, they let me miss 50+ days a year.

A kid is not going to pursue anything to that degree without their own interest. My own child, who has a natural talent for piano, would love to take a hammer to it. Now I won't let her quit piano because I think it is a valuable thing to learn about music and to play, but we took her off the competitive track. She did like to perform when she was asked to do a concert showcase. But not enough to practice hours a day.

And I think it is valuable to push a child to do some regular activity. So they get used to moving their body, just like I expect her to read regularly. She loves to read, but she would rather watch Wizards of Waverly place or Ant Farm if she had an option. So it is a matter of degrees. How many here don't think to push their kid in some direction like a sport, but what if they want to watch tv or play video games instead? DH was not pushed into any sport since he was not naturally athletic and it is hard for him to maintain an exercise program. And when we do physical things, I am the one with DD. Even doing an adventure walk with the dog after dinner. I have to push him to do that. He reads a few books a week but you need balance.

Now this is a total digression. But I was also thinking about one of those boys who did the round the world sailing alone thing, trying to be the youngest and then lost the title a few months later. He was homeschooled, did his studies online while sailing alone around the world. And then I think got into Harvard.

And I was wrong about numbering the years of acceleration needed, since I had already skipped early and continued my math acceleration even with limited school attendance. But it seems, you can fill in a lot and help with habits. Not sure if I am clear here.

And yes, DD does have talent, though not to be a world class ballerina. Her pant size is one to two sizes smaller than her top. No way those hips are going to open up and let her leg line up her back. Choreography may be an option to her. Especially with her music talent. But I still see her heading to Wall Street. She was asking me about the inside of limos the other day when we passed one. Her science class at the museum has some kids with serious money. I went to a party at one home which was on Fifth ave, across from the museum and the elevator opened up on this huge apt overlooking Central Park. Although, I try and push values, I know that it is much nicer to go first class on a plane. Much, much nicer. And I miss it. And I can understand the desire to make money. As long as she learns the habits to work for what she wants. I try and teach her that they don't make you happy, but they can give you pleasure, like a massage or ice cream. They pass, but they sure are nice.

I do find that DD has more energy for extracurriculars if she's not being particularly challenged at school, and has more need for unstructured downtime after school when school is challenging.

That said, she's a kid who needs unstructured downtime, and 5 days a week of a competitive activity would make her miserable, regardless of how easy or difficult school was.

DD11 is HG and is cruising right now in her gt school even though she is receiving additional acceleration in her strength area. She has a great teacher this year who is trying to challenge her more. She has no desire to skip for social reasons. Outside of school, she is over-scheduled right now. She is playing a competitive sport, taking multiple lessons a week for her chosen musical instrument and participates in a couple other weekly clubs. She has very little free time right now. I think that she is using her activities to fill in some of the gaps and occupy her brain.

I let her do this on purpose this year. Up until now, I have limited her to one or two activities at a time depending upon time commitments. This is her last year of elementary and quite frankly, it doesn't really count for much. So, I stopped saying "no." I'm letting her try everything she can fit in her schedule. I want her to feel over-extended. I want her to realize that she can't do everything and do it at the level that she demands of herself. I want her to test her organizational skills. In the meantime, I hope that she will figure out what's important and where she wants to focus her energy in the future. Of course, this all may backfire on me and she may juggle everything without breaking a sweat. I guess that will be a valuable lesson for me.