Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy Gifted child in Public School

My daughter is in the 4th grade and just has been identified as gifted. She has been frustrated and bored for several years and has always exceled in school. She is in the public school system. I am wondering if anyone has any expereience with the public and/or recomendations on how I could make sure she is challenged at the right level with the school. We really don't want her to skip a grade for social reasons. She is very quiet. She is going into the 5th grade and it is the highest at the elementary level.

I have 2 accelerated boys ( DS8 is finishing 7th grade and DS5 is finishing 3rd grade) and the social argument is just not strong enough to discourage children from being who they are and not allowing them the access to the resources they need.

Having experienced this with both boys, gifted children ( especially profoundly gifted ones) will act out in anti-social or anti-authoritative means if their academic energies are not allowed to be challenged to their true potential.

Eventually they will get cynical of school which over years of boredom will be perceived as a colossal waste of time.

If you have the means, I would recommend a private school that could assist them ( if one exists) with their academic potential or extra-curricular mentoring/learning centers/activities ( ie chess club or a math club).

Not knowing what your DD's gifted talent(s) are it will be up to you to look around at something they can look forward to

We chose not to accelerate our EG ds12 - he'll be going into 7th grade next year. Although many gifted children act out as cawdor mentions when they aren't appropriately challenged in school, not all do. Some do ok, others (like my ds) tend to *act* like things are ok until you find out they've been bottling up a lot of feelings that they just chose to live with for several years rather than tell anyone about.

It's probably impossible for any of us who aren't in your specific school district to give recommendations simply because school districts are all so very different in how they approach gifted education and what they will and won't offer in terms of subject acceleration. For us, the answer that worked best for ds and our HG+ dd8 was to move them to private schools which were purposely a year ahead in curriculum for everyone at the grade they were at, allow for more than one grade level subject acceleration, and that have faculty who actively encourage their students to reach as high as they possibly can in their studies. I've also found it helps to be in private school simply because you're paying tuition and the teachers in turn listen to what you have to say as a parent (we had very frustrating experiences with this in our public schools - for instance, we were told when ds was in early early elementarythat "any child who can print their name can score above the 99th percentile on the WPPSI". (Ironically... our ds who scored that high on the WPPSI.... also couldn't easily write his name due to dysgraphia but... I'm getting lost on a personal rant now!)...

Anyway... for us, the social issue was a concern and I still believe it was the right thing to do, for our ds, to not push for a full-grade acceleration. It's not an issue for many kids, but for some kids it can be - as our ds has gotten older he's also expressed the same feelings to us. His school is still not a great fit (and no school probably ever will be) but he is happy to be with same-age peers and wouldn't want to be in a classroom with older kids.

Best wishes,

polarbear

eta - fwiw, we found middle school has been better overall for our ds than elementary school.

Boys are more likely to act out, certain personality types are more likely to complain. This doesn't mean that the needs of quiet students are being met. Maybe your daughter is quiet because she feels a huge gulf between herself and her peers. When she's with her intellectual peers, that problem may disappear. Kids in schools with a better gifted program than the ones where I have worked tell me that when they are with other gifted kids, they don't care about how old anybody is.

I had a friend in 8th grade who skipped three grades, went to college at 15, dated several classmates, joined a fraternity, and went to an Ivy League for his PhD. I've also known at least one person who skipped a few grades, dropped out of graduate school, and has a difficult time holding a job. I suspect that individual is on the autism scale, and he is not offended when I suggest that. I'm just saying that some folks will have social issues whether or not they are accelerated.

Every kid is different. You have to make your decisions based on what you know about your kid.

First question is 'who identified your child?'
If it was a private psychologist, what did she/he recommend? Is the tester willing to call the school and make suggestions? What areas is your daughter particularly inderested or unchallenged in?

2nd questions is 'what level of gifted is she?' That is, is she similar in her level of learning strengths to the other smart kids at her school going into 5th grade? Would the school be willing to group some of these strong kids together and offer them the chance to work on independent project based learning?

3rd question is 'are my attitudes towards gradeskipping based on my experiences, experiences of people I know, or vauge stories?' Take a moment to look at the research for yourself and see if you still agree with yourself. IRPA - A Nation Deceivedwww.nationdeceived.org/Cached - Similar
The Institute for Research and Policy on Acceleration (IRPA) is dedicated to the study of curricular acceleration for academically talented students. Academic ...
Even if you decide acceleration is the way to go, you many not want to push for it this year, as this is the bridge year between schools.

4th question - what can/is best to do outside of school? Is there a summer program for gifted kids that you can get your DD involved with. I'd be interested to know if she still seems shy when she is with 'her tribe.' Some do, some don't. What about an online class over the summer? Are there any topics that she is already interested in that could be expanded into indepth independent study at home or at school.

What has the school said so far?

Welcome!
Grinity

I posted on your other thread yesterday, but since this one seems to be getting more responses, I wanted to reply to some of what had been said here.

Re grade skipping, I am not opposed as I have one dd who is grade skipped. However, I don't think that it is the solution for all gifted children. Many things come into play: how unusually gifted for your area is your child, are there ways to meet her needs in her current grade, are there 2e issues at play, does the child want to skip... There are more things than that to consider and I do think that the social aspect is one of the things to consider.

I would never rule a child out for a skip solely based on worries about socialization unless there were some major issues (a child on the autism spectrum who was likely to be severely bullied post-skip and who had a supportive group in grade, for instance). I wouldn't ignore social concerns, though.

My one who skipped is well out of the range of what a typical GT ided kid looks like in our area. She was learning very little even with all of the GT services available being offered in grade and I was seeing problems that I didn't want to see such as major procrastination, perfectionism (with the expectation that she needed to do no work for A+s across the board -- she was, honestly, pretty much right), and other kids treating her like some kind of prodigy.

My other child is also HG. It doesn't mean that a child isn't highly gifted if a grade skip isn't the right intervention for that child. There are other issues with my other dd such that we needed to find alternatives other than a grade skip. These have worked better for her.

I would not jump to 'grade skip' until I knew better what else could be done and whether you are dealing with a child who cannot be accommodated in her current grade.