Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment DYS and less-gifted siblings

I have 3 children within 3.5 years of age. They are inseparable and enjoy each other a lot. If my 8yo boy, the oldest, qualifies for DYS and the other two do not, I wonder if it would bother them. Our middle child had his IQ tested at school and scored in the 110s, which I think is fair. I think our youngest is smarter than the middle child but not as smart as the eldest. If only the middle were not in DYS, that could bother him even more than only the oldest being in DYS.

Can anyone who has both children who do and do not qualify for DYS comment on how (if at all) the non-DYS child has been affected?

I'm the mom of an only, but as I count so many DYS parents as friends, I feel like I've had a good chance to observe.
Here are some ideas:
1) Join the DYS program but don't allow your oldest to participate in any DYS activities, don't talk about it with your kids. Of course at some point the in the natural course of things you'll have to have some way to talk about whatever real differences there are between your children, just like there can be differences in height, athletic ability, personability, etc. If it is real, it'll have to be talked about on some level, but I wouldn't use the DYS experience to force a conversation that your family isn't ready to have.
2) Join DYS program, but only allow your oldest to participate in activities that the whole family is allowed to attend, such as local get-togethers. Don't talk about it.
3) Join DYS program, allow your oldest to participate on a case by case basis, but don't talk about it except as relates to the particular activity.

Most of the DYS activities are support for the parents of the kids who have special needs, because the responsibility for getting those special needs met is still squarely on the parents. Make sense? Before I joined I worried that my son would be taken up to 'space academy' like in the Orson Scott Card book, 'Ender's Game.' No such luck. ((humor alert!!)) It's just not like that.

I think a lot of families use DYS as a short hand way to explain to their kids what makes them different, but that is sort of backwards to my thinking. It's the difference that allows you to participate in DYS. I've seen a Highly Gifted siblings of DYS kid refer to herself as 'I'm not gifted because I didn't get in to DYS.' Hopefully that was for shock value. I also know another sibling of a PG kid who isn't in DYS, who refers to herself as 'nongifted' because she is MG, and compared to her brother, she feels dumb. They aren't involved with DYS at all, because they believe the best way to deal with giftedness is to avoid talking about it. So there it is - heads you lose, tails you lose.

Hopefully there is some wonderful parenting technique where a parent can promote a particular kind of family pride and this whole issue gets sidestepped. But so much depends on the personality of the kids involved. To me, it' seems like a good time to take a giant step back and talk about every child is a gift and it's the responsibiilty of each kid to figure out where they get to make their contribution to the world. Tests don't measure every important part of a kid, that is for sure! Character will always be more important than inborn traits.

Good Luck!!!
Grinity

Hear, hear, Grinity!!

Bostonian, I have seen so many extremely informative posts from you (thanks!!!),
I think you know a lot more about this stuff than I do, but at least we and I think many other people join DYS because their kid is having trouble in school (and maybe later because of the scholarship possibilities). We joined because DD had a horrible school experience this past year and we were trying to get some positive labels to go along with all the negative ones the school helped to get for her She is an only, but regardless if we hadn't had this particular issue or if we lived in an area that had more schools and people that understood gifted we probably wouldn't have joined just because there wouldn't have been an apparent benefit. No offense to Davidson, of course!! We are very grateful for the help they have offered, including this forum and their wonderful database of articles, etc.--just that from a practical standpoint, in our experience I don't think it has actually made any practical difference for DD yet.

My own parents despite their many missteps were always very good about not treating my sister and me differently, and now that I am a parent of a 'challenging' only I can't imagine how difficult that must have been at times.

I believe you are a very thoughtful person and am sure you will come to the best possible decision for your family, whatever it may be. Remember that you can only make the best decision at the time it has to be made with the information you have! It's not fair to second-guess yourself when you are doing your best!

Best of luck,
Dbat

I also have 3 children who are close together in age (4.5 years in our family). Our oldest is EG, middle MG-not-technically-G at all, youngest HG+/uber-achiever. All very different kids - not just with respect to IQ and academics. I agree with much of what Grinity said. Plus I'll add - the difference is there and although with my kids the question has come up from time to time re why does ds get to participate is program X (which one or both of my other kids won't qualify for due to IQ) but that's pretty much it - just a question, we answer that to qualify you have to have a certain test score and ds has it. If you asked any of them, they'd tell you ds is super-smart (and smarter than them) - not because we've ever told them or talked about it and not because of the programs he's eligible to join or the courses he is taking in school. They will tell you that because they live with him and experience his knowledge on a daily basis (he shares lol). They're used to him knowing the answers to everything. They may not have as high of an IQ, but they (and their friends and his friends and most adults) know just by listening to him that he's an incredibly intelligent kid. Sometimes it causes a little bit of sibling angst - not jealously as much as annoyance that he is always so quick to answer for everybody else or just because he always seems to know everything. The fact that he participates in some things that his IQ got him into doesn't phase them anymore than the fact that my youngest dd is much better at gymnastics than her siblings and can participate in special gymnastics groups because of it. They are all three individuals who honestly, at their ages, are much more all about themselves than worried about what the others are a part of. OTOH, they are incredibly aware of who gets the most treats when it comes to food (and keeping that fair) and who gets to stay up past their bedtime and/or who's had the most time with mom or dad lately.

Best wishes,

polarbear

I think the key thing is that if the parent believes that a person's value doesn't stem from their IQ, but rather their character (what they do with what they have) then the kids will grow to believe it too.

Also - if the kids sense that it's a hot button issue with a parent, they'll put that button for all it's worth.

Most of us parents were children once, and many had siblings of our own. So that may be a part of life that needs 'brushing off and cleaning up' while we try to guide our own kids. In our family of 4, one kids was identified as 'gifted' and the rest supposedly weren't. I was jealous of the attention and special opportunities he got. I just was. I was also confused, because, if I wasn't gifted, then what WAS wrong with me that made me so different? The gifted-identified kid actually had much better social skills than I did as a kid. Yeesh! It's a mysterious world, that's for sure. Now I can see that talkitive and probing gifted kids have a way of getting more parental attention than their sibs because they ask the most interesting questions, and they may have more intensity pushing them to make more dramatic and energetic bids for attention.

I kind of wish I had had the chance to find out what an imperfect parent of sibs I would have been. Just like our kids, I think the best way to measure our own performance is 'Did we do the best we could with the resources we had?' We are human too, yes?

Smiles,
Grinity

My DD8 is DYS and my DS11 is not. DS is 2e and very bright, 4 points from DYS level on PRI but his achievement scores are significantly below IQ because of ADHD/dysgraphia. DD is a kid who is "wired for school", off the charts VCI and very high WMI as well. (Funny, because my DD's PRI and my DS' VCI are exactly the same. They are almost mirror images of each other in IQ.)

It's tough because DS has struggled so with school and DD sails through with perfect grades and no effort. DS has complained and actually thrown fits many times about the "unfairness" of his school experience versus hers way before DYS came along.

I would guess that your kids have figured out who is "smartest" and "best at school" without DYS. I think kids are much better off if they are parented consistently but with an accounting for the differences between them, not treated exactly the same. A "B" on a spelling test is fabulous work for DS and NOT representative of DD's best effort and that same grade meets with a different response.

Personally I would never deny my DD the help and support we get from DYS just because DS can't also be in it. My DH and I have only casually mentioned DYS around the kids so it's not much of a factor, but believe me your kids have probably already figured out that they are different and how. That's ok, as Grinity points out, IQ just a number that represents a part of who you are. The real tragedy would be if they weren't all distinctly different and wonderful in their own surprising ways.

One of my twins is in DYS while the other is not. Having said that, the non-DYS twin has border-line (almost) DYS scores and at the next testing will likely get DYS scores (based on the circumstances and score patterns of the last Explore). Even if her next scores qualify, we apply, and she gets accepted, there will continue to be a significant differences intheir abilities.

I get I am trying to say that the issues are already there apart from DYS and that the DYS difference is the least of it. As the kids get older, there will be many instances where one kid shines above the others and they will learn to deal with it. For example, my DYS twin was jealous when his twin won a district art award. Then again, it won't always be the brighter kid who shines. My non-DYS twin actually got to represent her school/grade at the district science fair even though there is no question that her twin is far more able in science. It came down to who created the better product.

We didn't have it when I was growing up, nor did any of us know our IQ scores. However, that did not stop the comparisons amongst ourselves (I was the "smart one," DSister1 was the "pretty one..."), and there were a lot of fits thrown because someone could do something better than someone else (6 of us within 6 years of each other).

And nothing would stop DC21 and DC18 from fighting or throwing tantrums because "someone had it easier--" whether that was DC21 struggling with school because of ADHD and dyslexia or DC18 not understanding stuff as quickly as DC21...