Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion So, IS your child a "leader"?

Ds9 is a leader in the making. He has confidence and speaks up. His actual skills in leadership are hit and miss depending on if the group was self selected or selected by the teacher.

Yes ... both differently but the answer for now would be Yes. DS5.5 demands to be followed. And if people don't want to follow, he puts serious effort into explaining why they do need to follow him and do what he says. He won't take NO for an answer.
DS3.10 doesn't request being followed verbally but you understand it from his behavior. It's either you follow or too bad, I'm definitely not following you either. But he doesn't want the attention that DS5.5 craves. You just KNOW he's in charge and he knows it too.
It will be interesting seeing them both in 5-10 years as their personalities either change or get more intense.

My problem with leadership is that I dislike small talk, schmoozing, gladhanding, and blah blah blah. I also hate inefficiency and drama. In the community effort I mentioned, people were DRIVING ME NUTS with their inability to focus and get things done and get their egos and personal nonsense out of the way. Now I sound sort of Aspergers-y, but I have the social awareness to know that I have to keep all this frustration inside and deal with all the emotionality and put out the fires. But really, people. Be adults. Get over it. Fix it and move on.

Uh, so yeah. This is exactly why I'm not a boss.

No, my child is too much of a people pleaser to be a leader. Follower through and through.

One of the things that annoys me is the tendency of teachers to "anoint" popular children even in elementary school. There are kids who get chosen for the best play parts, leadership roles in class, etc. and those who don't.

Teachers could do a really great thing by cultivating leadership more broadly, but they are often stuck in the mentality of their own schooling. Not all, but many.

Just picked up my kid from school. They sit near some classrooms on the sidewalk while they wait for car pick up. My son sat with his back to the cars and no less than ten kids around him hanging on to his every word. They all said bye to him in unison when I called for him out my window. I know that can be more "popular" and not so much "leader" but he moved into that class a month into the school year when we skipped him and he tells me enough about things that go on at school that I know he dabbles in leadership. At least the skip was fine socially.

He tells a good story, is a good conversationalist, he tries to get everyone to be good and do his/her best, and to have fun. I would follow him.

ha - and THIS is probably why you would make a fantastic one!

Yes. They choose popular children who are socially gregarious and extroverted, often strongly so, and generally those who are good athletes as well as moderately good (and highly compliant) teacher-pleaser students. It seems that these children are generally chosen from the 80th-95th percentile ranks in terms of classroom performance.

I've seldom seen the 2e kids, the dreamy ones, the introverts with all of the answers, or the prickly children get chosen this way. No matter how much they have to offer.

In my work with youth (as a volunteer) I go out of my way NOT to ignore such overlooked youngsters. Just because they are quiet doesn't mean that they don't have a lot of potential.

Thank you for saying this--I had exactly the same response after trying
to join both our neighborhood church (mainly for DD's benefit, as she
enjoyed the choir) and also a local flyball group (dog fun!). Most of
the personal interaction seemed to revolve around who would be IN CHARGE
and griping about decisions other people had made. I can get plenty
of that at work, thank you very much. Very disappointing.

Me too to a lot of this. I avoid being in charge if at all possible but I will if I am best qualified. I just have no desire to tell people what to do - I won't follow brainlessly either and am perfectly prepared to disagree or leave.