Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Learning Environments Homeschooling Kinder-What do I do with this child?

We�ve known our youngest, who turned three in December, was bright for quite a while. She continuously surprises us. A few recent examples:

-My inlaws took her and her sister to the beach, and on a whim asked her if she knew what a marina was (they had expected her not to know and were going to explain it to her). She gives them a detailed description. No one has any idea where she got this information.

-At Christmas, she is describing the contents of her stocking. In it she had two rubber duckies. But when asked, she said there were three. I asked her to tell me again. She said, �4, 5.� Then when prompted again said, �6, 7,� laughing at us. This went on a few more rounds, and then I said, �How many duckies are there really?� and her response was, �There are a lot of duckies in the world.� So I asked, �How many are in front of you right now?� and she puts them to the side of her and says, �There are no duckies in front of me.�

-She tagged along with me to the gradeschool creative writing group I lead once a week (3rd-5th graders) and pretended to be writing her owns story while they were writing. The students each read their work aloud, then she announced that she had a story to read as well. She gets up confidently in front of the older children with her piece of paper and proceeds to deliver a detailed story about how her cat farts a lot and smells bad. Of course the other children are laughing, and she pretends to be stern, admonishing them for laughing, and continues the story, knowing full well she�s being funny, but trying really hard to keep a straight face.

-She expressed an interest in learning to read last week, and then picked up a dozen sight words in two days.

-She seemed to have all of the kindergarten prerequisite skills (and we�ve never pushed academics on her�only shown her things she was interested in, and let her play educational games), so I decided to start homeschooling her through kindergarten curriculum. I found some curriculum online, and on Sunday I did the �day 1� material with her. She burned through it in less than an hour, then demanded a dozen more worksheets (tracing and matching and etc), then requested mazes (as far as I knew, she didn�t know how to do mazes), and proceeded to complete four mazes that were designed for 5-6 year olds in less than five minutes. She did another half dozen before I got tired of printing things out, and then I let her play on the educational site starfall.com, which she did for hours, and then the day ended in tears because she had to stop to go to bed.

-Yesterday at dinner we asked her if she could figure out how many eyes total me and her and her dad had. She initially responds with �I have two eyes, daddy has two eyes, and mommy has two eyes.� We ask her again how many that makes in total, and she refuses to answer instead giving all sorts of information about the different shapes and sizes and colors of our eyes, suggesting that all of us had different eyes, so they shouldn�t be grouped together. We ask again, and she answers �7�, then she answers �5� then keeps alternating between 7 and 5 while laughing. Much, much later she finally comes clean and tells us it�s 6. Then I ask her how many eyes total if we include her sister�s eyes, and she immediately answers �8�.

She frequently does this sort of thing when asked questions we�re pretty sure she knows�she skates around the answer, or takes the question too literally on purpose, or does any number of other things to avoid giving you the correct answer because she finds it entertaining. And I suppose I can see that making her regurgitate things she knows�like we�re quizzing her�might seem pointless to her, maybe? So my concern is�how do I go about teaching her? It doesn�t seem like standard kindergarten curriculum is going to cut it. But at the same time, she seems impatient with some skills that are pretty fundamental (for example, she likes writing capital letters, but refuses to write lowercase�she will trace them, but not write them. So we need to slow her down so she can develop the dexterity needed, while her brain wants to zip on ahead because the task is boring.)

Mydirtshovel, welcome and your daughter sounds delightful! You have correctly recognized that she loves learning but doesn't see any point in show-offing. So I would suggest to create an enriched environment for her to explore and learn at her own pace at this age. Apologize for the shameless plug, but I setup a montessori inspired homeschool room for my dd when she was about 3.5yo and she loves it. She spends many hours in it all be herself. Here is a link to the thread where I talk about all the materials in the homeschool.
http://giftedissues.davidsongifted.org/BB/ubbthreads.php/topics/165584/1.html

Lovemydd has some good ideas. But I would hold back from deciding at this point that K will not work for your child (unless you already know you want to homeschool). Many children do come into K already knowing much of the basic K curriculum as it is described online. This does not necessarily mean that K will be a disaster, although it could be. There are a lot of other factors involved--your child's personality, the school's curriculum, the teacher she gets, the school's flexibility. I have two children, one of whom attended K at a small charter known for very high test scores and one of whom is in K at a poor Title 1 school with low test scores. My younger child is probably the more gifted. While neither came across any reading or math they did not know in K, the older really needed to learn how to "be in school," and also enjoyed school, though generally it was a poor fit but not awful. My younger is now splitting his time between K and 1, and really enjoys the social aspects, things like art and music, and has grown tremendously in writing skills (something most kids don't really pick up at home). The Title 1 school has been far more accommodating of giftedness than the charter. Despite the fact that actual learning was/is limited for both, I would not have chosen to HS them and feel that K has offered benefits. Of course, HSing is also not something I want to do unless I have to.

(This is not to say that you shouldn't enjoy teaching your daughter at home. Of course you should!)

Welcome about the Asynchrony Train with a sly, socially adroit, and (somewhat) oppositional/autonomous child.

My DD was doing this sort of thing as far back as we can remember. She never learned skills so that she could show them off-- for anyone, at any time, or CERTAINLY on command.

She would deliberately AVOID compliance with a demand to "show me" _______. The nearest explanation that I can offer is that she seemed to feel that this was insulting her intellect. Even as a baby. She'd kind of roll her eyes internally as if she were thinking "What am I? A trained SEAL?? Ooooo-- gonna gimme a fish if I do?"

Then she'd do exactly what your kiddo does-- dance ALL around answers or skills, and laugh-laugh-laugh at the ever-increasing frenzy of those asking her. Non-compliant doesn't begin to cover this behavior, does it? LOL.

Like some of the others, we set up a home-Montessori environment for her when she was about 3.5 yo, after looking into some local preschools and getting shown the waiting list (long long story, related to 2e, not GT)...

after she learned to read at about age 5, though, the world abruptly opened like a shucked oyster. She went from "clearly bright" to intellectually insatiable and rapidly outpacing anything we tried. Seriously-- she would burn through a year's worth of "complete curriculum" in just a few days or weeks, and I had no idea how she was doing it. It still mystifies me, that process.

We did a bunch of different homeschooly things with her-- but most of the time, I was scrambling to keep the beast fed, quite honestly. Charlotte Mason worked well for a while at ages 4-6.

I don't KNOW that I'd write off regular schooling just yet-- it's possible that your child will enjoy the social aspects just fine, and tolerate the rest with reasonable grace...


er.

Well, okay-- I'd say that you have reasonable evidence already that the latter is unlikely. Speaking as parent to one of this particular model, I mean.

You're probably going to have your hands full reining in her impulses to manipulate those around her for entertainment. I strongly encourage active teaching of empathy and compassion-- and RESPECT for the feelings and autonomy of others. REALLY strongly encourage that with this type of child.



My DD is now 14, and she's still quite a handful, but she's also not got a mean bone in her body, and is well-liked by almost everyone who knows her. She's also very eager to begin college next fall.

So what would I tell myself back when DD was two and three?

1. Don't DEMAND performance-- just appreciate it when it shows up. I strongly suspect that this may be where my DD go the kernel of an idea that "perfect" mattered to others and that they expected nothing less from her. DO NOT go down that road if you can help it.

2. Read The Manipulative Child. Absorb and assimilate. Understand that because of extreme asynchrony and extreme intellect, a child like this is VERY prone to not addressing skills that s/he can manipulate others into doing FOR her. Also understand that you're dealing with a push-pull of power struggles from day one. Throw away your parenting guides that tell you theory of mind doesn't develop fully until they are 4-5yo. These kids have ALWAYS known; you're not crazy, this is just what you were handed as a parent-- parent accordingly.

3. DO NOT allow or forbid behavior on the basis of age alone. Make decisions based on the CHILD you have, not the age she is. This also requires a great deal of ignoring others, because your parenting is going to look frankly bizarre to others.


4. Don't-- ever-- in educating this kind of child-- make them REPEATEDLY demonstrate mastery. What-- are you worried that it was a FLUKE?? This undermines your child's intellectual autonomy and confidence, and it also makes the oppositional tendencies WAY worse. If they master a skill and show you that they truly have mastery-- then let it go. Quit "teaching" what they have mastery of. If you see REFUSAL, consider that you are perhaps insisting on instruction of a domain where the child has already attained mastery. I cannot begin to explain how much grief this one bit of advice would have saved me and my daughter when she was 4-9yo. They jump out of material with full mastery-- and you won't always see it progressing the way that one assumes will happen. Sometimes it's just as though it "sets up" overnight and emerges whole. Don't poke and prod and kick the tires-- just accept it and move on. For both your sakes.


5. One more-- this is one that educators will argue-argue-argue with, I'm aware... but repetition generally does NOTHING for this kind of child as a learner. Either an approach works for them-- or it doesn't. If they are having trouble grasping something after you've gone through it once (or at most three times) using the same approach... the approach isn't working. They don't NEED 'time for it to sink in.' Mostly. In this kind of instance, one of two things is at work: a) the child's developmental arc just isn't quite ready to support whatever-it-is, and no amount of instruction is going to make it so, or b) a different approach is needed. Period. The other alternative (and we've seen this too) is that the child has retained the message and will work on it mentally and in private (maybe even subconsciously?) until it emerges whole (as noted above). DO NOT BEAT DEAD HORSES in offering instruction to a child like this. DO NOT.

6. Watch closely for perfectionism-- learn about it, and understand that it doesn't always look like workaholic middle-aged adults.

Could not agree more! The best way to "teach" (and I use this word liberally) my dd is to introduce a new concept casually and then walk away. It may take anywhere from split seconds to two years before you get proof that your kid got it. But the proof will only come when your child is ready to demonstrate on her own- not a minute sooner no matter how much you test/quiz them. My dd does a lot of learning in secrecy and enjoys doing the reveal when she feels ready. One more reason why the homeschool room is working so great. It is her space where she can explore, test hypotheses, and learn without adult intervention. She comes to me when she needs help and I do as much or as little as she wants. The approach is working wonderfully for us.

Oh-- and this is why we've never bothered having DD tested formally.

There's no point.

She is very clearly VERY highly capable even among a gifted-to-highly-gifted cohort 3y older, so probably EG/PG. Functionally speaking, I mean.

When she WANTS to, she can blow the socks off of anyone-- but if you ask her to, good luck getting cooperation from her. It's a waste of time and $$ if she isn't in the mood.

It's only been in the past couple of years that we've been able to reason with her on this score, and even then, it's still been a somewhat mixed bag given her relative immaturity. Standardized testing is a lot of fun with one of these kids. Like Forrest Gump's box of chocolates.

I find myself keep re-reading Linda Silverman's book, Upside Down Brilliance: the visual-spatial learner. I recommend it. About 80% of what we process is due to our visual systems. So you're dd sounds like a vsl if she's sucking in whole words from sight, mazes, and other stuff she's doing.

Many vsls lag behind with handwriting and attention. Many vsls do not perform well under timed or standardized tests or when they're not in control. Let them have control and watch the learning take off, however. It's like they want to decide how much pressure to put themselves under and not others. Then again, these kids are often intrinsically motivated so that would make sense.

I'd just like to stipulate that there are probably subtypes and degrees for vsl behavior/thinking, etc. and that your dd may be very abstract or non-sequential in some areas and not in other areas. And that's normal. Some people prefer learning in an orderly fashion; others prefer taking in learning in different ways.

IT computer geeks tend to think in more linear, orderly ways than others like artists who are more abstract and chaotic with their thinking. So people can handle worksheets and that structure; others throw a revolt with it.

I'd suggest using topics of interest to teach to - this fits well with what HK posted above and won't see unnecessary repetition AND will enable her to go as fast or slow as she wants to.

Montessori materials and anything hands on will be fun and engaging too right now.

You don't have to change too much of what you are already doing; just keep having fun with her while introducing her to new ideas and topics and skills.