Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion "Is your kid really gifted? Probably not."

Below is a link to an article that is in the CNN.com headlines this morning.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/HEALTH/family/08/27/gifted.kids/index.html


I love that they go back to the old stats of one in a million and the sources they pull from such as Parents.com.

Also clearly setting the stage for educators to claim pushy parents and no need for gifted programs in the early years because clearly there is not really many 'gifted' kids.

I do have to agree, however, with the playbase learning and not using flashcards to drill. But overall the typical crap we see in the mainstream and yet another sign that things are not changing anytime soon.

By the way, the article is linked to a video of a 6 year old boy with an IQ in the 170s.

Yes, my MIL called me to tell me about it this AM. He has a photographic memory I believe she said.

Of course this balanced by the districts that use a 75th% cutoff for gifted and have 45% of the student body labeled as gifted. Then the excuse is "everybody's gifted here your child will be fine."

Yep!

Thank you Dottie! As I read the article I just kept laughing at the math and again why it sets me off is people will use it for the argument. And I'm sorry but Parents.com is equivalent to me using Time magazine for research. Just a lot of fluff.

Also dazed: I fear we are in the same boat with our school district. The percentage of kids in gifted programs is over the top which comes down to IF your child isn't in gifted then you have failed them: hence all the after school tutoring sessions that take over the community. So my big fear is the response we will get for our DD when she starts school.

I completely agree that the article did little or nothing to help the parents of gifted kids, which is a shame since this is going to add up to a lot of kids.

That being said, when I read the Parenting article, I remember liking how it normalized "normal." I felt at the time that its goal was not to dismiss giftedness (it did dismiss it, but that wasn't its point), but to help parents of ND kids to appreciate the value in their children and not to force them to be something they are not. I really liked that.

Considering the day-to-day drudgery in the classroom with practicing the state tests and little time for enrichment activities, it's no wonder every parent in our district wants their kid in the gifted program. They can only benefit from being identified gifted. Yesterday, DS told me he got to make things with legos during the gifted pullout. They are also planning several fun field trips. No danger of a child being in over their heads...

I laughed when I read the part about parents wanting "bragging rights".

That really is unfortunate. There is a big difference between a 130 child and a 170 child. I would shudder to think that a parent with a gifted child would look at that and determine that their child couldn't possibly be gifted in comparison. Tsk tsk.

Not you Katelyn, obviously! The article, I mean.

On this topic of normalizing and accepting, I totally agree with enough with everybody pushing that their child is gifted and even have a friend that plays the keeping up with the jones game. She knew my child was able to do x, y, and z so early that she set a curriculum for her child and uses that as boosting rights to her child is gifted. I think when parents do this they over look the key ingredient of the wants to learn by the child. So yes, in the above realm the article speaks out but I also think it undermines what 'gifted' truly is. They narrow it to the level 5 child that Ruf talks about and disregards the other highly gifted children in the process.