Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy A child who wants to be something different

What do you do with a gifted child who does not embrace that aspect of herself? I have two dds who turned 11 and 9 recently. The younger one was my earlier developer (speech, gross motor skills, etc.) and generally was the kid who made me think, "wow, this kid is really bright" before they started school. Dd#1, over time, proved herself to be very, very bright, has skipped one grade and is performing at the top of her current grade on national and state tests. She stands out as unusual even in gifted programs and I've had more than one GT teacher tell me that she is the most gifted child they can recall having taught in a long time or ever.

Dd#2, on the other hand, is much more concerned with fitting in socially. She is very erratic on achievement tests and has had more that one teacher who was insistent that she was not gifted at all. At the end of 2nd grade, she was tested on the WISC and rec'd a score of 148 (99.9th percentile). In 3rd grade, her teacher insisted that any high achievement scores from years past and the IQ score were due to good guessing. By the end of 3rd grade, dd was performing just at grade level and was pretty beaten down. We had her retested on the WISC and filled out a bunch of forms as did the teacher. The psychologist who tested her told us that the teacher made it pretty clear on her forms that dd was "nothing special." Her measured IQ had dropped by 20 points when retested although her achievement scores for math, reading, and writing on the WIAT were all significantly higher than expected if the new IQ scores were right. On the SB-5 she wasn't gifted at all -- around 119 if I recall correctly.

Dd wants to drop out of the TAG reading class she is in (was placed there b/c her IQ scores were still w/in the GT range for our district [95th%+] and her verbal score on the WISC was still in the 99th and her individual achievement scores for reading and writing were very high). She wants to be "normal" and has no friends who are in the advanced classes. She doesn't want to be viewed as a "geek," doesn't like to read, and is adopting the poor speech patterns of her peers such as constantly pairing "there's" with a plural noun.

I suppose that it is possible that she simply isn't gifted, but just bright/right on the cusp as the second set of testing would indicate and maybe I should just let her be an avg student who speaks poorly. However, the kids in that group who she chooses to hang out with don't seem to suit her well either. She complains constantly about how they drive her crazy, cheat off of her papers, insist on being in her group and then having her do all the work... She rolls over and does whatever they want in order to avoid having them get mad at her or cry.

Sounds she is hiding her abilities. Check out these two articles for starters:

http://www.davidsongifted.org/db/Articles_id_10171.aspx

http://www.sengifted.org/articles_social/Reis_SocialAndEmotionalIssuesFacedByGiftedGirls.shtml

I have a boy, but I remember similar issues in my own youth.

You will get more replies from others who have first hand-experiences with their DDs

Hugs and Good luck!

EW

I don't know what the best path is, but I suspect it's a balance between what she feels she needs and what you feel she needs. We've had similar issues with our DD 10. Our DD tends to the absentminded and disorganized, which does not impress her teachers, although they all find her very "sweet" and "lovely".
DD worries about sticking out at school. She tells us that she doesn't want to be "one of the kids who think they're cool", but she also doesn't want to be made fun of by others. A great example of this occurred tonight when she had homework to compare two books. She had wonderful ideas about them related to narrative style (her words) but when she went to start writing, she worried that she would have to read it out loud to her group and that they would think it was weird. (sigh....) In the end, Where I've sort of settled is that she needs to feel comfortable and safe at school. However, she also needs to put effort into her work, because we expect her to continue to grow. We tell her that doing less than she is able to do with reasonable effort is not an acceptable choice, no matter what abilities she has--and that all students are expected to put effort into their work (yes, I realize that that part is in my dreams, but she hasn't realized that yet ). However, we also let her decide how much to put herself "out there" while she's at school, and then quietly feed her strengths and her interests when she's at home. My hope is that this combination allows her to grow into herself at school and to enjoy herself--as herself--at home. Little by little, I think she will carry her "real" self into the wider world as she grows in confidence. At least, that's what I *hope* will happen!

Sounds like she is controlling the group using several dynamics. This kind of behavior is very sophisticated.

She is "choiced" into this school and we don't intend to track her with this group to middle school. She'll attend our assigned middle school where my older dd goes now, although dd#1 will be off to highschool when dd#2 starts there. The middle school does team teaching and I intend to have her assigned to a different team than her sister had so she doesn't have the same teachers and inevitable comparisons.

In re to her interests, she wants to be a fashion designer, Hollywood makeup artist, or something having to do with botany. We haven't had much luck finding activities for kids in those areas as of yet. Dd#1, oddly enough, has had all kinds of local marine biology opportunities despite us living in Colorado. I'm going to keep working on trying to find stuff for dd#2, though. She tends to quit things as soon as she can, though, b/c she bores quickly and doesn't like to put in a lot of effort.