Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy Sibling issues (pulled from GT research)

I spend most of my time dealing with sibling issues and thinking about how I should be approaching them, so I wanted to start this as a separate thread so it wasn't buried in the other discussion.

Ah - HA! Moment Alert!

the best, best thing you can do for your dd, is to get over your humiliation v. your son/chess/rook. You have to be the kind of person you want to raise, and I know you want to raise your daughter to be someone who accepts her stengths and weaknesses and plows on ahead, being part of the fun.....do you see the connection here?

While I believe that subject acceleration can work, and know a living breating wildly PG boy who hasn't had a single gradeskip, only he only spends PE and health with his agemates, doing High School in Middle School and University (not CC) since his single digit years, I do tend to agree with your husband about the elaborate sham. I didn't know how to say it, until I read the chess entry on the other thread! Bingo! When you can play hard, and lose, on an uneven field, against DS you will be well on your way to 'holding the mirror' for DD and letting her see something beautiful.

I see such beauty when I look at you, dear J!
Trinity

Oh Dottie, that is so funny. That is exactly what my son when he plays chess with me. He absolutely refuses to take my queen. What sweet boys!

I think my problem is the exact opposite. DD was my first and is my HG child. She did a lot of things early but the main one was speech. By 1 year old she was fluent. Now my ds is 4yrs younger. He is nowhere near where she was with speech. As a matter of fact, there are times I wonder if he is actually behind for his age. My problem is that my dd is my benchmark and Im afraid that I have these unreasonably high expectations for ds because of my experience with dd.

The other day ds starting exhibiting some traits that dd had as a toddler. He's starting to articulate things he remembers that are uncanny and so Im wondering if he has a bit of that memory that my dd has. He has also been the master of puzzles for about a year. I find that because his speech is still developing I dont see him as being advanced like my dd was, which I think is unfair to him! I don't give the little guy enough credit!

Opps!
Well I certianly plain out resent my son's musical ability. I'm also pleased and proud of him, but parenting is a tangled mess sometimes. So I could imagine a negative reaction to being beaten in chess, by such a pipsqueak, cute though he may be!

I love the idea that as your daughter's world becomes bigger, she will find other people for self-comparison. Getting a reasonable standard of comparison is one of the trickiest things for gifted folks, regardless of LOG. I myself grew up overshadowed by my younger brother's talents. The things that were special about me were just seen as weird, while the things that were special about him were 'so amazing.' I think developing a family motto, family stock stories, and family saying must play a really important role in families with siblings of differing LOG. Corny stuff like "It's not how quick you get it, it's how long you keep it." or "Fair isn't everyone the same, fair is each get what they need." As a sibling of twins, I have an insiders view of how much stress that puts on a family. So my hat is off to you, J!

Smiles,
Trintiy

We have sibling issues. DS9 is clearly very gifted in math, moreso than his older brothers. DS13 is enough older that he doesn't feel threatened but definitely appreciates it and is sometimes wowed. Meanwhile DS11 has historically felt very threatened by it. I've had to ask teachers to keep DS9 a few lessons behind DS11 when they were in the same class. Now they're in different schools (till next year) and things have been peaceful. However, last night they were playing a great ThinkFun game called Math Dice, altogether with DS 6. DS 9 won almost every time and DS11 was a little fragile and teary. I have no real solutions--they're all amazing and brilliant in my eyes. We'll see what I can figure out for not getting in each others' way in jr high/HS.