Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion 3 groups of HG parents of HG kids - a good model?

I was typing a long post on a different e-list, and I liked it so much I thought I bring it over here to see if this shoe fits some of us.

I'm trying to understand how things got to be the way they are, in general. One of the moms on the other list is doing a talk to parents of HG kids, about how to get in the mood for advocacy. She asked us what we had learned, and this is what I wrote:

I would say that most of the Highly Gifted Children have highly gifted parents who once were children and probably didn't like elementary school either. When children are small, and in a situation where it is clear to them there isn't a good fit, this will be painful for some of them. The ones for whom this is painful have 2 choices - decide that there is something wrong with school or that there is something wrong with themselves!

For the parents who were children who decided 'school is bad' the challenge not 'throw the baby out with the bathwater' and gently, firmly, and repeatedly summon the school to live up to its fancy motto and take the time to figure out the child's current readiness level and brainstorm what is the most straightforward way to get the child spending most of their day within their readiness level. Here the general advice is to use program components that are already in existence, whenever possible because human nature is such that creating a whole new program is a lot of work and takes tremendous dedication, more really than can be expected.

For parents who decided that there was something wrong with themselves, the challenge is to overcome the early conditioning. One way to do this is to spend time with other highly gifted parents who are facing the same thing. Online forums are convenient and effective, such as Davidson's Public Forum: http://giftedissues.davidsongifted.org/BB/ubbthreads.php/forum_summary.html
Another way is face-to-face, through Davidson YSP, talent search family activities, or weekend conferences - check out http://www.hoagiesgifted.org/conferences.htm for ones more local to you.

Then there are the parents who were in a bad fit but weren't bothered by it. They might have kids who aren't bothered either, in which case giftedness isn't even a topic of interest. On the other hand, they may have children who are bothered, in which case they are much more likely have sought out some contact with the gifted world. This group always has to fight the niggling feeling that the child is making the whole thing up. The best thing one can do for this group is to help them get an authority figure to tell them 'Yes, even though you were able to thrive in a poor fit academic environment, personality matters, and your kid isn't. You are the lucky exception, not your child. It's normal for Highly Gifted kids to be very unhappy in regular classrooms.' The authority person could be a psychoeducational evaluator, the gifted coordinator, an experienced parent, therapist or speaker at a gifted event. When someone from this group asks for proof, ask them how things went for their extended family members. There is almost always an 'Uncle Johnny' or grandparent in the bunch who was a severe underachiever and did some spectacular acting out. Connecting the dots between High IQ running in families and not all family members having enough EQ (emotional intelligence, self mastery, compliance, drive, whatever) to thrive in a poor academic fit situation usually does the trick in helping this parent momentarily see that there is nothing wrong with their child, but that the environment needs to change. But I've noticed that these moments are usually followed by long periods of self-doubt, and it's also helpful for this group to spend time with other parents of highly gifted children, online and face to face, as with the 2nd group, such as Davidson's Public Forum: http://giftedissues.davidsongifted.org/BB/ubbthreads.php/forum_summary.html
or face-to-face, through Davidson YSP, talent search family activities, or weekend conferences - check out http://www.hoagiesgifted.org/conferences.htm for ones more local to you.

It's my observation that some of the ones in the 3rd group were truly 'born that way.' Others who find themselves in the 3rd group were helped by unseen forces, such as having a warm, healthy gifted sibling or extended family group at home, which I call the 'home cluster model,' happening to be born in school districts with excellent school gifted programs and above average numbers of gifted and highly gifted children, a family tradition of picking particular private schools that 'get' HG kids, or very skillful behind the scenes advocacy by parents or 'gaurdian principals.' The rest of the 3rd groupers, and the 1st groupers, I speculate, did at one time blame themselves for the lack of fit they found when they attended school, but migrated into groups 1 and 3 over time. What I've noticed is that when these folks can 'make friends' with their early 'group 2' memories then their family life and their advocacy goes much better.

Love and More Love,
Grinity

Great great great post! ( Too tired right now to say more. )

Makes a lot of sense to me Grins. I was firmly a group 3 as a child. My mom advocated for early K and it went on from there.

When it was time for me to advocate for DS, it was almost automatic. The funny thing is, I never approached it with trepidation. It never occurred to me that anyone would say no. Luckily, no one did. I realize after reading posts of others that I have been extremely lucky in this. To this point, i've gotten everything i've ask for without a fight. It never occurred to me that my take on the whole advocacy process might in fact have been shaped by my own experience, but it makes sense.

C1234 - You're such a tease. Seriously, sometimes these words fly out of my fingers and it's a bit scary!

Shari - Glad this cleared things up for you and you round it useful. That you had no trepidation makes sense to me, since this your baseline experience. In a way the question that really intreages me is that you haven't had to fight. Is that because you walked in with such a strong confidence? Is it because the 'kind' of giftedness that runs in your family is the sort that is easier for a school system to notice? Is it because of high EQ and lack of 2E issues? I seem to remember that you homeschooled for a while, is the fact that you had enough confidence in your perspective to 'put your money where your mouth is and homeschool' part of the reason you've never had to fight to advocate?

Anyway - your feedback gives me a lot of hope that when the kids who we talk about today are the parents of tomorrow that teaching kids at their readiness level will be 'no big deal.'

Love and More Love,
Grinity

I love it! I've been trying to figure out which category I fit into. School wasn't a good fit for me but I still liked it because there was even less challenge at home. There were moments when it went well. But I suppose overall I'm in with the parents who decided something was wrong with them, which is why I was so blown away when I discovered the gifted world, even though I knew all along that I was 'good at school'.

Very thought provoking, Grinity.

I loved school. However, I began first grade in 1966 when grouping and tracking were normal. I began reading at 4, but was given other work - with one other student.

In sixth grade, tracking ended and what a difference that made. I spent my Junior High years learning the same material that I did in elementary school.

I don't know where I fit in, but expectations and school has changed so much.

Gifted was not a word used in the 1960's. My father was called a "genius", which was never documented anywhere. There is almost no comparison to that time with no computers and collection of data.

I loved school (at times) too, GeoMamma. It was great to escape home for a few hours a day and have that independence. Plus the teachers were easier to please than my Mamma, and showed it. I think a lot of us Group 2ers loved school.

Ellipses, I speculate that if tracking had continued through Junior High you'd definitely be in the 3rd group. One of the lucky ones. It does sometimes happen that school IS a good fit for a gifted kid!

I guess the key question for my model is - when you hit Jr High, how did you react to the situation? My hope would be that you didn't blame yourself, but did your early good start allow you to roll with the punches and wait it out until High School and continue to be an achiever? Did you end up as an achiever or an underachiever? I guess my prediction is that group oners drop out of school physically or emotionally for a while, and either get recycled in high school or college and become that great suprise when a teacher 'saves' a kid, or go their own way outside system, or join group 3 and find a way to make the best of school.

Peace,
Grinity

It was a major culture shock since I had only attended school with children of educated parents. There were students in my new school who spent the entire year trying to learn to add - no kidding.

We were an experimental project to learn how to teach to all types of learners - without computers. I was amazed at the different types of students and was really interested in their lives. I guess my sociology life course took the place of other learning.

It was also a tough time for me because me father was dying and I was very tired because we were up all night caring for him - no hospice back then. I remember falling asleep in class quite a bit.

I am still hoping to "grow up" and be a three.

Why Chrys? What looks appealing about being a group 3er? What's doesn't work for you about the group you are in now?