If you had known then what you know now, what would you have done differently for your child/ren?

I'm not sure I can actually come up with anything re DS - I overthought parenting and education to a ridiculous degree (partly in the context of what went wrong with mine, which turned out to be relevant as DS is very like me) and then arrived here early and had the benefit of other people's thinking (and overthinking!) too. Re myself, however, if I'd known in my own childhood and teenage years what I know now, I'd have done whatever it took to get challenges other than perfectionist ones!

What about you? If you could go back in time, what advice would you give yourself-as-younger-parent, or indeed yourself-as-child?

There is a >15 year age gap between my eldest and youngest, so in one sense, it's very much like having do-overs. My general parenting style remains much the same-- though I am far, far less likely to trust that the schools know what they're doing.

Exactly-- I don't regret thinking about this stuff early. I needed to, and honestly, it only helps that we were somewhat open to profound giftedness (because it exists in our families) at a young age. I just fought being "non-normative" for way too long. I guess that I thought that I could give my daughter a "normal" childhood and she'd be smart (like both parents), but all the other stuff that I wasn't, too. Hasn't worked that way. She's more of the things that we struggled with as kids. Predictably, in hindsight.

Ooooo-- self-as-child. Those are the REALLY big ones.

Mom, Dad? That grade-skip thing? Yeah-- that would be a REALLY good idea. And don't assume that behavioral problems = "bad" kid. Nice label, by the way, but I wasn't really a 'bad' kid, I had an incredibly nice heart to go with that huge mouth. Guilt, avoidant-perfectionism, and helplessness. Great recipe, that-- assuming that you are looking to develop both self-loathing and extreme underachievement, I mean. Self-destructive behaviors are optional and varied, by the way. Kids who hate themselves and would do anything for approval often gravitate to druggies and people who are basically predatory, by the way. Surprise! (That still doesn't make your child "bad" by the way-- just lonely and desperate for a peer group that won't offer up repeated rejection and mockery.)

Find appropriate challenges for your daughter, live outside of your OWN comfort zone a lot-- and TAKE RISKS. Nobody expects you to be perfect. Really. Don't expect it of yourself or your child.

Oh, and guard more carefully to make sure that your child doesn't become "that freak" by virtue of leaked S-B scores, okay? That really sucked. In fact, you might consider skipping that entirely, since you clearly didn't use the information to make placement decisions. :sigh:

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Advice to myself as a new parent:

1. If your own parents made this many major errors in your own development, why are you listening to them tell you what to do with your OWN child?? Duh.

2. Parent the child you actually HAVE. Not the one you "think" you have, the one you 'wish' you had, or the one OTHER people think you should have.

3. You can't "parent" a child into normativity. Either they are somewhat normative or they aren't, and this isn't a parenting thing. It's a child-centered thing. (Assuming that you don't make truly bizarre parenting decisions that reflect your OWN needs more than your child's-- because it is possible to parent for freakishness. Note to self-- do not be temped to name your child after astronomical phenomena or to rigidly insist that others do EVERYTHING that your toddler demands so as not to 'damage' his/her self-determination... just saying. A child's epic tantrum in the grocery store isn't necessarily a sign of anything but a profound need for a nap. )

One thing that I've noticed in parenting my PG dd is that she is far MORE 'normal' and ready to fit in with different peer groups as we've let go of our pressure on her to fit in. Now that we've given her permission to be who she REALLY is, she's just more comfortable in her own skin. She has a lot more confidence as a result. Wish I'd known that a lot earlier. It wasn't so complicated. I just made it that way by trying to force a family of square pegs into one round hole after another. As a Taoist, I really should have known better.

Advice to myself as a child: run away.

Advice to myself with DS ready to enter public school: while remaining polite, be much more aggressive, and always ask for deadlines and specifics when accommodations are offered. Don't accept a plan which delegates too much planning and implementation to a new teacher after the next school year begins, especially if said teacher is not at end-of-year meetings. Ask for criteria used to select DS's teachers, instead of trusting that a choice was appropriate. Insist on a retest immediately if DS is rushed through MAP testing and not given pencil or paper. Engage an outside IQ and achievement tester earlier, instead of wasting the entire kindergarten year. Engage an educational consultant earlier.

Most of my time is spent trying to keep me together and functional, so I really don't have the time or energy to figure out what to do with my kids.

Hopefully my wife has that covered

So, I think the answer is that I would have tried to figure out what I was doing with myself before I had kids.

Also, I would lived my life completely differently.

I would stop optimistically hoping that teachers were experts ... I kept deferring to them on the basis that I assumed they had a clue about what to do with dd. I, like lucounu, would also be much more assertive in dealing with teachers and school administrators.

I would never try and down play dd's abilities when she was right beside me (fortunately realised I was doing this when was very small and stopped - I was trying I make other parents feel better then realised that wasn't my job!)

I'd be more honest with other parents - I have actually found most people are just curious about and ok with our choices when I am just open. In the beginning I'd start feeling like I had to justify myself and we'd all get a bit defensive. So now I just answer factually, if only when asked directly.

I'd embrace the loneliness of parenting an hg++ kid earlier - it's not going to change and I expended too much energy worrying about it. The flip side of that is I'd start seeking out other families with gifted kids earlier.

Like others have said, I'd parent the child I have earlier, rather than the one I thought she should be. I though gifted should look like one kind of kid (as do schools) - motivated, perhaps a little academically obsessive - when in fact they can look like, well, anything. Mine who at 6 has out of grade testing from school and psych showing she's across most of the 6th grade curriculum - has not the slightest academic motivation. She's a thinker rather than a doer. I spent waaaaayy too much time fretting about that meaning she wasn't gifted and that I was just making stuff up - despite having substantial other evidence that that was not the case.

I'd trust my gut more. It's always steered me right when I've taken the time to listen to it rather than rely on parenting books that just never seem to fit!

I would spend less time biting my tongue out of fear of being labeled "that parent." I would be less likely to take 'no' for an answer when my gut told me there was a problem. If the pediatrician wouldn't send us for an OT eval I would have sought out the school district or tested on my own rather than wait THREE YEARS for the eval because "she's just SO far ahead of the curve that age appropriate seems like a deficit even when it's not." I would research dyslexia on my own rather than accept that you can't diagnose it in a kid that young and accept that she was just SO smart she clearly just wasn't emotionally ready to deal with her advanced abilities. I would have reported the horrible regional magnet that traumatized DD and led to her anxiety diagnosis the FIRST time they penalized her for her deficits. And I would have made them explain to the Dept of Ed why they refused to accommodate documented deficits or agree to do spec ed testing because "she'd never qualify - she's too smart."

Most, if not all, of my regrets come from the 2E side. I don't know if I would have regretted things associated with the giftedness if we didn't have the 2nd E in the mix...

This is really interesting. I don't think there is anything I could have done different to "save" myself as a child. Nothing *I* could have done would have helped me and my situation. The best I could have told myself was that it would get much better and try to let myself know that I didn't fit in because I'm different in a good way. I'm not broken or defective. I learn more quickly and think more deeply. I wish someone would have just told me that. Even my mom acted like I was defective.

I only have a 22 month old, so who knows what I'll regret. So far I do NOT regret coming into this already aware of some of the signs of giftedness and of doing research once I saw where DD was at. My mom (we're around her a lot) sees some negative traits in DD (as she did me) where I see positive traits - I see signs of intelligence and a deeper level of thought and feeling than anyone else gives DD credit for. I'm able to see her as "spirited", instead of "too much", and know that "too much" is a good thing to be. I'm always there letting people know when they're underestimating her just because she looks like a baby, and DD benefits. I'm the one who says "Let her try".

Everyone should have faith in their child and see the good in them, but I see elements of myself as a child and I want DD to feel loved and accepted as she is. I'll be battling my own perfectionism, but I hope I can be a good role model...

If I coud change something about my past, I 'd tell my parents to find me somehting interesting to do. Seriously, man. My dad tried.

I'd have probably skipped me or something.

My mother gave the message "you shouldn't havw to think or try, you're so smart" explicitely. A lot. Yeah, that was bad. The bit about making sure I didn't have to know my math facts by getting a drs note... BAD. Making me drop math in 9 th grade because I was auful at math facts (see prev) and you didn't get it that 9x.7 %ile in matematicla reasoning is a decent score for that sort of thing... Oy. Maybe my dad just should have gotten custody!

My dad should have trusted how smart.... And also Wise he was. He should have come on some internet forum and sorted himself out.... Erm... Uh... Ok problem there. He should have found a psych and... Oh, yeah, he tried, but they were all "kinda dull". Mmmmm. Erg, hmmmmmmm.

Also, those guys over there at the nuke plant where I did my intership in phys/chem in highschool. You should have EXPLAINED the damned experiment to me. I retrospect, I get it and it wa really kinda neat. I did ASK, you know. And now I have sokooooooo many more questions.....

My kids are too young for the other part of the assignment to apply

What would I have done differently? Gah. For each mistake my parents made they also did an unusually good job of providing a tool to help frame and cope with my life... They did their best. A little less assumption that I could do anything I wanted to do and would succeed at anything without any support or guidance would not have gone astray.

For my own kids. I wish I could unread "Raising Your Spirited Child" and get back all the years I normalised how not NT my eldest child was. I wish, when holding her back was on the table in yr2 that we had. Yes she'd be ahead academically now (which is what we could all see coming and why school backflipped on holding her back), but nothing comes easy to her and I think social fit will matter more to her than academic fit in highschool. She's never going to be better off being young for grade. I wish we had not pulled her out of fancy private and moved her to local public, not that we had any real choice, but this is about wishes and fishes right?

I wish that when fancy private preschool/school refused to accelerate DD#2 into school 6 months early, that instead of smiling and nodding and trusting them (while crying at home over how she was crying at home), I had smiled and nodded and made a beeline to my local public, where she is currently grade skipped and far better off, and we are not paying for her to be miserable.

So there you have it, I have one I should have held back, one I should have pushed ahead earlier. One that was better off at fancy private and one that is better off at local public. And a 2.5yr old I have absolutely no idea what to do with.

My "What would I do differently?" won't even help me with my own third child, so I am not sure it's of any use to anyone else...

For myself as a child I would have chosen a different (more challenging) educational environment.

For my kids I would have advocated for the G part of the 2e more vigorously and earlier on, rather than waiting for the teachers to "figure it out" (which they're starting to).

my parents ... they were always busy, working to pay the bills ...so they pretty much did a great job staying out of my "life". But there are things that stand out in my mind ... like when they'd always praise my cousin (same age) for her beautiful handwriting (compared to my terrible cat scribble) ... growing up in Czechoslovakia we had to use cursive till middle school and even in middle school only cursive was allowed for any tests, essays and any written assignments. ... they STILL comment about my handwriting, btw! ... while other people comment about how legible it actually is! lol ... then, in 3rd grade I remember getting PAID for my first C! (till then I had straight As) ... while I was crying and completely miserable, they paid me praising me for being "normal". I was the center of my family's jokes about clumsiness ... when you hear nothing but how clumsy and bad you are in sports, not only does it make you feel even worse, but you never get to enjoy any of the sports and they become intolerable! It wasn't until high school when I realized I'm NOT THAT BAD at sports! When I can choose what sport to do (like soccer) I have fun and CAN DO IT! ... oh, the times when my parents and my sister would make jokes of me having all the lights on when I was home alone, or that I would have to hold onto the railing going up and down the stairs (still do! :)) ... or not being able to do even the simplest gymnastics and being scared of heights (it's really hard even now for me to stand up on a chair to reach something ... I need to hold on at least with one hand) ... and I could go on and on and on ... I don't blame my family ... I just wish someone would had told them what Sensory Processing Disorder was ... that I wasn't just making stuff up to get out of whatever they wanted me to do. I learned to cope with all these things myself.

I found ways to work around all my fears and anxieties, and I'm really glad I was able to do that because now I can use my experience to help my kids and understand them better. DS4 is so much like me, it's unbelievable! But on top of that, he has autistic traits as so his life is harder in many ways than mine was. There are times when I forget about what he's going through ... which is where the "what would you do differently" comes in place ... I need to listen to him more when he's trying to tell me things. I need to keep reminding myself more often that he really IS just like me and apparently people had patience with me so now I need to have patience with him . I UNDERSTAND him and need to use it to his advantage. I truly am his biggest advocate and need to remember it at all times!

another thing I need to do differently ... I need to stop expecting DS2.7 do things the same way DS4 did. They are VERY different! We haven't done any testing yet (no need for it, really) but my gut is telling me that my older one will be my science/math/tech geeky kinda child, always asking questions, always wanting to know everything while the younger one will be my genius in hiding and we'll need to keep doing the right things for him to want to show us what he's capable of. He's the child that unless fully challenged in the right ways, he will shut down and not come out of his shell again until we make it worth it!

I always write about my two young ones but I also have a stepson who's 19 and has lived with us since he was 12. He's where I have the biggest regrets . He might not be "gifted" but definitely is a very bright kid. My husband told me in preschool he was one of the sharpest kids, did great in 1st and 2nd grade (which is when I first met him) ... was an awesome speller, accelerated reader, used to be in pull outs in some of his classes. Then came behavior problems, not doing his homework, things got to a point where his mom asked him if he wanted to keep living with her and her new husband or if he wanted to move in with me and his dad. He chose us (11 years old back then). Moved in, started 6th grade and there, I had a child who couldn't do any homework by himself (I remember spending hours every day getting through everything with him), 6th grader who had trouble figuring out what 2 + 2 was! He could understand deeper mathematical concepts, yet couldn't do basic calculations. He was still a great speller but had huge problems putting together any sort of writing. I made sure he had all his homework, he'd lose it between the house and school (or have it in his backpack but just couldn't find it in there). I tried and tried and TRIED to get the teachers to keep me informed of anything he missed, they promised they would, kept their promises a week or two and we were back where we started. YET he was doing great on standardized testing! ... but why wasn't it a red flag for anyone at school that he'd score in the 90+% in all math but 30% in the basic math skills? How could he score in the 90+% in some parts of the language arts parts of the standardized tests while getting very low scores on writing and comprehension???

Fast forward to freshman year in high school ... after he almost failed math in 8th grade, he was placed in HONORS Algebra class because of his MAP test results! Nobody cared what he wanted or what was write for him, this is what their test results suggested. I seemed to had been the only one realizing something was wrong! I kept telling the adviser that he needs BASIC math reinforcement to move further! so after failing the first quarter in Honors Algebra, they moved him to regular Algebra (I was still mad because we requested pre-Algebra or Algebra 1A to help him get through it) ... and so he failed Algebra 1 in Freshman year anyways and had to do a repeat in Sophomore year (passed with a D!). He also failed English I because he wouldn't hand in written assignments. Also failed first semester of Global studies so basically started his Sophomore year in a Freshman status. (at that point I was already researching homeschooling in Illinois as I saw no light at the end of that public high school tunnel!)

You'd think the school would had learned from that 1st year ... but NO! Once again, scoring high on standardized tests landed him in Chemistry, Geometry, Physics on top of the Algebra, English 1 and Global studies he had to take again and then English 2. Same problems, failing grades, lack of concentration, not handing work in ... at the end of Sophomore year I finally stood my ground and had them change his Junior year schedule 3 times till I liked it ... he had some mandatory classes but then he had Business Math (while his adviser said this is a step back that is not challenging enough for him ... DSS19 said it was his BEST math class ever and that all kids should take that class!), he took Cooking and Electronics ... ACED all of those classes we handpicked for him. Not because they were easy (trust me, he can fail an easy class in no time) but because he was INTERESTED in them and they were NOT writing / concentration intensive!

In Freshman year I started asking about the possibility of him having ADD and some other LDs and not a single person would listen to me. All they could come up with is he's LAZY! I was desperate, I knew it wasn't laziness but I never found a way to get them to listen to me. I had no idea about how it works with private testing, no idea we could REQUEST the school to test him, all these are my big regrets ... looking back, we were basically fighting the exact OPPOSITE of what most parents here fight. The school automatically assumed that high scores mean "need challenge" instead of looking at his scores more in detail and realizing they meant "needs HELP!". So, now we have a 19 year old high school graduate (I'm so thankful he pulled through!!!), with a GPA of 2.7, no interest in life or anything around him (other than video games) and to clue what he wants to do with his life. He goes between two attitudes ... 1. you are all stupid and I'm the smartest person on Earth so leave me alone and 2. I can't do it anyways, so why would I even try??? And here we are, my husband and I wondering where did we go wrong? We tried so hard to help him, just not hard enough

sorry I made it into a novel ... but maybe reading this (about my stepson) will help some of you. If you see signs of a smart kid really slipping deeper and deeper, don't let anyone tell you the kid is just lazy ... don't let anyone blow you off with excuses. Go with your gut!

I would have moved D2 to a more rigorous high school as of ninth grade. She "outgrew" her small private. They have nutured her well in many ways, but academically she is not stretched as she should be.

What WOULD I have done with me? Not a clue, which is unfortunate because my older son is a lot like I was.

I was a smart kid who was very immature and cried at the drop of a hat, and was/is probably ADD-inattentive as well. In retrospect, it probably would have been best to hold me back a year and put me in the G/T program (husband went through it... it was pretty great and very responsive to student needs; they had teachers coming in from the junior high/high school for the kids who needed more challenge above and beyond what the rest of the kids needed). I was just emotionally younger than all my age peers, and would have floundered in the program "on grade level" because of my social/maturity issues.

But who thinks of doing that? Holding a kid back is not something that's done to someone who's doing fine academically, and I'm sure it would have caused its own boatload of issues. And it's not like I was putting off all kinds of academic high-flyer signals. I was an early and voracious reader, but performed at the "moderately above grade" level that put me solidly with the "high" reading group (college town, upper-middle-class neighborhood, etc). I struggled with math, though I'm not sure why as I've discovered in the years since that I actually kind of enjoy it.

So... what does one do with an under-performing, inattentive, immature, overly-sensitive kid? I can't be too grouchy at my parents because I myself can't come up with a solution that would have "fixed" me. Homeschooling, maybe, except my mom and I didn't get along so that would have been an unmitigated disaster.

My advice to my younger self would be the same as the advice I already was giving myself at the time, so I guess I'd do nothing different there. "Hang in there, it'll get better" was correct, as was, "Ignore the negative comments from your parents, and don't let them define you, because they don't know what they're doing."

My advise to myself as a parent would be, "I know you're tempted to deal with the school with the assumption that you all have the same goal, members of one team who simply see the situation from different lenses. You would be wrong. They have a variety of hidden agendas, and you only care about your kid. A more productive initial position would be that they have a legal responsibility to provide a minimum level of services, and your job is to hold them accountable for that. You're not a teammate, you're the referee."

To myself as child... figured out sometime in my thirties:
"You're holding your pencil wrong."
(special thanks to teachers who counted off on handwriting and never once noticed/mentioned my index finger tightly wrapped around the pencil)

Hmmm...my kids are young, so it's not quite clear how I've messed them up yet. I do see that I don't fret nearly as much with #2, even when dd2.5 eats dirt or bites her two front teeth clean through her bottom lip - well we fretted a little with that, but not nearly as much as one might think. I hope we are advocating appropriately for ds in school.

I wish I would've paid greater attention to history in the making (like the fall of the Berlin Wall).

To myself as a child - Ask my mom to homeschool me from 3rd to 8th grade, then put me in high school whenever I was ready. (I went to 7 schools from K-8th, often changing halfway through the year, so I think I would have fallen through the cracks even if my parents had been paying attention.) Tell my parents to also accelerate my older brother somehow but leave him in school. To my older self - pick a more challenging college, good grief.

I wonder/worry about what mistakes I'll make with my kids. I'm afraid that I'll lean towards certain decisions with them based on what I would have wanted as a child. Hopefully not, but I have promised myself that I'll pay close attention to their education, talk about things with them, and not assume that quiet = happy.

Smacca we are thinking very seriously of having our eldest do yr7 twice, as she changed schools, for exactly the reasons you outline. She's far from pg bu she absolutely doesn't need to repeat academically.

What would I have done to myself? I would have told myself it was alright to be left-handed, and be ambidextrous is not weird instead of switching to write on the right. I would have told myself I am not the most stupid person in the gifted school who got there by mistake, I would have noticed I am a good student but kept getting on the wrong side of school rules for reasons I don't understand.

I would have told myself the music teacher wasn't trying to earn more money by telling me I was gifted and wanted me as a private student, I would have worked hard instead to realize my potential instead. I would tell myself not to be cynical that my teacher did not teach me what my friends learn when I moved 5 grades a year. Instead of not believing myself, I should have believed I was at least average. I grew up thinking I was stupid but lucky until I was 33.

What would I have done for my kids? I would not be apologetic that he could do simultaneous equations at 6 while others couldn't add, so I tried to hide that fact. I would not have told people my kids are just average (just like my mom would tell every one I was) when they could skip a few grades and still do well, just so that the other party feels better that his kids are normal.

I would have taught my kids how to handle jealous sports peers who would swear vulgarities at my children when they lost, since my kids started sports late. I have learned sportsmanship sometimes does not exist when it means losing down to an amateur.

I would not have pushed my oldest so hard when he was found gifted in music so that the teacher can put him in concerts and competitions. Perhaps he would have loved his music more if he were allowed to play silly things and have a bit more fun than all the drills. I think he lost his talent along the way from over teaching.

I would spend less time coping with what the school wants: standard behavior, mundane repetitive homework done, and spend more time finding out what my kids want and achieve that together with them. I will spend less time finding out what the common milestones are for kids and gloat that my kids are coping well, but spend more time discovering what they can do and expand the realms of possibilities with them regardless of their age.

I shall not bother what is age appropriate education, but let my children learn whatever they want, whenever they want. I shall not bother to teach standard ways of solving problems, but allow my children to discover and uncover how they can approach problems their own ways.

Fortunately, I have another chance. My older 3 kids have gone to college and the two younger ones are my chance of redeeming myself.

MumofThree

Our middle kid repeated 2nd grade after she moved from a private school with end of calendar year cutoff date to the public school with a September cutoff date. The public school was fine with her going into 3rd grade - the testing said she was ready - but let us make the decision for social reasons.

She was likely bored for a couple of years, though she is quiet in school and didn't complain. She is now in 9th grade and doing well. I should note that when she was young, we didn't think she was an academics type - when she was four, I said she was not college material.

We were wrong about not only the academics, but also the athletics. At age 11 or 12, we said she would never play middle or high school sports (just not very athletic). This year as a 9th grader she played a fall sport and the coaches for her spring sport are already talking to her about winter workouts (even though tryouts don't take place until spring). I think that she would not have played sports in school if we hadn't had her repeat 2nd grade. She was a small kid, but eventually did grow though she will always be a lightweight(now 5'-4" and almost 100 lbs).

In the end, she was probably better off with the repeat, though it is tough to know what is right at the time. It does help to know that our school district has some challenging HS courses and a bunch of bright kids (24 National Merit Semifinalists, or 8 percent of the class this year).

I'm not sure I could do it for DS4, though he's going to school in the same district my husband and I did. The full-time G/T program doesn't exist anymore. At this point, he'll be entering K next year, reading at... well, I don't know where, but he's reading second-grade early chapter books (Fly Guy and the like) with spot-on comprehension right now, so... yeah. He also still throws tantrums, totally misses social clues as far as annoying people goes, and would happily spend the rest of his life zooming cars around the house.

*sigh* I don't want to hold him back academically because of his emotional immaturity (or... whatever you call it), but I also don't want to get him in over his head, socially or responsibility-wise, because his academic/cognitive abilities are so beyond his ability to cope with life.

smacca, I think my DS and yours were separated at birth (and by 7 years.) DS is exactly as you describe: ADHD, sensitive, prone to tantrums (still), socially clueless, loves cars and toy guns, etc. etc.

After he "failed" K I expected our school to retain him. With a February birthday and rampant red-shirting he would not have been way outside the normal birthday range for the next year K class. When I suggested this to his K teacher at the spring conference she looked at me like I was crazy. "He's WAAAYY too smart to repeat kindergarten!"

Fast forward to 6th grade: DS has started back to counseling for basically being a social outcast and continual maladaptive struggles with keeping up with homework. DS is maturing bit by bit but just much behind his peers at school.

I often wonder what would have happened if he had just repeated K but he was simply too bright to be considered for that.

I wish I'd spent more time in the classroom when DD was in her first school in K and 1 (this was very hard, though, bc I had a young toddler then who was not allowed to come). It would have given me a slightly better sense of exactly how bad or not bad things were. I also wish I'd tried harder to get her more in-class acceleration.

I sometimes slightly regret our school switch. Though overall I think the quality of education is much better, I feel the pressure on DD and the amount of HW are really excessive. Maybe if I'd advocated for her better, she would have been able to remain at school 1. They just completely stonewalled me, though, and I have no idea why.

Yeah, it makes me sad when he gets SO upset about little things (example: last night I gently reminded him not to run over his little brother with the Cozy Coupe, and he put on his super-angry face and yelled, "I'M MAD AT YOU, MAMA!").

I just foresee a hard road for him... mostly because it was a hard road for me. I won't let him slip through the cracks academically like my parents did (no blame... my mom heard a few bad things about one teacher in the gifted program and wouldn't get my sister or me tested; they genuinely thought they were doing what was best), but I have no clue how to support him socially/emotionally because, well, I have no clue what I'd have done with me as a kid. I sort of bumbled through and figured out how to mostly cope. I want to do better by DS4, but... I have not a clue where to start.

Nerdnproud - I agree with the lonliness thing...no one to talk to about things and I have found it hard to find other families since we live in a very small, rural town. I have figured out from talking to our daughter that we have a total of 3 (one being my DD8) gifted kids in our elementary school (K-5). The other 2 happen to be boys.
I also like what you said about worrying that my child wasn't really gifted for whatever reason. DH and I tossed this back and forth many times wondering if we were just imagining how bright she is or that maybe she isn't that different from every other child. Glad to know we aren't the only ones!

Oh, one more note to self...

adolescent PG kids who have never really had much exposure to other PG people may be tempted to tolerate pretty unhealthy relationship dynamics--

from OTHER PG people when they finally do meet one who is remotely compatible with themselves. The danger is fairly real since HG+ kids in undifferentiated environments can all too often become pretty damaged as people by the time they reach their teens. Being so smart also makes them incredibly destructive, manipulative, and clever... including with one another... and they also have "I'm the smartest person I know" as such a core part of their identity that they have a need to 'kill' threats to it.




So yeah, meeting other HG+ kids? More important than you're thinking (speaking to the parent that I was when DD was four and I was just putting together exactly what we were dealing with).