I am watching this on youtube at the moment and my head is exploding from anger, mostly around the openness with their kids about scores and testing and telling them they're smart. The parents of the two boys, in particular. And the charity spell-a-thon to show how great your kid is at spelling.



Opinions?

Oh yes, that is the show I was just talking about. The little girl is at the end of that episode. Georgia.

Is it bad to tell your child their score? I am about to go searching on here for a thread discussing when to test / whether to test / whether to let your kid know, etc. Know of any particularly good threads?

Here are a few relevant old threads (for interest - not wanting to stop anyone having more discussion on these topics if you like!)

BBC Documentary Series: Child Genius
Freeman research vs A Nation Deceived etc. (Freeman is the tester featured in the programmes)

Threads on whether to tell IQ numbers are harder to google, but here's one superlong one
To tell or not to tell....DS wants to know IQ

Well, the family on the show had two boys aged 6 and 9 (roughly). They both knew their scores. One was 170, one was 137. I think that pretty much makes up my mind on telling.

Ugh! I hated that. They looked SO disappointed and everyone was so awkward about the fact that their second son was, well... also gifted! I feel bad for the kid.

i didn't watch the clip yet but i don't tell my kids their scores because they have about the same spread (mine are 3 points closer together lol) and really, I wouldn't hear the end of the higher one tormenting the lower one about it and of course, my lower scoring child is gifted but they are totally apples and oranges!

Don't forget that IQ test scores depend in large part upon what your child had for breakfast, what the tester had for breakfast, and what the test authors had for breakfast.

The book NurtureShock describes several scientific studies which prove, despite legions of well-meaning parents and the whole self-esteem cult, that telling and praising children for being smart effectively makes them less smart because they don't learn how to work through challenges and failure.

just curious if anyone has anything to back this up? I hear it said all the time or at least read it on the internet. has anyone ever had more tests or partial tests done with same or different tester, at same or different session that gave very different results? I feel like i have so much data on both of my kids. the tester for DD even gave extra partial tests to support the results (which had big spread and suggested possible LD) and it was all supported by previous testing of 2 yrs earlier. ok, her score could be a few points this way or that (who cares?!?) and same with DS. The tester didn't give extended norms but was at the ceiling for the WISC-IV and that was supported by his previous testing. The tester said his number is probably higher (do i need to know?)and posters on here said the same. Do I think DD could have scored differently if the wind blew a different direction or she ate her Wheaties. Not any amount that would matter. 5 points up or down? maybe, but i seriously doubt you are going to have a 160 kid with a hidden ailment (the often mentioned tummy ache or headache) or poor breakfast choice score a 130.

It happened to us but the opposite way, we already had the high score and then DS got a 103 fever and ear infection in the middle of another test. He had a cold, but it didn't seem that bad and then suddenly it was. We only have 3 test scores, 3 different tests, 2 he aced and one he bombed. And what was interesting was how he bombed, he obviously felt so badly that he couldn't mount any interest for the easy questions and then would get difficult ones correct. His tester told us how crazed it was making her, she actually felt better that he had been so sick because the results made no sense. It was almost a 30 point difference, but not across the board, just in the sections that he has to concentrate a teensy bit more, those scores dropped astonishingly. And his in person skills in no way support the really low score. This was at 4.5 years old. He wasn't really able to say mom I feel too badly to do my best here, and we were down playing what he was doing in the first place. So anecdotally, from our perspective it's not myth.

DeHe

yeah that makes sense, poor kiddo! it's a bit different than the "what they eat for breakfast" angle though. Maybe I'll ask in a new thread, I don't want to go OT here but I'd be interested to hear from others.

I LOVE that book. I am annoyed I got it for my Kindle, because I want it in my "real" library of dead tree books!

I don't know if breakfast matters so much, but the amount of sleep a kid got might affect things. NurtureShock talks about sleep, too. Kids in one high school managed to score a lot higher on their SATs when the school decided to just move the start of the day forward by one hour (or something like that.)

I know my scores were affected when I had some appendicitis going on and no one knew I had it at the time...

I'm not sure if "less smart" is the appropriate phrase.

I think it makes them less (psychologically) reslient.

Yes, we got 20 pt differences over the course of one year on the exact same IQ test, but dd also has ADD and, on the second testing, was coming off a terrible school year where her self image had been squashed. Her scores were still gifted, but more MG than HG+.

Poor Peter the Chess Boy... His comment after placing sixty-something out of ninety-something brought it all together for me:

"Do you think I will win it if I work hard?"

This tells me that he knew that he really didn't prepare as diligently as he should have... hoping to coast through as he's (probably) done so often in other areas of his life.

I think that Peter experienced what many gifted kids encounter their first time out of their comfort zone -- total shock at how ill-prepared they are for "real life" and real challenges.

The Russian coach at the start of Part 5 further highlighted Peter's problem when comparing the amount of effort and degree of professionalism that went into the Russian training.

Around these parts, I know a certain little gifted kid who took his school and county-level spelling championships without ever once looking at a word list.

He then decided to take this same lackadaisical approach to the state level and was extremely upset that he didn't win there.

He made a respectable showing -- especially considering the absence of practice -- but like Peter, he had no chance against those who took the competition seriously and prepared accordingly.

I consider both situations to be excellent examples of what can happen to these kids who are not properly challenged beginning while they are young.

Peter Williams is still playing chess, still nowhere near the level where it would be reasonable for him to think he can make a decent living out of it (he's number 3 out of the English under-16s). The most recent installment of the series suggested that, while home educated, he isn't actually being educated in anything except chess. It was the kind of thing that gives home education a bad name. I hope for his sake that the impression given was misleading.