Hello everyone.
I just today searched for a forum, prompted by a round of results for my son. From my initial, quick perusal of posts, we have arrived very late in the day at a site like this! Our daughter is already in college (19), and our son is 17. Looking through some posts, I think our experiences along the educational journey may be interesting for some members - exhilarating, fraught with frustration and anxiety, inspiring... so I hope to interact a little over the next couple of days on some of the threads I have already noted.
My own first question is whether others here also have older gifted teens? I'd love to read some of your posts and experiences/ideas.
In brief, our story - our daughter was one of the teeny tots who was reading early, etc. (the whole Narnia series at 5, for the story line); highly intuitive, intense personality, perfectionist, and she had a bit of a rough ride through school before we finally figured out we needed to place her in a gifted private school for the last couple of years of High School. She came back to life again there and has found herself enough to move on to college with confidence.
Our son is highly gifted on visual-spatial components (98.6 percentile), mid-high range with everything else, but has a marked deficit with processing speed - which shows up when he takes exams and doesn't finish the tests. He doesn't have a whole lot of time for writing or spelling at all, moves at a tremendous pace, but is a lot of fun to live with because he is highly creative, focused, imaginative, and extremely funny. We've been looking into how/where visual-spatial learners fit into, or rather, might change our world as he sets his sights toward college.
Anyone have similar experiences?!
Hi Mum_here! Welcome! So glad you found us!
My son is 15 - ADD brings his processing speed down to average, but the rest of the scores allowed him to join Davidson's Young Scholar's Program, which has been great for him both socially, and in helping to reverse poor work ethic. He's currently a Sophomore at a Boarding school and loving the independence and the small class size.
We haven't been able to keep a large number of parents of older teens around, but perhaps to start a post here and we'll see if we have more lurkers than I supposed -
http://giftedissues.davidsongifted....15/1/Age_or_Ability_Specific_Forums.htmlBut a lot of us remember being gifted older teens!
Smiles,
Grinity
Hello Grinity and kcab, thank you for replying and for your input :o)
Grinity: I might try posting to that link and see who is around! I'm so glad that your son has found his place. I don't think we've been terribly effective at understanding our children, to be honest. My husband and I grew up outside the US, and he, especially, was always one of those highly successful, gifted people. He managed to excel on his own within his regular High School - he had no choice but to do it that way really. I struggled growing up, never understood myself or that things could be any different. I think that's why we came so late to looking into possible help for our own children. We thought they would be able to work within the system too. Like they say, hindsight is 20/20, and I would be so prepared now if I could start over again!
kcab: Thanks - my son fits well at the school. It is very small, however, and he thrives on people. The school places emphasis on travel - wilderness survival, international trips each year - so the students 'go' out and explore all the time. Project-based learning in school, too - but not many links to outside programs in the gifted world. He volunteered this summer in a Molecular Medicine laboratory and was found to be excellent at performing some of the lab. techniques for the PhD's, those requiring depth perception skills. Anything visual/3D/design/business are his strengths. Definitely, he loves design. A recent passion for him has been Architecture, so he's been all over the design sites, researched homes all over the country, etc - he begins a hyper-focus and off he goes for 6 months at a time, informing everyone of his discoveries along the way.... I think he might end up starting out with some kind of general Art/Design/Architecture courses at college, although we're looking at entrepreneurial studies too. He's also a very natural business-mind - this kid has been inventing and making small money since Lower School - so I laughed when you said that they forge their own track - he will, to be sure. I took a quick look at the post you linked, and will read it through as I leave here. I do have some concerns about my son, esp. finishing college if he takes a general degree for 4 years. Unless he can get going with his ideas, he may become frustrated - so, just wondering if he'd be better heading straight for the business track.
Thank you both again!
Yes, interestingly enough, just this week we began to seriously consider Architecture/Design with him, but haven't yet looked at the Visual Arts field as a whole... thanks for that prompt. My grandfather was a professional artist, and taught me, and our son does actually have ability there too, though it's never been trained... hmmm.
Initially, Business seemed the way to go because of his strong natural drive to think/live that way - but perhaps both spheres can mix, and a new-generation Frank Lloyd Wright may emerge!!
My HG DD21, who sounds a lot like your son in some ways, decided to take a couple of years off from formal schooling after high school to work while simultaneously attempting to start her own business. The bloom is off that rose now - she has discovered that there are still some things about art and about business that she doesn't know, and she probably needs to learn them in a more formal setting - so she is going to be enrolling in college this January working toward her BFA in photography with a minor in business.
In retrospect, taking a few "gap years" was probably the best track she could have taken, because her task commitment when she doesn't see the point of something is atrocious. Now that she sees the need, I think her chances of following through and completing her degree successfully are a lot higher than they would have been if she had continued college straight out of high school.
Hello aculady.
Thank you, yes, you make several good points. It's wonderful to meet someone here with a slightly 'older' child, and I'm glad your daughter has found her next move. There is indeed necessary information to be learned in whichever field we enter, and unless one is adept at primarily gleaning it for oneself, it does seem that college will be beneficial. And I keep telling myself that our son also needs another few years within some kind of umbrella in order to mature in wisdom as well as anything else. I couldn't agree more with the observation that inner motivation is key, too. I would say that our son flat out successfully avoids anything he sees as pointless - but likewise, commits 110% to an area that becomes a passion. In that case, he does learn largely through independent research, but I still think that some kind of accountability may be important in the formative stages of learning (business or otherwise). Business as a minor sounds like a good idea.