My daughter will be in seventh grade next year. I'd love to hear from other MS parents and HS parents regarding how they feel now about having a giftie and what their goals are compared to many years ago.

1. My daughter will always be "head of the class". It does not matter what she is given, she will go further into the subject. She has had the option to skip and we did not do it. I do not regret it now that she is a Middle Schooler. Now that I am teaching MS through HS, I realize I don't want her leaving home until she is older. Students are in a better position to learn in elementary school. MS is a battlefield. Acting interested is not "cool".

2. She has gained more from her outside interests. Her favorite times have been at Girl Scouts, DI, and Math Pentathon, where she can be around more people like herself. Girl Scouts is moreso when they are older and the less excelled girls drop out. This is more evident in the cities. There are great programs with NASA and museums.

3. She will eventually learn math, English, Reading, and science at a faster rate than most. Grab every opportunity to give her extras such as Latin, interesting science (such as Robotics), and in-depth Social Studies, Art History, film making and other categories that she will not get anywhere else. She had an Art History program in elementary school that was amazing.

4. She is an introvert. I have finally learned all about this and how to understand her, but really try to teach her to "be mannerly". We work constantly on what is introverted and what is "ignoring people".

5. She does not know where anything she owns is located. Her room is a mess. She likes it this way. She told me when she was three, "Mommy, I know that this is important to you, but it is not to me". I have wasted so much time. Just give me the dirty dishes. This is one side of giftedness. Not all are like this - I am just lucky. For those things for which she needs to keep track - I do. I have a niece like this who scored in the top 1% of the nation on the SAT, but she forgot to turn in her form to National Honor Society so was never a member.

6. She is great at Community Service and this will serve her well for scholarships. She has volunteered more than 75 hours this semester at the Last chance Animal Sanctuary. She really cares deeply about these animals and gives her time and love. This is also a very important trait of gifted children.

I'm not able to contribute to this thread because of my kids' ages, but I'm reading it for the future with great interest. Thanks, Ellipses!

Can you expand on where you found these opportunities? The Art History in elementary sounds like a rare find!
Were the extras formal programs or something else? I'll be keeping my eye out for these kind of things. Thanks!

Wow CFK - this is a great post! Love it. I've never gotten full #'s on my kid and at this point (2nd grade and home schooled) I just feel the #'s wouldn't tell me anything I didn't already know. It is a lot about honing in on learning style and then letting them go.

My 4 year old might be a tougher nut to crack! We'll see!

Yay CFK!!

I'm that person you just described! Stressing entirely too much, worried about making the wrong decisions etc. If only these kids came with a manual!

But you made several very valid points and gave me alot to think about.....Thanks!

CFK - what words of wisdom! Thank you.

I had to come out of lurking to applaud you also CFK!!! Great things to think about. Thanks for sharing.

Yippee CFK!

I've learned that when the children are little, getting them through the day without cripling levels of bordom is the key. Later when they are in Middle and High School, I think it's more about finding ways to motivate them so that they can use their strengths and loves to find a way to tolerate the hard parts.

When they are little it's about learning to get inside their head and seeing if there are 'other exceptionality's' that are getting in their way. When they are older, it's about fanning their internal motivation, and getting them used to making choices.

So interesting!

I concur! That's why when people ask me why I'm HSing, I say "His learning style was very different from PSs." Part of that learning style is a function of his intelligence but only a small part...as you say, many many wayyyy smarter kids function just fine in a PS. Also, even saying that has it's caveats b/c there are HUGE differences amongst schools. There are many schools out there where my DS would have been just fine and thrived...just not in our school.

GO C! I enjoyed your post very much.

CFK- Thank you for your perspective, it is well appreciated in our household right now. Our dd10 is in the midst of middle school placements and I have spent so much time trying to figure out how much acceleration is too much. Our current school is so pro-gifted especially when it comes to middle school that I am looking at the options and getting scared. I agree that IQ is such a small part of the equation now as achievement, motivation and organizational skills are assessed by teachers.

Thanks again!

Jen

Jen, my DD is going into middle school next year as well. It's nice to know that some schools are really open to acceleration. I'm trying to decide if I need to go in with her test scores and put her on their radar or lay low and see how things go.
What kind of acceleration are you considering?

And yet, Jen, and yet, I belief that motivation and organizational skills and the habits of achievement can be taught - at least to some degree - and they can certianly be trampled. And I do believe that the environments that help encourage these work habits will vary depending on many things - including level of Giftedness. I think that CTY and Think summer institute are great examples of environments that help encourage good work habits for gifted kids that would be de-motivating or nutral for kids with average IQs.

Maybe giftedness has always been a small part of the child's equation, but stuck in a preschool or elementary school environment this small part has attracted disproportionate attention?

I'm not really sure, but wanted to wander around in this. I guess it reminds me of how once I was in college, the environment 'allowed' me to forget my own giftedness, and think of the 'leftover' behaviors as 'personal quirks or failings' which allowed me to make major decisions of where I would live, and what context I would work in that sadly ignored my 'forgotten giftedness.' And how grateful I am to my son's experience in elementary school for 'forcing' me to reaquaint myself with this lost part of myself.

Yes?

Grinity

wendydg,
does your school have a gifted coordinator? Was there a gifted program in the elementary school? Is there a teacher @the elementary who would advocate for you? Do you know any other parents of kids who are 'like your's' but already in middle school? Is there a website for the school district that outlines the gifted programs or the curricula in general?

Start a topic here in 'Middle School' or 'Parenting and Advocacy' both are good spots to ask questions, ok?

Grinity

Our middle school has many options that I didn't know of until we had a parent night and the gifted coordinator sent a packet home with DD. The have a science track where they condense 2 years into 1, early foreign language option, 3 or 4 math tracks and language arts track. All these options will lead to AP classes or early dual enrollment options.

FWIW, I have never had success with a wait and see approach. We changed schools last year and I had a meeting with the gifted coordinators with the scores I had thus far. They tested the components I didn't have so she would be in the gifted classroom. From there, I have communicated with teachers to see how her acceleration has worked out and we found a good fit for this current year.

Jen

I liked your entire post, but didn't want to repeat it all. I think organizational skills can definitely be taught, maybe motivation is a combination of factors. DD has always struggled with organizational skills and it finally improved with maturity and bribery, LOL. Her motivation has changed from year to year depending on 1. learning environment 2. level of challenge 3. personal goal setting. Being in a classroom with gifted and motivated students (healthy competition) has most likely made the biggest difference.

Jen

Sorry this took so long to answer.

In Austin, there was a lot of interest in film school and many summer camps and computer ed courses do it and then have a premiere at a popular theatre. I am sure you can find this somewhere. We did this at our small school using imovie and created our own premiere in my classrooom.

Robotics is very popular now. My daughter took it in Mad Science when she was in young elementary school, but there are versions of it for older kids - and tournaments.

Our Art History program was parent invented and run. We presented seven artists each year - beginning in Kinder. Our school had many professors at the university who taught in subjects, but I started doing this also and loved it. We presented bio info, and then went into a more critical type of thinking (again depending on age). Much of the time, we started by asking what they see so they will have pure answers and we expand on that. Depending on the artist, we branch into tone, use of certain colors or whatever the artist is known for. Then, the students worked a project based on the style of this artist. The kids loved it and learned so much.

We started with artists such as Arcimboldo in Kinder (the guy who painted fruit or flowers on faces for the seasons). This is really accessible for young students. We saved Kahlo and Rivera for the older grades since they can be difficult to take psychologically sometimes. We had great African American artists (Tanner, Alma Thomas), female artists (Grandma Moses and Georgia O'Keefe), muralists (Rivera), sculpturers (Rodin), and mobiles (Calder). We covered most of the art that is seen everywhere such as "Washington Crossing the Delaware" by Leutze and "The giant wave" by Hokusai.

You can usually find teaching sources on the web for this now.

Thanks for the ideas. Very inspiring!