I can't thank you all enough for your perspectives on this. I have taken away so much food for thought from your responses...
Val, I admire your unabashed advocacy of your child. And you are so right. I need to give myself a free pass to do the math (yesterday he wanted me to write out 1 billion on the chalkboard so he could see what 1 and 9 zeros looked like) and reading stuff with Graham at home because he LOVES it, and as long as he does, I'll keep doing enrichment stuff at home. I have a feeling he's going to need it!
Cym, your comment on knowing what you want the end result to be is so dead on. Right now I feel like I am in the "gathering" stage. Gathering as much information, anecdotal evidence, etc. before Graham hits school. I have no idea what the end result for him should look like and I suppose that will become much clearer the older he gets. But I am looking to friends/relatives who are teachers for advice right now, and opinions are varied.
And Master of None's comments about the polite conversations are soooo true. I feel awkward talking about the full extent of Graham's abilities and so I tend not to. I have found just a couple of mothers in my circle of acquaintances who get it either because of their own children or their work roles, and it always feels like such a relief to talk openly about him.
Dottie, maybe Graham is one of those kids...bright but not truly GT. I suspect not, but testing in a couple of years will probably help clarify things. I hear what you are saying and I have absolutely no doubt that my 2 friends were not exaggerating their experience or their frustration at dealing with these types of parents.
But as gratified and so many of you wrote...a lot of teachers rarely if ever encounter a truly HG kid. So my friends' experience is the norm. I do believe that they can be right about students/parents in general and we (my husband and I) can be right about Graham. That helped.
Thanks.
Last edited by CatherineD; 05/20/08 08:10 AM.
