we've tried so hard to stay away from labels, but after the crisis we had in Pre-K, some discussion with DD5 about what was happening was imperative. the phrase i've used with her (and, incidentally, any stray adults who ask) is that she's simply "out of step with her age peers."
I see two parallel discussions here.
One is to tell your kid the numbers.
The other is to tell your kid that he or she is gifted according to whatever metric you hold up.
I see these as different discussions here. The program in my kids' school is called "gifted," which necessitates that we use this word at least some. I initially balked at the gifted intervention teacher leading a discussion about what it meant to be gifted, but I can see that this discussion, held over 3 years time, did a lot of good for these kids. They understand who they are and why their experience is different, and they've also discussed positive ways to address these issues amongst their general ed peers.
In our house, we mostly refer to the gifted population as "kids who think like you do," or "kids who learn quickly like you do." Both kids see that they are different compared to the gifted cohort as well, at which point we've started the conversation of differences in strengths and weaknesses amongst the cohort.
