Looking for a little help, guidance, wisdom....
To make a long story sort of short we have a 10 year old who we always suspected was gifted but did not pursue testing. She attended public kindergarten, but it was quite apparent she was way beyond what that school district could offer. After searching we put her in a private college prep school because we (stupidly) thought she just needed more of a challenge. After a rough 1st grade we brought up having her tested with the school, but their comment was you can do that, but we don't have a gifted program because all our students are bright. We spent the next 4 years with some success but a lot of failure at this school. This year things spun out of control and we had teachers who viewed her as difficult and a kid who was filled with anxiety. She is a perfectionist and very hard on herself. Finally (did I mention we were stupid) we decided to go through with assessment testing to find out what the heck was going on.
We were prepared for the test results to come back showing she was gifted, but we were not prepared to find out she is in the profoundly gifted range. Plus the Doctor said she is not even sure of her ceiling because she shut down and wouldn't finishing answering the questions because she was stressing out over fear of failure.
Now I am the one stressing out because I feel we have failed her and have wasted half her life not truly understanding her needs. Our main concern right now is to "heal" her from all the stress the environment of her school has caused her, to make her whole and happy. To that effect we have removed her from her previous school and enrolled her in a tiny gifted academy stand alone school. We would have made the move even without her blessing, but after visiting the school for a week she was the one that told us she wanted to switch school. In that short time we have seen major improvements in her overall happiness.
Right now I am looking for advise on what else we can do for her long term. The doctor is slightly worried that even the gifted academy won't be able to fully realize her potential and has informed us we will need to look for enrichment activities, and is more concerned about high school, as we have no options in our area to apparently meet the needs of PG kids. I am not going to even think about that, but I would love to hear what others do to keep their kids happy and engaged. We do not want to push this kid at all right now, so I am thinking more in terms of where do you find "fun" activities that cater to gifted kids. Everything we have learned so far suggests that just getting her with like minded peers will be helpful.
We are so clueless, anything you care to share about triumphs and pitfalls would be most appreciated.
