We're talking about elementary students?
The conversation in our house is about keeping options open - the mantra in our house is that the world is wide open to them. To keep it wide open, they need to work on a variety of academic and social/personal skills, even if they don't appear to be relevant to their area of talent now.
I've actually refused to engage with teachers and administrators on what careers my kids are suited to, and the language arts teacher got a dressing down from me when she told me that DD was not likely to be a novelist or journalist or anything because DD says she hates writing. My 11 year old is a totally different kid than she was 2 years ago (when we put her on an IEP for writing) and a totally different kid than 2 years before that (skipped a year of math after extensive testing). How are we to predict this kid as an adult if we can't even see 2 years out?
