Our boy (7) has been tested to 145+ on the WISC-V. It almost seems as if he lives in a fantasy world. Ask him if he would like more oatmeal, and he replies that the house is under attack by the snake people from Ninjago. You ask him what he's been doing at school, and he says something like they were crawling around on the school roof shooting zombies. He answers almost every question in a crazy/surprising way. He has an extreme ability to empathize and treats his stuffed animals like real animals. He often insists that "events" which obviously did not happen, really did happen. Since he was 10 months old, he has been talking almost constantly, and it often drives us crazy. He is extremely curious and asks questions of everything he meets, and it often drives us crazy
. He has never needed a TV, computer or tablet to entertain himself - he can get a surprising amount of fun out of a few pine cones and a pile of dead leaves. He is very creative and can spend hours and days building strange Lego creations or making his own board games.
We live in Denmark, where he goes to a special school for gifted children. The school, at least in the small classes, mostly focuses on developing the children's social skills, and the teaching is quite ordinary, although they go through the curriculum a little faster than usual. He has very little interest in classical school subjects such as spelling, reading, mathematics and foreign languages. When you insist that he makes an effort, he is extremely strong in mathematics and he also reads really well. But he could never dream of touching his schoolbooks in his spare time, or asking for more or more difficult homework.
After all, there is a consensus that gifted children must be held to the fire and learn to make an effort and that they benefit from accelerated education. But how do you do that in an appropriate way when the child clearly prefers play, creativity and inventions to classical teaching? How do you teach the child to make an effort without the child losing his creative and imaginative abilities? We have often considered hiring a private tutor who could teach him, for example, mathematics at a higher and far more specialized level than what takes place at school, but this does not immediately feel like the right solution for him - there is a great risk that he will see it as a kind of punishment rather than a "gift". Should we completely forget about the classical education and just let him cultivate his creative abilities?
All experiences with and good advice about such children are very welcome!
