I would consider posting a review, but don't want to ramble 'in public' - if anyone want's to edit/consolidate what I've said into something that isn't offensive, post it here and I'll see what I can do...I really don't want to be offensive after so much work has gone into this project.
Did you know that none of the kids in the sample of 200 were diagnosed with ADHD/ADD or AS? No Learning disabilities either if I remember correctly.
Here's a slightly cleaned up version of what you wrote - but I only expanded a couple of acronyms, reworded a few things slightly and fixed some typos. I don't think what you wrote was offensive; it was a one-star review, but it was reasonably expressed and likely to be helpful to people considering the book. Interesting about no ADHD/AS! (ADHD is much less used as a diagnosis here than in the US, but still.) This is (I assume) the same study with which I already had some issues on the basis of what was in the academic literature, see
here I consider this book a 'vent' about how hard it has been for psychologists to observe and be 'scientific' while witnessing really terrible parenting. It would have really messed with my head and my heart to witness without being able to intervene in the lives of some of these children.
What drives me the most crazy about the book is that there doesn't seem to be a drop of sympathy or understanding that lots of the parents of these kids faced similar issues when they themselves were kids, and may not have had much opportunity to share with a peer group and gain insight.
I do like the idea that highly gifted kids deserve more than gradeskipping as the only way to get their educational needs met. There should be self-contained, multiage classrooms in every school for the kids whose learning needs aren't being consistently met in the regular classroom. The problem is that the tone of the book is very 'anti-gradeskip' and blames parents for not finding other solutions. Maybe as a group we parents need to take more responsibility for there not being a full time self-contained classroom in every school, but at the moment when we are in the thick of raising our children, I think we have to choose the 'least-worst' option, and shouldn't be blamed for that.
The book claims that its subjects are in the highly gifted to profoundly gifted range, which of course has no standard definition, but while the introduction claims 0.2%, another chapter in the book refers to 2.0%.
My other objection is the distinction drawn between 'gifted but unidentified' and 'parent-identified gifted' kids. Yes, the kids who were identified by their parents are more intense, emotionally needy, and less successful as adults. But is this a chicken or egg kind of thing? Were children who were more intense etc. more likely to be identified by their parents as gifted than those who were not?
Yes, kids with a really high EQ as well as a high IQ handle their lives much more easily than kids with high IQ and normal or below average EQ. High IQ kids with ADD or ADHD or other 2e's have a harder time in life than High IQ kids without twice exceptionalities. This is true for people with average IQ as well, yes? To me, a fan of 'kids are born the way they are born, and we sensitive parents try our best to help them learn to work with what they have - provide challenge for the strengths and scaffolding and support for the weaknesses' school of parenting, it is a 'association/causation' error to see that kids who are identified as gifted by their parents make more of a fuss in life and blame the parents, as if all of them made the identification for their own ego needs.
Certainly the individual stories in the book highlight perfectly dreadful parents whom one could easily believe made the identification for their own ego needs, but given the parents I know, it seems like for the vast majority, gifted kids get identified early because the parenting is aware and sensitive and appropriate. Some of the kids stand out because they aren't particularly high in EQ enough to blend in or take life with a grain of salt. Some kids stand out because their abilities are just plain noticeable compared to the other kids that are around them. Some kids stand out because they actually have 2es such as ADHD/ADD that interfere with their coping ability. Any one of these things make success in life more difficult to achieve.
