Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Daughter is PG...now what?

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.

Welcome! Some books you may like to have on hand in case anxiety/perfectionism/fear of failure crops up again:
1) A book which seems to understand perfectionism very well and which many find supportive is "What To Do When Good Enough Isn't Good Enough".
2) Another book you might like is "Perfectionism: What's Bad About Being Too Good".
3) The American Psychological Association, Magination Press, has published a book "Understanding Myself: A kid's guide to intense emotions and strong feelings". Chapter 7 is titled "Anxiety", while "Fear" is the title of Chapter 8.
These insightful books are written gently for kids, in a style that is fun and engaging. Parents may wish to read the books first and consider whether they believe the books are apropos for their child.

You may wish to consider applying for DYS if her scores look like they may qualify (link- http://www.davidsongifted.org/youngscholars/)

Kids can be remarkably resilient, and life is a learning process, so don't be too hard on yourself.

Glad you found a good option, it sounds like an ideal fit.

You may wish to read all you can about advocacy approaches and curriculum resources. You may wish to read up on homeschooling as well. Many gifted kids are homeschooled for at least a portion of their education.

This will depend upon the child's interests... mathy kid... voracious reader... history buff... debate... science...? All gifted kids are not alike. The gifted academy your child attends may be a great resource for local options for gifted kids. Is this forum listed among the resources they share with parents? Might you be interested to share this forum with them, if they're not aware of it?

Yes, having like-minded peers is important so you may wish to research what your area has to offer in your child's interests... camps, Saturday classes, museum or library events, clubs like lego robotics, Destination Imagination, Odyssey of the Mind, spelling bee, geography bee, languages. The gifted school your child attends may be a great resource for local options for gifted kids. As an alternative, there may be enough interested parents at your school to create activities, such as a chess club or whatever is of interest to the majority of children.

You are fortunate to have a small gifted school, and you may wish to bond with those parents and teachers who "get" gifted kids, developing a sense of supportive community. Beyond that, there are many years' worth of posts on this forum and others... lots of info to wade through... you've probably already visited Hoagies Gifted Education Page (website and FB)...?

you can do that, but we don't have a gifted program because all our students are bright.




Oooooo-- that one makes me SO angry-- and we've heard it plenty, too.


My advice:

a) manage the perfectionistic tendencies, and read-read-read-read about how that one ties into other sequelae. You're taking the first steps, but the bottom line is that once they get bitten by that bug, they have to MANAGE the condition thereafter. You can't unring that bell, sadly.

b) read here, and ask questions-- you've definitely come to the right place.

c) don't look TOO far ahead. Well, you kind of have to-- I get that-- but you won't know exactly where your child's trajectory and interests will take her in the intervening time (and you're working without a roadmap with a PG child) so you can't spend TOO much mental energy on it either way.

d) Davidson-- yes, by ALL means, apply. They can supply you with a lot of advice and assistance during the next few years. They also have summer programs that you should look at in order to get your DD some face-time with like peers.


Welcome! I have an EG/probably PG 14yo DD who is (reluctantly, it's true) slogging through her final year of high school right now. We've gotten her to tolerate a fairly poor fit by using a virtual school. It's had some ups and downs, but it gives her a normative experience as the basis for relating to academic peers in a collegiate environment, so for that reason, we've stuck with it.

It has allowed us to delay her college entry until she will be 15yo-- which means that her executive function and appearance will allow her to operate somewhat normatively in that environment-- as she could not have done at age 10-11 when she might have managed the content academically. That executive development has needed some extensive hothousing from us, by the way. We've got her about 18mo ahead of where I think she would otherwise be there, but it's been very hard work for all of us.

That is I think the hardest thing - I have got ds6 into the only gifted thing available (one day a week extension aimed at 95th percentile up) and he is finally going to be in a class with 2 other gifted kids and the GT coordinator. I should be happy (I am) but there could be as much difference between him and those gifted kids as there is between those gifted kids and the rest of the class (I know one is hg luckily though).

We've had good luck with cognitive behavioral therapy to address anxiety. DD started at age 9. The first 6 months was putting out fires, and then another year to deal with the anxiety more directly.

We also let DD get a lot more involved in soccer than we'd allowed before. She'd been playing rec league, and we moved her to club. The 6 hours a week of heavy activity in something she loves is miraculous. She has less energy and time to spend on anxiety and perfectionism.

We have had some luck with on-line classes, but I think we are coming to the end of their usefulness. I would second geofizz's post re: sports. The excise is great, but we have also found that a highly competitive sport with "team support" around losing has been the biggest help of all re: perfectionism.

They don't just blame the rest of the team?

My son did well with swimming where he focused on him against the clock and not if he won first place. Helped a lot with perfectionism.

We picked the club where the coaches consistently emphasize that the game is a team effort. Everyone wins and loses together. The coaching is positive and supportive, and they don't tolerate the girls blaming each other for losing (goalies especially).

DD also got herself into a situation where she wasn't the best on the team, and where she could finally see herself improving through hard work. We also ended up with the unexpected benefit of finally learning how to follow oral directions. They run sprints and did pushups when any one on the team fails to follow directions. This quickly translated to school.

I concur with the others re: physical activity. Exhaustion (well, or just healthy levels of "tired" at the end of the day) and "busy" seem to have worked wonders for my DD's ability to "just do it" with tasks that previously would have led her to hit start on the perfectionism spin-cycle.

She no longer has TIME to spend two hours on a fifteen minute assignment.

I'd recommend, though, that parents take into account the innate temperment of their child before signing up for team sports. That kind of intense interpersonal environment could be an additional stressor for a highly introverted/awkward child. You don't want it to be a source of anxiety.

My DD14 runs each morning with her dog-- this time of year, the two of them see a lot of sunrises together.