Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Learning Environments Growing up gifted

rlmom, here's a great resource for you at the SENG website:

http://www.sengifted.org/articles_index.shtml

Another good source of info is http://www.hoagiesgifted.org/

For our own family, I'm not sure I could say that I have a plan of action--but we have worked on some of these same issues with our kids. I think you have to know when to encourage kids to try something and when to let it go. There are moments when my kids are more receptive and I try to take advantage of those growth opportunities. I'm sure that's very vague advice but it depends so much on the child and the personal dynamic you have with your child.

Do you have something specific you are concerned about?

I snorted aloud when I read this.

Qualifications? We don' need no stinkin' qualifications!!!!

Seriously, my attitude is that opinions are like...ahem...well, you know what they're like, and everybody has one! I just feel free to share mine more often than others do! (That's my opinion, naturally. Not my ahem. LOL!)

Seriously, I cringe everytime DOTTIE brings up the numbers! Let me post in peace, woman!

<snicker>

I have a whole buncha siblings, and a good share of us are probably gifted - maybe the whole bunch - but I don't think anybody was identified officially. Well, maybe some of the younger ones. Our sd didn't have a gifted program until I was in 5th grade or so, and then it was only for elementary school. They only tested the kids teachers recommended though.

I was just a regular bright quiet kid until we took PSAT's and I got the highest score in my class. Because of that, I got to go to a summer gifted program through the state. I have several siblings who also went. As far as I know, none of us has taken a real IQ test, but we all took SAT's and there's supposed to be some correlation. Based on my SAT's, I could join Mensa, so I think I'm gifted.

My dh also comes from a big family. He's also gifted based on his SAT's. Some LD's.

I was identified fairly early as gifted, scoring 99th percentile on the verbal side of things on some standardized testing around 3rd rade. I was lucky to already be in a good school, but they also put me in a class were we got to build things, which was pretty fun though I dont know how much I learned.
I was also allowed to take french early and I have always enjoyed it since...
I was selected to take one of the early 7th or 8th grade sats, I was told it was to see how
to design the test for older regular kids, which I thought was a kick. I did ok on those, though I really dont remember a score.
I remember being called a walking encyclopedia by a few of my friends, I loved to read, would read overnight just to get through books to move on to the next ones...
I do regret not being directed more into math early on, because according to my last set of sat scores, at the regular age, I was really kicking some butt in math! verbal scores were still good but just about every one was shocked I did even better in math. Funny. Maybe that side of my brain was still catching up with the other side through most of my childhood...
Anway, after 15 years of being told I wasn't a math person, one test score was not going to turn things around...although I did get brave and take a couple of calc courses in college.
Since then I have had a turn around the business world and landed eventually in programming, which I find to be a darn good fit for my skills. I am able to stretch myself when doing
trouble shooting, there is a constant need to learn new things and I stand out from a lot of the other folks because I also have strong communication and even people skills(!).

Cool story! I was told I was not a math person. In fact the high school I went to never asked me to take higher than Algebra I because the school pysch. said I had math anxiety.

Interesting, in college I took a computer programming class and I found it so easy I felt I must have been doing it wrong. I aced the class, most students seemed to struggle.

I ended up being a financial analyst. Hee hee hee

Finance? Awesome! I am still a bit shy on computation, but in proramming I always joke that you really only have to know how to add up 0 and 1! (and the computer does it for you
Thankfully there is a lot of creativity needed in areas like analysis and coding to keep us happy!

I was identified as GT in elementary. Got to do some pull out stuff. Took the SAT in 8th grade "for fun" and went away to GT summer camp in our area. I never thought much about it though since my friends were all bright too.

My DH went through Catholic school and although I contend he is much smarter than I am, he was never labeled GT.

So this is completely new to him and I send him links to particularly relevant threads on this board from time to time for educational purposes.

Mainly, we're both feeling a bit like we're stumbling around int he dark. My GT label was probably borderline. I was bright, but when I look at DS, I don't recognize myself so much.

Not only do I feel as I'm stumbling in the dark.....I kind of feel as I am RUNNING WITH SHARP SCISSORS in the dark.

I do feel like I recognize myself in my ds8, but I am trying not to go read too much into that. He's very verbal but still there's something mathy there, I think. Anyway, I do try to keep that door open for him since it wasn't presented as much of an option for me.

I am definetely not gifted. Bright but not gifted.

In the uk they didn't test at all. My ds is way brighter than me and all the rest of my family. He knows it too and everybody else does. Because we don't have any experience of children like this I spend a lot of time trying to explain his behaviour and reaction to things.

He is so different and marches to his own drummer that life is becoming increasingly difficult. He is largely misunderstood too by all my family but me.

It is very hard and lonely. That is why it is so great to have discovered this board.

It kind of knocks the genetic theory on the head too.