Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion You know you're parenting a gifted child when...

I had the conversation with a Zen monk who told me to try asking different types of questions.

I think the conversations I had with him over the course of that semester are summed up in this little picture book:

http://www.amazon.com/Three-Questio...19282807&sr=8-1&keywords=three+questions

It was a life-altering experience for me too although it took many years for me to change my ways. Actually, I'm still working on it.

That books just might have to be in our house! Thank you!

... when your 9yo, attempting to explain a gymnastics skill, says, "Where's my demonstration doll?"

And then, failing to locate said doll, says, "I'll have to use my secondary demonstration doll."

After a late night dinner en famille, DS3 passes a store sign with curved lines radiating out from a fixed point and says, "Look, a diagram of sound waves." He sees physics everywhere.

Ha! I assume the discussion that followed included words like "torsion" and "flexion", too.

When your three year old writes out all his own Valentine's Day cards

So cute and so proactive.

Some serious time management skills...I thought you were supposed to do them the 13th.

When your 4 year old raises her hand in preschool and asks the teacher, "When are we going to learn about negative numbers here? All we ever talk about are positive numbers. And how about some adding and subtracting? Maybe some multiplying and dividing too? There is so much more we can be doing here."

... when your super-compliant, teacher-pleaser DD happily reports that she is being louder (by which she means talking more and being a goofball) in class, that she has found a partner in this crime, and that they have prompted one extremely nice teacher in particular to repeatedly ask, "Do I have to separate you two?" She reports that school is much more fun when she's loud.

And rather than admonish her, you congratulate her, and remind her that you'd been advising her to do this kind of thing for years.

DD categorizes this partner as a "frenemy," which she defines as a former enemy that she has turned into a friend. A year ago, this was the same kid who was bullying her severely enough that I had to contact the school. Now, as DD describes it, "She's still mean to people, but she's not mean to me."

DD has assembled quite a collection of frenemies.