Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy Grade skipping and sports

Few gifted children will be getting jobs on assembly lines. The white collar jobs that most will get may not involve more drudgery than being in school.

High schools are warehouses for teenagers. When I went to school, you would be docked a letter grade for skipping a single class. Attendance was taken even for study hall. In my current job in the investment business, I do need to be watching the markets at certain times of the day. But otherwise, if I need to step out to run an errand, I just do it. High school graduation is a day of emancipation, and I am pleased that two of my three children will be emancipated a year early.

Money is freedom. My wife and I spend a lot on our children, providing them everything we think they need and some of the things they want. But those are still our decisions. When my children start earning their own money, they will get to decide what their needs and wants are. Good for them.

Or we could look at it as opening up the world of post-secondary education, travel, and life experience sooner. Graduating (or just leaving, for some of us) high school earlier does not necessarily mean moving into the adult world of work earlier.

But to your main point: I agree that childhood is precious and evanescent, and should be preserved as long as reasonable and practical, all other things being equal.

Maybe we're working from different ideas of "freedom."

http://www.gallup.com/poll/175286/hour-workweek-actually-longer-seven-hours.aspx

Yeah...my salaried husband had a job years ago where he was the general manager and made less per hour than the people he managed. He finally couldn't take it.

Not necessarily, my older brother whom I feel is very like my DS worked in blue color jobs for a number of years. I'm can't for sure say he is gifted is but I'm fairly certain he fits the criteria. He could do anything he set his mind to do the problem was figuring out what he wanted to do. He spent quite a few years "finding himself". University didn't work out for him. So to keep himself fed & housed he worked blue colors jobs, while playing in a band and other hobbies that kept himself intellectually stimulated. Eventually, at one of these jobs the boss noticed him, quickly promoted him to manager and eventually head manager. A few years later when the boss wanted to sell my brother figured out how to get loans and bought out the business.