Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Confused on My child

The fact that you are asking for a sanity check (unless you meant that as a hyperbole) suggests that there is a problem or pressing issue that you are trying to resolve. This forum can be very helpful in that regard.

On the specific question of whether your DS is smart or gifted, I imagine that it would be impossible to ascertain based on an online post, even by a professional. Sometimes it is really clear whether a child is gifted but when there are not unequivocally obvious signs, you need an IQ test or equivalent. GEs are kind of meaningless, particular in the context of at-level testing. I remember all my kids testing at absurdly high GE levels, which in no way reflect their actual readiness to be at that level. Again, you need an IQ test or equivalent. This does not mean that your DS can't be gifted, simply that you don't have enough information in his case. You mentioned that your DS is about two years ahead in math after two years of daily 30-minute instruction. Perhaps you can request testing by your district for possible subject acceleration? In our district, they use a proprietary cognitive math ability assessment on kids who passed curriculum based assessments in order to determine acceleration. This has the added benefit of differentiating between hardworking high achieving kids from mathematically gifted high achieving kids.

All kids could do better with additional help but if all kids were given additional help they would not all achieve at the same level. Not all gifted kis are self taugbt though. Mine are both HG+ and tbey need teaching

I would say that the question of whether your child is gifted or not has likely already been answered by his school. They're providing him with gifted services, so they must have assessed him in some fashion and determined that he required them.

And given that his knowledge/skills far exceeds age norms already, I'd say that no, the one hour of after-schooling is not necessary.

I hear what you're saying about not wanting him to spend all day in front of the TV or playing Minecraft, but we're only talking about one extra hour of the day, and it sounds like you're already doing a good job of making sure he gets some of the other things he needs... play time with others, exercise, etc. So:

1) Would one more hour of TV or Minecraft really be a problem?
2) Are there other things he could do with that time besides reading and math with you?

With an extra hour in his day, he could:

- Do art projects/puzzles
- Pursue an interest in science or history
- Play with other kids
- Learn a musical instrument
- Join a theater group

etc.

Learn a second language.

At your son's age my son still loved to cuddle up and be read to and discuss books. Sometimes he read to me to give me a break taking turns...but instead of it being academic time it was more "our special time together doing something we both enjoyed"


But I do know about trying to keep some of these kids mind engaged...or else we have major sibling problems....we were go go go go all the time.

Library programs, summer movie programs at the movie theater (low price but second run movies, we didn't care), parks and recs special events, stacks and stack of books from the library, scavenger hunts looking for books needed to be returned.

One summer we read a sponge bob book where he started a newspaper so my son wanted to write out own newspaper...I still have it....so stinking cute. Now that he is a big 15 year old we happen to be friends with the owner of the local small weekly paper...it would have been so fun to tour his business and learn from them and show them his paper when he was six. I love those spontaneous projects that they dream up.

Oh...Home Depot or lowes kid building projects where you go and build all sorts of stuff. I think at Home Depot you get an apron and pins for each project. My kids ate that stuff up as little kids.

Hi Maren,

I didn't have time to read the other replies, so forgive me if I say something that's already been said twice or more


I can't tell you if your ds is gifted, but really, does it matter? Every child, no matter what their ultimate abilities are, appreciates and deserves to have a chance to learn at the level they are capable of learning. It sounds like that's what you're trying to do for your son, so I wouldn't get caught up in worrying about a label like "gifted". If you feel that the school needs to be doing more in terms of offering your ds more advanced work, then the school might want to test him to determine if he's gifted, but for working with him on your own, I don't think it matters. What *does* matter is - does he enjoy what you're doing at home, or are you pushing him? There are only so many hours in a day, and childhood goes by so quickly. We had to do differentiation and extra work at home for my 2e kids, and I have to be honest - I'd give anything to have those hours of their childhood back just to play! If a child is asking to sit down and learn new math concepts, that's ok, teach it to him, but if he's not, or if he's not happy with doing it, I wouldn't bother with it - even if he was profoundly gifted. Being gifted doesn't mean you automatically love math or reading or spending extra time studying outside of school.


I don't think every child has the potential to test higher than their grade level, but based on what I've seen in my local school district, I think that there are a large chunk of children who could test ahead of grade level if they had one-on-one tutoring at the rate they were able to learn in the absence of classroom distractions and disruptions. I also think it's quite possible there are kids in his classroom who are not receiving outside help with reading who are reading several grade levels ahead - only because I saw that in my own children's classes. That doesn't mean your ds isn't a very smart child and it doesn't mean he isn't gifted - it's just my perception that in the first few years of school, achievement is very much correlated with exposure, and your ds is getting extra exposure at this point in time that his classmates aren't. The other thing that I saw happen with kids in my kids classes in K-2 grade was that learning to read didn't happen at the same time/rate for every child - the kids who went into school already reading were sometimes still ahead of grade level by 3rd grade, but not always. Other kids, like my ds, were not reading at all, but once he started reading it caught on like wildfire. His best friend still wasn't reading at the end of K, but he caught on al by himself over the summer and was reading ahead of grade level at the start of 1st grade, with no help from parents. A few grades later on, I think you'll see a split in achievement that more truly correlates to actual ability.


I think you care a lot about your child, and that's not wrong. I also don't think any approach to parenting is "wrong". I personally wouldn't bother with it - I do think an hour a day doing school work outside of school is a lot... but my opinion is probably skewed because a full day of school actually tired my 2e kids out a lot - not from intellectual stimulation but from the difficulty of dealing with disabilities. I'm also looking at this as the parent of teens who are close to grown, wishing I could have a huge chunk of that time when they were young back Other than those 2 potential biases, my main reason for not doing that kind of direct studying related to school curriculum is two-fold: first, they will get it in school, so why duplicate? If the school pace isn't fast enough, then try to get the extra tutoring done in/through school first. Second reason - if your intent is to foster the love of learning and to develop your ds' intellectual gifts, I'd spend that hour a day learning about subjects he's interested in, going to museums or the library, watching NOVA or whatever, writing stories, making art, etc. Being gifted isn't really about being "ahead" of the game, it's about thinking and reasoning power. It's about all the cool ideas inside of our kids' heads. If we have a kid who's born to do math and craves it and begs to learn more, that's ok to teach more. But if you're just teaching math and reading to get him ahead, I'd drop that and focus the outside-of-school learning on topics that aren't going to be covered in school.

Please note - I'm not saying don't push for him to be taught at the level of learning he's capable of. I'd just not spend an hour teaching my child just to get him ahead if he was doing a-ok in his classroom and not bored to tears.

Best wishes,

polarbear