Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy This article ...

Agreed, Mia. Completely. Lousy premise. Lousy! I detest articles like this. Particularly because the parenting advice IS sound and sensible. If it were all craziness, then people might tend to discount the premise. But because most of it makes good sense, people might be more likely to accept the premise as true, too. And it just isn't.

Anytime I see something about GTness that sees it only/mainly in terms of "Einsteins and Mozarts," I roll my eyes. I know I'm not going to like what I read. It's someone who doesn't know anything about GTness.

Crosspost edit: I love that idea, OHG! Yes! Write back, Mia!

Well, hmm ... maybe I will.

Right ... but how many of those parents are actually *asking* for extreme measures? And are so sure they're needed that they make that push?

I think most are happy with "just" the GT program because it fits their kids' needs. But when parents see that the standard program *doesn't* fit their needs, hopefully they push -- like you did, Dottie.

In our case -- they didn't give a whit about the test scores. 99.9 percentile or higher across the board (IQ, reading, math), and they didn't bat an eye. It honestly blew my mind.

I know she didn't say that I did. You see to me PG kid who doesn't go to college at 10 doesn't have to be any less gifted than PG kid who does so. I think it's an enormous decision to send you kid f/t to college at such young age and I do believe lots of parents try to look at other options such as mentors, p/t college classes.

Here's what caught my eye:


So everyone is fascinated by giftedness, huh? Hmm. From what I've seen, the fascination ends where the real giftedness begins.

I guess that sounds pretty cynical, but from what I've seen most parents of truly GT kids don't talk about it outside family and very close friends, keep quiet when others brag about how brilliant their kids are, etc. And of course, we all know how school employees can react.

V.

Not to go off on a tangent, but I want to agree with LMom. Even among the DYS crowd, I've seen few kids going full-time to college before 13, though many are doing college-level work (and beyond!) years before that in various different fashions. So much depends on the personality of the kid and the options available to the family. I know we have enough colleges around our area that I doubt we'd have to go the full-time route more than a year early, even if DS7 is ready long before that. We have access to a wide variety of resources that make me think full-time early college isn't ever going to be necessary for us.

There are many ways to meet the needs of a PG child; college is just one of them, and not choosing that particular option doesn't necessarily mean the child is any less GT.

And this brings us back to the article, which boils all giftedness down to whether a child is the next Einstein or not. My child is IDd HG+. Do I think he's the next Einstein? No. He's certainly not the next Mozart, either.

But he *does* have needs that are different than the average child, and the author seems to have decided that this is not valid with her statement "Forget about the g-word." We can't forget about it -- that's the term that's in use! Change it, if you will, to asynchonously developing, or intellectually advanced, or whatever ... but let's not brush it under the rug to make parents of ND children feel better about not having a "gifted" child.

You go, girl!

Here is what I think the article was trying to do:

1) Reassure families that kids don't have to be gifted to be special

2) Tell parents (who can be quite competitive) that the best way to raise their children is with good parenting not flashcards. They are not making a mistake if they don't buy every education product available!

3) Review specifics of good parenting

4) Enjoy the child they have, not try to mold the child into something or someone he/she is not.

I just wish it had done that and still given accurate information about giftedness. This is a magazine that has huge circulation so there will be thousands of parents of gifted kids who are reading this article. And I think it does them a serious disservice.

Agreed, acs. I understand that they were trying to reassure the average parent, but still -- it's frustrates me for the parents of gifted children out there. There are ways to do that without negating the very valid concerns of parents wondering if their kid *is* gifted. 1 in 20 (or 1 in 50 or however you want to define it) is still quite a few.

Thanks, Kriston. And thanks for helping me figure out what was getting to me about that article!