Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment Suprise! your child is Gifted

My DD6 was recently tested for GT at the recommendation of her teacher. I knew my kid was pretty smart but I did not think she was gifted. Her full scale scores just came back and WOW they were way higher than I expected.

Am I a horrible parent for not noticing?
The other mom's I have recently met in the GT program at our school, are constantly remarking about how "they knew little Johnny was special" and how "Johnny is so bored at school" I feel like they are trying to compare apples to apples and I have an orange. I had no clue my DD was GT, she claims that school is fun. Am I alone?

I knew my DS was very smart. But didn't think too much about it either. Until K... He entered a very good school in a very good district with lots of well-educated and type A parents, and after a few visits to the classroom, I realized how advanced DS was.

Welcome, floridama!

You are not alone in not noticing your child is gifted. Sometimes parents don't notice because: 1) they are also gifted but never really thought of themselves as such; 2) you tend to hang out with friends who are like you, so the other kids you've seen are probably also GT and you just thought they were the norm; 3) no problems at school or elsewhere to tip you off. Also, your DD says she's happy in school, so that's wonderful! You are lucky. Now that you know she's gifted, if any problems do start coming up (complaints of boredom, acting out), you will have a clue about where to start looking for answers.

Nope, not a horrible parent! (It's called GT denial around here.)

I would be a horrible parent as well. Her teachers always said she was gifted, but it took until 6th grade for it to be recognized!

This is a great response, and is very relevant for me right now. Thank you!