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A nice article for those of us with gifted and non-gifted children

http://www.dukegiftedletter.com/articles/vol4no2_cc.html

Thanks Tracey. There are several other good articles down the right side of the page.

How common is this? In psychometrics classes and in speaking w/ people like Linda Silverman's employees, I've been led to believe that full siblings are usually all gifted if one is (or pretty close). I.e. -- IQ is pretty similar btwn siblings although not identical. Not being identified doesn't mean that the non-identified sibling isn't actually gifted, does it?

My first thought on reading the article was 'Just because the 10 year old brother is struggling in school, doesn't mean he isn't gifted!'

But it is good to hear that someone has looked at this and taken the time to 'debunk' the myth. Every child deserves to be 'thought about well' and this article lists some nice examples.

Thanks for posting the link, Tracey!

hmm, has anyone looked in to this from another angle? What about the Firstborn, who started "smart" but then got a younger sibling- resented the child due jelousy, and became "dumb"?

Which one is Gifted Now?

Yes, I have that. My firstborn boy was very advanced in most areas before 5. Did very well grade one, two - appeared to crash land in three. My younger daughter is HG (and 3.75 years younger) and was an early reader - he is extremely jealous and a bit resentful of her areas of strength. We had them both tested and he was also gifted. He even tested higher than her in the abstract reasoning test (similarities) and his GAI is as high as her IQ. He is NOT performing at school!

I liked the article, very encouraging. Mother of three aged 8,6, and 4, the older two boys have been assessed as gifted, but I just feel my daughter isn't so 'academic', and probably won't be put in GT programs. This is fine with me, she has many other wonderful qualities, but I do worry, with both her brothers being 'picked' out this way, she may have a hard time.

I found the article encouraging because my adopted children are not bio related. I feel the brothers knock off each others rough edges and make each other better people. They are opposites, so they expose each other to interests that each would not have taken up on their own. It makes for a good family life.
-cc

I think that in families where the children are full siblings, if one child is gifted and another seems not-so-gifted then additional testing needs to be done with the "nongifed" one to determine if there is a learning problem. I have two boys, one who is 2E/HG+ and the other who is just HG+. When my older boy was in 1st grade you would have thought he was not just not gifted, but, frankly, he seemed developmentally disabled much of the time. Many evaluations and lots of remediation later, lo and behold, he's HG+ with dyslexia and ADHD. His academic performance prior to all of this was *average* and that was *just fine* with the school. So to anyone who has genetically related kids with seemingly widely ranging intelligence, unless there is some sort of logical explanation, please look further to be sure that your child is not struggling with some sort of "stealth" learning disability.

How is your older son going now Kai? In many ways you could have been talking about my older son - the school seems happyy that he is performing average (consisting of marks that range from the bottom through to the very top and that is only one subject!!). My two have similar intelligence - but boy do they 'display'at school differently. To other people, it almost seems that the younger 'got it all' and the older missed out.