Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Age or Ability Specific Forums Pre-school Ummm that went well (sarcastic) Major SIL Vent LOL

Hi Lucijane,
You raise a lot of interesting points here.
I totally agree that gifted kids need to be 'parented' just like any other kids.
I totally agree being gifted in IQ alone is not enough - developing those character traits that will allow one to have happy, productive lives is necessary.

But - I think that there is a world of difference between the kind of neglect that children experience in orphanages and the usual experience of kids from reasonable homes in the U.S. I think that some kids are 'born' resilient and don't need much 'special' parenting no matter what their IQ is. ((Of course most of those kids have older siblings, IMHO, but that's another matter.))

Do you I think that your DD8 would have been able to test HG if she hadn't had a reasonable amount of the nescessary genetic raw material to begin with?

I don't (although some very experienced moms here do) based on the twin studies - summarized here: http://wilderdom.com/personality/L4-1IntelligenceNatureVsNurture.html)

Also - I went to a university that was severely in the thrall of a radical behaviorist moment in time - so probably I'm mostly reacting to that.

I just don't want to start an avalanche of guilt trips among us perfectionist parents.

Sounds like you have a child that really needed 110% from you and GOT it! Yippee!

Smiles,
Grinity

(that wasn't me, but responding anyway)

I think the orphanage situation is the kinda thing that might fall into Grinity's "not pathological" comment. Neglect really isn't the same thing as run-of-the-mill under-responsiveness.

But the comment "being gifted in IQ alone is not enough" resonates with me as well. I would not hesitate to say that neither DH nor I found our way to meeting our potential. And in my case, I'm very sure that a little well placed direction when I was reading about neuroscience would have gone a LONG way. A friend of the family actually tried to do it (he gave me the materials for an anatomy course he taught), but I needed someone to tell me I needed to actually learn it to continue in what I was interested in. I probably even needed someone to poke me about it every now and then.

DH needs to be told to FINISH his papers. He hasn't finished one in 10 years or so.

But those are relatively grown-up things. I'm not sure when the first moment when I should have been taught was... Could it have been when I was 8mos old (the age of my son now), or was it much, much later...?

-Michaela.