Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment Some testing questions

I am starting the think that some Gifties are born perfectionistic, some are created perfectionist through a particular style of parenting, or by imitating their perfectionistic parents and some are created perfectionist through lack of significant learning time in the company of true peers. I'd hate to assume that because many gifties are perfectionistic, that it is an unavoidable outcome or all or most of them.

Love and More Love,
Grinity

I have been very conscious in my reactions to wrong answers and imperfection and admit when I make mistakes and don't know things with a lighthearted chuckle and accept when she can remind me of something or finish my sentences and readily admit when I don't know something and we need to look it up online so she sees me accepting imperfection in myself.

I also try not to fixate on her being right or my being right. In fact when we disagree and she is completely wrong on something (she claims it is night not day at 8 am) I simply say, "You think it is night. I think it is day. We both think different things" and drop it because she will not be convinced of things if someone tries, so I just let her figure out what she can or we find another source for correct answers if she is interested since she hates backing down from a position she has taken even if she realizes she is wrong. If she is open, we could look something up in a book or on the computer.

I'm going to keep working on it being OK to not know, to be wrong, to make mistakes. When I was younger,I was very, very hard on myself. I remember literally crying when I got a 98% on a test (not IQ test, test in a class) as if that were a huge failure. I also cried when I received an A- on a paper. I have mellowed with age and experience and hope she can avoid that sort of inner pressure. It did not come from my parents since they had no interest in my school performance and didn't reward me for high grades. Really, my education and learning was all in my own hands.

How Lovely! Well Done!
I took that road as well, as my DS13 hated to back down when he was younger, and sure enough, as DS was turning eleven, he was able to say: "That thing I said isn't true."

I was so surprised the first time, that I almost drove off the road. So it takes time, but they do learn and grow. Knowing what I know now, I would have started saying: "I can tell by the look on your face, that you are considering that it is possible to see things two ways," a every opportunity around age 7.

Love and More Love,
Grinity

TwinkleToes, my dd, also 4, sounds very similar to yours re reading. She is just not interested if there is anything 'formal' about how we approach learning. She started sounding out words at 2.5 and would read words that completely surprised me from time to time ('squirter' without any context to indicate what it might say at just 3 for example). But she wouldn't even dream of picking up book and reading it out loud. A couple of months ago she started reading to herself at bed time and she will now read almost everything except a book during the day. I suspect - as she has done with many things before - my dd is practicing in the privacy of her room at night and once she has reading down, she will be happy to do it publicly.

I do believe some kids are born perfectionists. DD refused to crawl or bum shuffle and started walking, holding hands with help at 7 months. Within a month or so she could have walked as well as any baby just starting to walk, but instead she WOULD NOT let go of our hand until she was 13 months old and was completely solid on her fee. She would just sit there at child care until they moved her rather than try and walk without help. Once she let go she could run, walk, jump etc without ever taking a tumble. She's followed a similar path with other things like talking and writing as well.

We've had to follow a similar process to you to show that it is ok to be wrong, make a mistake etc. She is getting there - though her favorite saying at the moment is 'I knew that' whenever it has become evident she was mistaken... hmm...

Locounu, I think a decision to test is a personal thing. We got dd tested recently because I felt pretty sure dd was gifted, but I had some doubts because of things like her hot and cold approach her reading and so on, which made we wonder whether she was gifted or just bright. If she was gifted, I knew I wouldn't have the confidence to advocate for her without being sure - there'd always be a niggle in my mind that perhaps I was just a proud mum. I'm in Australia where there aren't the same requirements to cater for gifted children as there seems to be in some US states, so this quote might not apply to you, but another parent of gifted children I know said "you shouldn't need a test result to advocate at a good school, at a bad school a test result wont make any difference". I have certainly found this to be the case in our search for a school.

Your son does sound very bright to me and similar in abilities (if not learning style) to my dd who is (to use a phrase from here that I love), HG+. I'd have to say that personally I don't think you can 'hot house' to the level that your son seems to be at. I agree with the others that it sounds like you're fostering a desire to learn. If you have a look at Ruf's levels of giftedness (if you haven't already), you might find some useful information: http://www.educationaloptions.com/resources/resources_how_smart.php

Kvmum, I have funny feeling that training is responsible for a good deal of what we later observe as giftedness, but that not all of it is conscious. I think gifted parents probably can pass on a lot of traits, like perfectionism. But in addition I think children respond to feedback at a very young age. So even a look at a baby in a certain way, even if the child just understands "I'm trying to communicate with you right now-- pay attention", is an educational and growth-stimulating event. I think that's one reason parents that sing and speak to their children often find that their children have better verbal skills later on. Of course, children tend to do better when they feel loved as well. But a key part of those early learning moments is the child being encouraged to grasp at what they don't yet understand, as hard as they can.

But I'm not really disagreeing with your statement about hothousing, which seems to be pretty nebulously defined anyway. I would go along with a definition "pushing your child further than she wants to go", which I think is destined to fail in the long run, at least in terms of producing people that reach peak achievement.

The thing is, I think you can teach things like courage, honesty, drive, etc. perfectly well, even if there is a biological basis for some or all such traits. I don't find anything wrong with teaching, and in my opinion the end result-- a highly effective person-- is all that matters, not really brilliance. I love to tell my child stories of people overcoming obstacles to achieve great things. It's that heart of the lion that I think is most important. What does it matter if it's innate or taught, as long as it's genuine? The truth generally lies in the middle, I suspect; training accentuates traits that we all have in some measure.

I'm not getting across much of what I'm feeling right now, and think I've probably blathered enough here. But my strong feeling is that one could train anyone with adequate biological hardware (myelination or what have you) to perform at a genius level.

In terms of biologically driven ability, I suppose that learning or processing speed might be driven in large part by the hardware. If one person forms more connections during the same educational process, they will at least recognize connections between things more often, a key problem-solving skill. But even forming those connections (at least the high-quality ones) is also driven by experience; one can be taught to sift out interesting details in quite subtle ways.

So I really think that an ordinarily biologically gifted child (without denying the existence of biological gifts in general) could be taught to do high-level math at a young age, for example. There must be a best way to teach math concepts, whether or not it needs to be tailored to the individual. And if they have long practice in doing high-level math by young adulthood, in the flowering of their full biological development-- and if they have consistently been exposed to the full fruits of human intellectual development in the proper way-- they will be creative, because humans are creative, unless their growth is stunted somehow by a physical insult or bad training. So at that point you will have someone poised with the foundational knowledge they need to make a discovery, the drive to do it (which is easily teachable in my view), and the problem-solving skills to do it. And a number of such people will do it, although nothing's guaranteed, just as not all DYS kids will go on to great achievements.

I would bet that if there were proper research done for a million years on teaching, and you were to drop an ordinary infant of today far into that future, the people there could turn the baby into what we call a "genius" today. If I knew the perfect teaching methods that will surely be discovered, I wouldn't give a hoot for labels from other parents; I'd teach my son all day long and into the night. But I wouldn't be hothousing, because he, through natural inclination or learned inspiration, would be eating it up.

I guess that a biologically more gifted child with super-training would be even further ahead, compared to children of today. But I, layperson, still have a hunch that training is more important than biology.

Now I've blathered enough.

I am intrigued by this thread because my perspective is so different. But rather than ranting about my own opinion, I'll just ask:

What does "learned inspiration" mean to you, and how would you teach a child to be driven to make new discoveries? Where is the child's own self-determination in this schema? Does the child have no input into his or her character, abilities, motivation, and interests?

I don't think it would be ranting to give your full opinion, but it might be just repetition of what you've said before and a waste of your time. I would read it with interest, though.

Children are of course self-directed if they are raised properly, but that doesn't mean that they are not influenced heavily by their environment, or that they shouldn't additionally be somewhat directed in learning. To say that a child is self-directed or self-determining means to me that they have resulted in being self-sufficient, not that they have taught themselves from scratch.

"Learned inspiration" means to me, in part, inspiration that's passed along from a parent to a child. My four-year-old loves the Pixies, for instance, partly because he originally noticed me listening to them. In the moment of seeing me enjoying them, he learned that I considered there to be much of value in the music; and since he not only wants to be like me at this age but considers my opinions to be valuable, he decided to focus on the music to the point that he liked it too, even though I think the dissonance in a lot of the songs initially puts off a lot of people. Similarly he learned to like jazz, even though in his early times we gave him mostly Western twelve-toned classical music to listen to.

Inspiration can begin with a purely internal realization that something is beautiful, powerful, etc.-- like noticing a beautiful flower and spontaneously deciding to draw it, then later developing, in a purely self-directed way, recurring motifs or what have you that develop into a body of great work. But there's no reason that someone can't communicate the notion that flowers are beautiful in the first place, then communicate other bits of information that encourage the child to really look hard at flowers in different ways, with a resulting inspiration based on the beauty of the flower as well as the communicated ideas. At that point, it is all muddled together and the original source doesn't matter much; the child is inspired by the beauty of flowers. Additionally, one's initial notice of a flower's beauty is informed by experience; one, subconsciously or not, compares the form of the flower to things previously thought beautiful.

In fact, nearly all inspiration is the result of communication. A child raised by wolves might look up at the sun and smile at the warmth of it, I guess, or smile at a pretty flower. But you don't see cave-man drawings of flowers so much; you do see paintings of bison. Putting aside for the moment the role of religion in such paintings, the channeling of focus and inspiration was surely the result not only of individual value judgments but feedback from other cavepeople, which had a cultural effect over time.

There's no reason higher-level thinking skills are less teachable than lower-level ones. There is also no reason to suppose that things like drive and intellectual courage are not teachable, as far as I know. I think that these things are taught by caretakers of intelligent children, but in almost unnoticeable ways much of the time. Each smile at something a child does is a validation. Shaping is a quite powerful training technique. In the absence of things tending to stunt one's creativity and mental growth in other areas, simply providing gentle encouragement at small discoveries, which all children make, will teach them quickly to value making discoveries.

I do know that there are plenty of dull children out there who come from average biological backgrounds. I think if I were given a chance to teach them from birth-- and this includes loving them, holding them, etc.-- they would turn out differently. I just see too much evidence of it in the way my kids respond to me, and others' kids. And I'm a complete layperson, with just a particular set of knacks in a few areas.

I live in GA, and we have the same issue here. DS6 was actually tested during his second week of K and grade skipped after the testing was done (by the school - free to me). For us, we were lucky to have a great K teacher that recognized DS was FAR beyond the normal K'er. Turns out that the whole grade acceleration policy in our state/county is hidden deep within the policy book. It's smaller than the fine print. But it is there. So definitely get a copy of your district's policies.

Without private testing, I got no where prior to DS entering K, so I made sure to write down ever stepping stone he made, as well as everyone I talked to, etc... for us, being DS is a boy, him not being put into K early may have been a lifesaver for his maturity. Granted, he is more mature (most days) than the average 6yr old, but he had his "shining" moments.

Good luck to you!

Interesting. Again, my perspective is different. I'll try to articulate why, though I'll admit that you've got me thinking.

I don't think that there is any way to really tell why we like things or don't. It's great that your kid loves the Pixies and jazz music. Mine loves the Dead Kennedys (which I also enjoy), R&B (which I generally dislike), and anything with a trumpet in it (which I am truly indifferent to). It never would occur to me that she likes some things because of her true nature and some because of her environment. All of it is surely some of both. And none of it is under my control.

I come from the perspective that a child is a person, from infancy on. I don't believe that a child is a lump of clay that I can shape (or, worse, a block of marble that I can chip away at). In short, I think that we are fooling ourselves if we believe that we can change a child's character. In most circumstances, a child (just like any other person) takes from her environment only what she chooses to take from it.

Hi Lucounu,

I have to admit I am not sure what your question is now, as you seemed to have decided on your answers to the questions you posed in your initial post already (though realise that I often find an answer to a question as soon as I have asked it!) I do agree to an extent that it is possible to coach kids and that of course kids do benefit from active parental participation in their education (though I don't believe in hot housing as I view it - forcing a child to do something they do not wish to do). But I think there is a limit to what you can achieve based on either the child's intellectual capacity and/or desire to learn at that point in time. Can that desire be taught? I suspect it can to a certain extent, but not everyone is academically motivated and so that needs to be considered in the context of what inspires a child. Do I think that your son is working to a different level than he would have if you hadn't taught him those things in such a structured way? Well I obviously don't know you or your son well enough to say definitively, but I would guess that he is. But if he has a real love of learning then that would have become evident anyway. Certainly my daughter, as I mentioned, is not particularly interested in structured learning, but loves to think about maths problems when we cook or play in the park or play 'schools' and loves to read what she can outside books (though loves to be read to for hours a day, and will read to herself at night). I probably could sit down and force her to learn from flash cards, or a structured maths lesson but only in the same way I could force her to eat broccoli - through coercion (please don't think I am suggesting that you are forcing your son - it's just that my daughter isn't excited by that kind of instruction at this point). But look at the world around us and find words or number problems - she loves it. So it's a different approach to perhaps the same thing.

I do agree that a child will be formed in part by how and what kind of attention they receive and I do believe that kids who come from loving homes are generally going to be more open to learning and new experiences that will continue their growth. But I don't think that that accounts for the whole picture. I have gifted parents (whom I love, I don't mean this as a 'woe is me' statement) who were not at all interested in my education and for various reasons were not able to provide the environment we're talking about here. Did that impact on my motivation to learn and achieve? Definitely, but I still have a base level of intelligence that is above average and I, despite my early experiences, have achieved more than many. I guess it could be argued that the adversity I experienced acted as a different kind of motivator - but I guess my point is that I don't believe that all giftedness is created through attention and learning. I feel uncomfortable with the idea that a parent would have so much influence and I suspect there are many millions of wonderful parents out there who have 'normal' kids who might feel a bit put out that since they hadn't 'created' gifted kids, perhaps they hadn't done everything they could to help their kids reach their potential.