philmophlegm | "Help - my child is gifted!"

At my school the entire purpose of the "gifted and talented" program seemed to be to make sure that middle class white kids didn't have to take any classes with black kids.

The real downside is that by isolating us they created this weird culture of competition where learning didn't seem anywhere near as important as sucking up to the teachers and getting grades and recommendations for IVY league schools.

It taught me that the type of people who at age 15 are already thinking about law school or medical school were not people I really wanted to be around, which is why I went to Bard instead of even trying for an Ivy.

(My teachers gave me great reccomendations for Bard because I was the only kid in those classes who wore metallica T-shirts instead of fucking sports jackets and dress pants to class.)

What would have been more helpful is if they tracked the gifted and talented program to what people were actually gifted and talented at. Instead once you were in the program all your courses were gifted and talented courses.

So, simply because I was good at writing and literary intpretation I also had to take advanced math and science clssess t hat I had no aptitude for at all. This really fucked with my GPA because there was pretty much nothing I could do to make my brain understand college level calculus or physics.

It also hurt people who were great at math and science but couldn't deal with the advanced literature classes, because the nuance and etheral nature of literary interpretation went against their logical brains.

Based on observations of parents in the library, my main recommendation to parents would be make sure that support and encouragement doesn't turn into undo pressure. I've seen children desperate to borrow a book in a series they're crazy about, only to told sternly to put it back because it's "too easy," and doesn't stretch them enough. ("He's gifted, you know," they tell me proudly.)

Yes, they're gifted and talented children, but they're still children. They can't be busy achieving all the time. Let them relax with "easy" books, or run round madly, or play games. Keep it fun. Allow them to pursue their enthusiasms, however bizarre or unfashionable these are. My parents obligingly took me to endless castles and let me run round the garden dressed up in historical costume and endured neverending games of Kingmaker, all of which probably did far more to lead to my studying history at Oxford than any amount of pressure to study and achieve.

ditto. I remember a poor Korean child who I tutored for her history A level. She had only been in the UK a year, and her understanding of the British history syllabus was rudimentary at best, but she was terrified of disappointing her (utterly terrifying) parents and had got through the last year of school by cheating in every way available to her.

She was a bright kid, and if we'd had a year of one to one carefully watching for all the stuff that she found incomprehensible due to cultural dissonance and lack of basic background and explaining it, she might even have passed the exam but what they were asking of her was ridiculous. We had two weeks. I wanted to predict her to get a 'D' but she begged the owner of the crammer to change my prediction to a 'B' because she was so afraid of her parents.

She got an E, if I remember rightly. :-/

Let them play. Tell them not to do hard things because they're too hard and make it easy for them to try and do them anyway.

The most useful things for me were, (a) getting interested in writing 3d computer games (maths & physics), (b) trying to work out how to get fair fights in role playing games (maths & stats & numerical simulations), (c) music lessons (how to practice hard even when it's not fun and easy), (d) a paper-round (hard work is good for you, you need to earn your way in life).

My parents utterly missed that exercise is a really good idea (tbh, so did my school) which I didn't work out until I was about 25. Combine discovering running is fun with (c) and ten years later I've qualified for the Boston Marathon. So I'd add taking them to the parkrun/swimming class/cycling and teaching them how to lose gracefully and if you practice hard you might one day get a medal (I've managed 2nd in a race once).

Other than that make them watch Back to the Future,

'If you put your mind to it you can accomplish anything'

YES YES YES THIS SO MUCH THIS.

I was lucky; my parents encouraged me to try things and see what I enjoyed, then supported me in exploring those things more deeply.

When I was 9, there was a local association (Tacoma Area Council on Giftedness) that offered after-school and weekend classes in various things for kids. My parents showed me the list and asked if any of them looked interesting; I decided to try a BASIC programming class.

I loved it. Figuring out how to get a computer to do things? Absolute fun.

I took a second ("intermediate BASIC") class, then a third. My parents saved up and bought me a secondhand Apple II; I saved up and bought a secondhand 300 bps modem, leading me to discovering BBSes and FidoNet.

By the time I got to college, I knew I wanted to do things with computers and networks. Working at the help desk got me started on Unix; IRC taught me about TCP/IP.

A year after graduation, I talked my way into a system administration job--for the EFF.

These days, I work for a fairly large company that does one or two Internet-ish things, and I love it.

Hard to assess? My parents provided a private school. No doubt the school would point to my university and degree, and argue that this was very effective. I feel it was a pointless waste of money, but short of an alternative universe and a time machine, that's rather hard to make a final call on. They also supplied a lot of books and a level of isolated rural boredom probably now unattainable in any home with internet.

The end result has been pretty unremarkable by any external standards, although I'm quite happy with it.

Hmm ... are you sure that your parents aren't actually my parents?

I agree with both Bunn and LadyOfAstolat. My parents (neither of whom went to university) provided a private primary school when I was bored/bullied at my state primary and had decided that I hated school. I repaid them by winning a full scholarship to a private secondary school (otherwise things would have been very difficult financially). Perhaps unlike Bunn, I have no doubt that this was a Good Thing as I thrived there and had a brilliant experience (which might have been harder at the local state schools, which offered far fewer subjects and were even keener on sports).

Beyond that, when I was small they provided lots of trips to the library/castles/zoo on request. When I was bigger they provided pocket money for me to buy RPG books, cassettes of baroque music, and VHS tapes of The Prisoner, hosted endless sessions of boardgaming and roleplaying, and generally indulged my self-chosen enthusiasms.

Now, as parents, we're trying to walk that line between encouraging our kids to try activities, and letting them decide whether, and to what extent, to pursue them. Katy has, in her short life, been to dozens of different clubs etc; and though we're happy that one has stuck (riding), we would have been equally happy if she had decided to spend all her time reading and playing games (my childhood!) Danny is a more natural joiner-in, but his main hobby (dance) seems to have appeared from nowhere, and now we're supporting him as much as we can. Moral of the story? No idea!

As a teacher at an academically selective school, I see very little link (either way!!) between happiness/success (by any criteria) of child and pushiness of parent. I think it's down to personality; there's no "one size fits all" answer, alas.

I should perhaps add that, as parents, we're also sending both of our kids to a private primary school. We're very fortunate to be able to afford this. (If either or both of them eventually study at the school where I teach, it would be a financial relief! But I wouldn't want that if it was the wrong place for them.)

Bunn and Kargicq have reminded me of the rather enormous thing that my parents did, which was move from a house they loved in order to stay in the catchment area of the nearby state grammar school when the boundaries changed. The school I would otherwise have had to go to had an egalitarian Head who refused to let anyone study a subject unless everyone could do it. I expect my enthusiasms and academic inclinations would have survived it, but the grammar school was definitely right for me. However, I doubt this school wants you to say to its parents "consider moving house to get your child into a better school." :-)

This is a non-selective comprehensive that is literally across the river from a city (Plymouth) that has three selective grammars and an independent that throws scholarships at anyone who can swim or dive quite well or whose parents are in the military.

So yes, that probably isn't what they want to hear! (Not that you have to move house to Plymouth to get your kids into the grammar schools; quite a few pupils there live in Cornwall, South Hams or West Devon.)

Really interesting question for me as a former child and current parent. I'm in the category you refer to: my parents have no A-levels.

The number one thing I would have liked as a child would have been gifted classmates / friends / peers. My parents decided to move me from state to private at the age of 8, which was very generous of them, but I think it was probably counterproductive. The private school was tiny - fewer than 30 in an entire year group - so I was effortlessly top in everything, whereas in a large state school I probably would have had some equals just on statistical grounds. I would have loved for my intelligence to be a source of fun and challenge with a group of like-minded people, rather than a source of social isolation, and I would have liked some incentive to try hard in class rather than coasting. (This did all mean that when I got to Cambridge and got all those things it was wonderful).

I would also have liked regular access to a library (OK, there was the school library, but it was tiny and mostly stocked with early 20th century school stories). I was very lacking in new reading material. I had about a hundred books at home which I re-read far too often and knew far too well.

One thing they did which was very good was to get me a computer, and my dad taught me what he knew of programming. I had fun and learned a lot. I floundered a bit, because this was before we had the internet (with its tutorials and reference guides and Q&A forums) and I had no one to teach me where my dad was too busy or his knowledge left off; but it was still definitely a Good Thing.

Another good thing was just having people around who sometimes shared interesting things with me. My nan taught me Pig Latin and those logic puzzles with the grids, my mum taught me cryptic crosswords, and I think my grandpa taught me chess.

I now have a 3-year-old who's looking to turn out very bright as well. I think things will go better for her just because she's in Cambridge and will go to school with the children of other Cambridge people, and because we and so many of our friends and their kids are geeks of one sort or another, and can teach her things and help/encourage her with her own hobbies.

Summary: 1) Other clever people, 2) Books.

Completely agree with the summary. Parents can provide (2) but schools are there for (1), and large schools are probably better than small ones for that reason. Location is definitely important!

Completely agree.

A library card and unlimited transportation to the library would be great.

If there is no good library nearby, a good e-reader compatible with the e-books from your local library system, plus a gift card for e-books. And don't criticize what they read - any reading will improve their literacy.

And a decent internet connection, so if there are no clever people physically present, they can find intelligent friends online.

That's a very good point - I was at a large comprehensive, and that meant I had about half a dozen peers. I still felt like a freak most of the time, but I wasn't the only Slan on the block.

Another thought - and something your school can sensibly provide - interesting (optional) extracurricular activities.

My school didn't do many because it was small and there was limited demand for them and limited staff to run them, but there was a lunchtime chess club which ran for about a term, and a lunchtime debating club which also ran for about a term, and I went to both. There was never a computing club, sadly, but my husband's school had one and it sounds like it was great for kids to learn to program and write games, and learn from each other and enjoy playtesting each other's games.

i@d love to - when I get back home. Please would you say 'yo' to this so i get emailed a bookmark. Thanks.

Yo!

I'm not sure what my parents did for me apart from somehow making me hugely interested in anything and everything. I've never had a work ethic (unless I'm fascinated by something), that would have been handy. I believe that encouragement to work, by praise, reward, whatever is key to success, but not to the exclusion of fun, as that's also very important.

They also need to be aware that it'll cause them some social problems with some types of people (to some extent depending on many factors), and they need to be prepared for that, or at least supported through it. Close friends may also help.

What didn't work for either of us was having one parent tell a friend "Pellegrina's got the brains and Curmudjen's got the looks", so that I felt I was a failure if I didn't get good marks at the first try, and she felt she might as well not bother. Now she is way more successful than me, and still better looking. (My neuroses, let me show you them.) I have never had a work ethic either.

Also, greeting your children's achievements with a reflection on the quality of their genetic material? Not classy.

This was very interesting. I'm from a different country and none of this seems to apply. What exactly is considered a G &/or T child?

As a parent I'm exposing my children to different activities, different books about different things, same with dvds and provide them with activities they seem to be interested in. They won't be going to private schools because we can't afford them.
I think they are both very clever, but I don't know if they are GT children. And what I want for them is to be happy and do the best they can. The best can translate into very different marks in different areas, but I'm perfectly all right with that. I also hope they will love learning and be interested in things around them.

My husband is definitely G - as I've been told my MiL on my first visit, and my brother in law is definitely T (he may be G too, but I don't know). What I liked about their approach is that they seemed equally proud and supportive of both their children and their choices, even at this stage and even when they don't fully agree with their choices. That kind of support I hope to give to my children too.

Another thing that occurs to me is that the parents need to realise that just because their child counts as Gifted in the context of their small school, they're still very unlikely to end up ruling the country/winning a Nobel prize/earning a million a year. Many of them won't want to, and will be perfectly content with a non glamorous job. Many of these children will go on to university to find that everyone they meet was classed a Gifted at school, and that many of them are actually far more "gifted" than they are.

I don't mean that the parents should keep telling their child that their gifts aren't all that impressive, and keep on undermining their confidence. But I've read memoirs by people who were effortlessly top of their class in a tiny school, and were therefore encouraged to think that the world was theirs was their taking. Then they went to university and found that they ranked as pretty average, really, and it was such a terrible crushing blow to realise that they weren't actually the number 1 brain in the world that they never quite recovered.

Other side of the coin; I found it a huge relief not to be Number 1 Brain any more! Very hard to generalise. :)

Likewise. (Although I know some people have struggled with it.)

What is the definition of 'gifted'? Is it getting straight As when you sit your O levels at the normal age for sitting them? Or is it sitting your O levels aged 10?

I went to a state primary school that was being gradually closed down, so that the space could be grabbed by a secondary school. Thus we were always the youngest kids in the school - as we moved from primary one to primary two, there was no intake of new kids behind us. I have no idea what psychological effect always being the youngest had on me. (My brothers went to another primary, as they were younger than me).

My secondary school lumped people together at random in 1st Year, then streamed them thereafter by academic ability. However the streaming had some flexibility - if you were good at French and rubbish at Maths, you'd be in the top set for French, but a lower set for Maths. But I don't know anyone who was in the top set for one subject and the bottom set for another - I suspect they just dropped you from top to middle. The school also had a prize giving every year, where the academic people as well as the sporty people got prizes (books - yaaaay!).

They worked out who got the academic prizes because we sat exams twice a year, every year, from age 12 onwards. So exams were 'normal' rather than unusual and stressful. In O grade/Higher years the only difference was you sat three exams that year, not two!

The school also streamed the ability to do certain subjects - you couldn't do Latin unless you'd scored 60% or more in French in your 1st Year. (Doing Latin had the added bonus of getting you out of doing Home Economics).

My parents didn't need to do anything to encourage me to work. I gobbled up information, music, science, maths. I hated English though and didn't like to read fiction mostly because everything I'd been offered was boring. My school library didn't have much in the way of science fiction and my English teacher started me with "Feersum Endjinn" which, given how it was written, I could barely understand so I never made it past the first chapter. I got an A in English by the skin of my teeth and only because my Mum found a tutor who I really liked and made things fun. She managed to turn Romeo and Juliet into something hilarious and I finally understood it. I didn't need any help with Philip Larkin's poetry - that I loved!

My school didn't have any sort of gifted programme. It was second bottom in the league tables. The bright kids or kids whose parents had money usually went to private school in the city. I refused.

What I wish my Mum hadn't done was force me into studying Medicine just because I was expected to get straight As and that's what a straight A student who prefers science to English should study. I also wish my Dad had stood up to her and helped me study Physics like I wanted to. My Mum wanted me to have a guaranteed job at the end of my degree and in 2002 that was the case. You may wonder how she managed to force me. My Mum is a travel agent in guilt trips and has a degree in emotional abuse and threatened to withdraw all financial support if I didn't do what she wanted me to do. She also managed to convince me that Medicine was what I wanted to do. I have major self-esteem issues. Anyway, I had a breakdown in my third year, dropped out at the beginning of my fifth year and haven't done anything useful since due to mental health issues. Would these have occurred or been as severe if I'd studied physics instead? I don't know the answer to that but I wish I did.

From a small-town Yank perspective, I can echo what several others have said: encouragement, not pushiness; allow play/easy texts as much as the "appropriate" ones; let G&T kids know that while they may be "top brain" in their small pond, they may not be in a larger pond.

And, for deity's sake, if your kid is smart enough to skip a grade & not doing all that well socially among the same-age-set, then let the kid skip a grade. It will likely help socially. I so wish my parents had let me skip one or more grades. I honestly had more friends (as opposed to acquaintances with whom I was forced to spend large amounts of time) in the two grades/years ahead of mine. Plus, I would have been more challenged (at least initially) and might have even learned to study before I got to college and just sort of had to wing it.

My school's G&T program was.... Well. It varied depending on which teacher was in charge of it. (To give you an idea of size, my graduating class was all of 85 people. This year's class was about 50-ish, I think, maybe less.) When I started G&T (8 years old), it was mostly arts & crafts. Roughly two years later, we got a new teacher, and the class became a place to play board games & logic puzzles (those were actually somewhat useful). In middle school/jr high (12/13 years old), we got another new teacher (new campus) who stuck with the logic puzzles, added more art (some crafts: I learned smocking), and all sorts of oddments. I remember learning etiquette, how to make peanut butter, acting/improv (didn't go very well since some of my classmates were not talented in that direction), computers (this would have been around 1983), etc. Sadly, the G&T program in high school had been dropped before I got there, due to some bad behavior on the part of certain students.

I went to a selective secondary, and my parents were both mathsy nerd types (Mum teaches maths, at the school I went to; Dad does IT things). I think they did pretty well be me in this aspect - for one thing they never *demanded* that I succeed, even though after the fact it was clear they *expected* me to. And whilst they were forever trying to bribe my (rather less gifted, but not actually stupid) brother to try harder at school (he seemed to respond to that) I was never told "if you do X you will get Y" (but... somehow I got all the Y anyway ;-p). Now I've decided I like being a low-level nerd they do sometimes prod me in the direction of high-pay (high stress!) jobs, but nah, not for me. And they didn't come over all "WOT YOU FAIL" when I got "only" a 2ii (at Cambridge) and didn't go on to a phd; so I guess if I'd flunked out earlier they'd have been cool with that too.

I do think I might have been happier if I'd been more encouraged to put more time/effort into things I wasn't so good at. These days I love to run (at school sport was my WORST THING). I still suck at languages, but I think maybe I should have tried harder at them at school.

So my main advice is support and encourage but don't PUSH, and don't act all grouchy when the child turns out to not be the #1 in the whole world at everything. Also encourage child to try hard at stuff that they *aren't* gifted at; partly because they might find that fun too, but also partly because you learn a LOT about "how to learn things that are hard to learn" once you find something that you *want* to learn but find hard. No "gifted" maths genius is going to find that in maths class at a state school - but they might find it on the sports field, or in French class.

Counter argument to someone above. Do not assume that just because the kid is clever, the most important thing for him / her is academic stretching. Relationships might be just as important, or more so. I was put up a grade because of academic precocity, and was at a school where academic achievement wasn't valued and I had almost nothing in common with my classmates. I made very few friends but did brilliantly from an academic point of view; the problem was that I minded about the first but didn't really care about the second and still don't. If someone had bothered to look at me instead of my grades, a better story might have been written.

There are already a lot of great ideas, but in addition, what my parents did that I really appreciate now was giving me a good grounding in practical, hands-on things. We went to the library and to museums, but my mother taught me sewing when I was in preschoool (even using her treadle machine) and cooking, my father taught me about radios and electronics (and in high school, about car engines), we grew our own vegetables and did house repairs, etc. I think it helps me a lot translating things I want to do into plans for how to accomplish them.

If your kid has talent, don't try to isolate them from the world to focus on that talent.

My parents did not let my two younger gifted sisters watch TV, use the telephone, spend time with friends, or even spend any time outside the house, so that they could maximize their learning. When one sister went to college, they would wait outside the lecture hall and drive her home the instant classes ended.

One sister got her degree, but moved to the opposite side of the country, didn't give us her new address, and does not communicate with anyone in the family.

My other sister dropped out of college, but didn't tell the parents - she'd spend the day at the library, and then wait outside the classroom door when the parents came to pick her up. Two days before graduation she ran away and moved in with me. She also has minimal communication with our parents.

Provide Lego. Lots of it. Being able to think of an idea, try making it, see results, assess the results, and alter it to make it better is a real benefit for anyone going into STEM programs.

A cheaper alternative (if you already have a computer) is MineCraft. It's like a virtual Lego set, but with creatures added.

And time to just putter with Lego or Minecraft. No structured activities or tasks, just time to say, "I think I'll build a castle", then do it, then modify and alter it repeatedly.

Your parents were wildly academically qualified compared to mine (neither of them are dumb, but they both left school at 14 to work).

They were totally supportive of their cuckoo kid, and followed the advice they got from the school. Which led to a certain amount of misery on my part, mostly through being enrolled in the National Association for Gifted Children. Not that the NAGC was badly intentioned, just that it was run for and by middle class parents and kids, and had no cultural cross over with a scruff from a comprehensive in the slums.

My take away from that is not to put your child in an uncomfortable social setting - they'll already feel isolated and alienated enough, and will do till they hit a wider range of people in a less threatening environment (University, in my case).

My best advice is probably antiquated - give them your library ticket and a bike to get to the local library. I guess the internet means that those books can come to them. But get them the bike anyway.

No doubt everyone else has thought this already and been too polite to crack the obvious joke, but I can't help feeling that the phrase "a G&T child" ought to mean "one who gives their parents a strong need for a stiff drink on a regular basis". (Come to think of it, mine did drink a lot of G&Ts...)

It's difficult to know everything my parents did that worked, because I suspect they provided a lot of important support around age 2-3 (round about when I was learning to read) that I don't remember clearly. Mum has mentioned that there was some kind of child psychologist specialist who was giving them advice, and of whom she speaks highly in retrospect, but I remember nothing of him except his name.

What I can remember is that they were happy to fill the house with computers from (my) age five and tolerant of me playing with them at all hours (and, similarly to what

resonant suggests above, they didn't try to impose particular goals on that activity but let me just noodle around doing my own thing at my own pace), and when it became clear that my local primary school was boring me to tears with its slow pace they moved me to a school filled with other gifted kids which worked much better for me, and then sent me to secondary school a year ahead.

(

widgetfox mentions the risk of social problems if moved up a year due to not having so much in common with your classmates. I certainly did have some of that, but I'd say that in my case it wasn't enough to have made it a bad idea.)

In Texas in the 1950s, homeschooling had not been dreamed of (well, except by me) and private schools were for rich kids in cities. And even there, was being the smartest kid other than a social liability?

Our home had better books than the small town school library. Leisure, no pressure. But law said all children had to go to school, and my parents seemed to endorse that. So the message I got was that even they wanted me to be 'well-rounded', which I was terrible at. So that's where my energy went, unsuccessfully.

Besides their books, one good thing I got from them on our ranch was independence and lack, yes, lack, of work ethic. Never got stuck working for anyone, or in academia; started my own businesses or homesteaded in the woods or traveled the world instead.

On the ranch, work was when something needed to be done, right there, and keeping the result; not for someone else's praise or pay. So my brains never got molded or crushed, have always had plenty of fresh air and space to work, er, play in.

The classic 'praise a child for being intelligent and they will divide the world into things that are easy and they get lots of praise for and things which are hard and are therefore impossible, and then they will give up too easily for the rest of their life' thing happened to me.

As did the 'feeling really guilty that I haven't taken over the world yet' thing.

Mostly what parents (and teachers!) of gifted and talented youngsters need, from my perspective, is to know when to keep out of the way. Trying to get them to stop reading or writing novels or doing other classes' homework in your class will just piss them off.

Smart kids need good library access, good internet access, and access to peers who are as smart or smarter than them. Weekends etc away with the smartest kids from every school in the area are a godsend for the latter.

As is just letting them go and meet their friends off the internet, if the school can get the parents to put their paranoia about that down...

My parents were pretty good at all of these things really; it's only the classic 'praise for intelligence will screw your kid up' that they really got wrong in that respect, and no-one knew about that in the 80s. I had much more trouble from teachers / school staff who thought I ought to be paying attention (which I was, just not all of it... I was queen of that irritating trick where someone who blatantly was doing something else recites the last couple of sentences the teacher was saying).

I think scheduling the kid too much is also a mistake, although my parents never tried this one on me. Even though they're stupid because they're a kid and you might therefore have to do things like throw them out of the house for fresh air and exercise occasionally, mostly they are smart and know what they should be doing with their time. Really good computer games might have screwed this one up though.

TL;DR: reiterate to parents the 'praise for effort, not for success' thing; don't get in the kid's way; let them on the internet freely (most kids just find bad stuff on the internet much more boring than additional cool dinosaur facts anyway) and out to meet people who are on their wavelength.

Edited 2013-08-19 15:55 (UTC)

The 'praise for effort, not for success' thing can send the message that the things you're good at happen to not be worth doing.

Has that happened to you?

I know there's a bad connection with the 'prizes for effort' thing where no-one values the 'prize for effort' because they know it's a shorthand for 'and lack of success', but if there are no 'prizes for success' then I'd expect that to be less of an issue.

Generally the things I am good at are things I find intrinsically rewarding, so getting praised for them is meaningless chatter, rather than something I value.

I was told different things by different people, so it's hard to sort out the details now. But the bottom line was always the same: "Instead of wasting more time on books/art/schoolwork, you need to focus on social/athletic/etc". Whether the reason was "Literature and art are worthless/don't pay" -- or "You're good enough at those already".

So I was never given any challenge or even realistic critique on the "good enough" things (since I was making straight A's without work).

Edited 2013-08-19 20:35 (UTC)

It's been mentioned, sort of, a couple of times, but I only recently heard the advice "Instead of saying 'You're smart', say 'That was good work'".
Being valued for something you have no control over or responsibility for (I didn't "achieve" a three-sigma IQ) is no help. Being valued, praised, encouraged for making an outstanding effort puts agency in the center.

The main piece of advice I can give is this: I knew I was smarter than most of the other kids, and I knew the adults (my parents and teachers) knew this. So I figured since this was known, why should I have to do memorization busywork to prove whether or not I could? So sometimes I would just not do my work. Note that I didn't realize the point was to learn the subject at hand. In my defense, I mostly did this with assignments/tests I couldn't see the value of, such as memorizing exactly which explorers were in what areas of the US (usually Florida, where I lived) during what years. It's as though I expected to just be given an A even if I hadn't done the work, because it was already taken for granted that I *could* do any work. In retrospect this logic seems insane, but that's how I thought at the time, and apparently it's very common amongst G&T kids.

So yeah, my advice is: watch for motivation. I don't actually know that I know a way around this problem, except to find a way to convince kids that yes, actually, you do have to do the work, even if it's boring; the point is to do the work, not to prove whether or not you can do the work.

I'll also say that I was far, far, far happier in the G&T classes I took than in the regular ones, when G&T classes were available later on. They were more challenging, and if I wasn't being challenged, I was bored and unhappy and failed my tests. So I guess my other piece of advice is to make opportunities available. There's a fine line between providing opportunities for challenge and pressuring a kid too much, but the line is there. Let them explore.

Thanks to everyone who has contributed to this thread. I'm not sure I have time to reply and thank you all individually, but your comments have been enlightening.

"Help - my child is gifted!"

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject