"Help - my child is gifted!"

[philmophlegm]

Yesterday I had a meeting with a teacher from a local school* about the possibility of us doing some skills courses for pupils there - presentation skills, leadership, teambuilding, interview skills, making an impact - that sort of thing.

One of the ideas he threw at me at the end of the meeting (I think he thought of it there and then) was courses for parents, specifically parents of 'G&Ts'. In education-speak, G&Ts are Gifted & Talented children - gifted academically or talented musically, artistically or athletically. This teacher is Head of G&T at his school and he wondered if parents of G&T children would benefit from some advice on how to be the best parents they could to a G&T child.

There's plenty of this sort of advice on the internet. But since many of the people reading this were probably G&T children, I would be interested in hearing what did or didn't work for you. What did your parents do to help you? Did it work? Or was it counter-productive? I would be especially interested if, like me, you were G&T (I was G, I'm definitely not remotely T) but your parents weren't (mine have two O-levels between them). I'd also be interested in hearing from teachers and academics dealing with G&T students. And finally, I'd be interested in hearing the experiences of any parents who have G&T children.









* Non-selective state secondary. This one in fact.

Comments

[ladyofastolat.livejournal.com]

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.

[kargicq.livejournal.com]

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

[woodpijn.livejournal.com]

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